Biodiversitynotes 2nd quarter

The 2002 biodiversity poll tells us that nearly half (44%) of Americans don't think their personal actions have much of an impact on biodiversity, and they don't have a strong sense of what actions are effective. America, let's talk...

Communications experts agree that it is important to give people real things they can do to get them engaged. These experts also agree that our "asks" must be appropriate to the audience we are trying to reach.

But what should we ask Americans to do? When it comes to protecting biodiversity, sorting out cans and bottles won't cut it (but please America, keep doing it for other good reasons!). And we know that less than half of eligible voters will even show up every four years.

Before we can ask someone to become a committed lifetime activist we need to open the door and start the conversation. As the saying goes, you have to learn to walk before you can run. That's the logic behind our new Five Ways to Create Healthier Homes and Habitats campaign, aimed at educated gardeners and cooks. We're asking them to consider five relatively simple actions that will enhance their quality of life and will make a difference for biodiversity. Our five ways are:

1. Just say "no" to lawn and garden pesticides. 2. Create some backyard wildlife habitat. 3. Purchase organic and locally grown foods 4. Switch to shade grown coffee. 5. Make smart seafood choices.
Each of these actions makes some difference, and collectively they can make a large difference. Eliminating pesticides is good news for beneficial insects, birds, pets, your family, and the groundwater and downstream watershed.

Increasingly, social change theorists are concluding that attitudes are influenced by behavior, rather than the other way around. When you start behaving in a certain way, your attitudes will shift to reinforce that behavior. Over time, a suite of behaviors becomes a lifestyle and a set of attitudes. As for policy, we want our leaders to be consistent with our actions and attitudes. The more "biodiversity conscious" we are in our own lives, the more we expect our political leaders to follow suit in the realm of public policy.

Our five ways are only a small part of a much larger and complex set of solutions. But, by encouraging these behaviors--all of which take people up several notches from just recycling-- we're opening the door for a longer term shift of behaviors and attitudes that will support biodiversity at a larger scale of commitment and action.

So, why did we pick gardeners and cooks? Gardening is America's #1 hobby. Whether it's a potted petunia or a show-case perennial bed, 62 percent of Americans get their hands in the soil every year. It is one way we connect (often unaware) with biodiversity in a very tangible fashion. Experienced gardeners know a lot about soil, plant varieties, climate, and insects. We can talk to these folks about biodiversity.

We added cooks to the soup (so to speak!) because cooking has become high fashion in the U.S., and food is the biodiversity we eat every day -- another important and very personal connection. And many serious gardeners are also good cooks, and vice versa.

We're also practicing what we preach here at the Biodiversity Project about breaking out of the "news box." We pitched this campaign to feature writers, magazines, and e-mail networks of people who garden and cook. It's not "man bites dog," but it is great material for the features, human interest stories, and the household tips that fill lifestyle magazines.

This small-scale effort is a test project to assess what it takes to reach a particular audience, and whether our messages that promote behaviors that protect biodiversity will catch the attention of the specific media that speaks to our audience.

Please celebrate Biodiversity Month this May by taking action on one or more of our "five ways" (for more information, go to our Five Ways Page.) Then, ask a friend to join you for a cup of shade grown, and tell them about ways they can make a difference too!

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From the Director:
Biodiversity--Walking the Talk at Home

I took on the Biodiversity Month challenge of doing a home "bio-blitz" inventory in my garden. I'm not a native species purist, but the native flowers get special preference in my garden, and the first flush of spring flowers is always so welcome after a Midwestern winter--even a fluky one like this year.

My tour down the short garden path revealed spring beauty: cut-leaved toothwort, three varieties of wood violets, the first appearance of the bellwort, the last blush of the Dutchman's breeches, and the leaves--all that remains--of the bloodroot that bloomed and shattered after just two days in our bizarre April heat wave.

Just starting to emerge were the trilliums--a most welcome sight since their shade sheltering maple tree in the neighbors' garden had succumbed to age and rot last spring, and our well-planned shade garden suddenly became a sun garden.

Our one prairie trillium had survived a rescue transplant from its spot in the baking sun, and it appears happy under the walnut and ready to bloom. The hepatica didn't fare so well, alas. The May apples are about to spread open their umbrella-like leaves, and soon, I'll expect an appearance from our Solomon's seals, both true and false. The distinct leaves of the adder tooth lilies show promise of another good year. The bee balm is already pushing up. Granted, it's a cultivar and not the true prairie native, but the butterflies and bees seem to love it all the same.

In the afternoon sun, a variety of bees and bugs were out and about. There's a steady stream of distinctive pollinators that work through the bloom seasons. The redbud is about to pop any day now, and if it is like previous years, a shiny black bee will emerge at the same time, for about a week's frenzy amid the blossoms, and then I won't see it again till next year.

When I consider the riches we have in this small plot--perhaps 15 by 30 feet-- I'm always astonished that people would choose a grass monoculture instead. But, to each, his or her own. We're happy to be the beneficiaries of previous gardeners who got rid of most of the lawn years ago and helped create this little haven for wildflowers before we came along. I hope in the 15 years it has been in our care, we've added life to the soil, and habitat for all sorts of small critters and insects.

As you can tell, I love this garden, and I love gardening. It is hard to tell how much my enjoyment of the garden has contributed to my appreciation for biodiversity, and how much my growing knowledge about biodiversity has improved the garden. I do know that working a small plot of land year in and out, learning its preferences, appreciating its

seasons and rhythms, and learning from the plants what will thrive and what won't, makes me a better gardener, but it also helps me appreciates the complexity, diversity and magic of nature.

Gardening is America's favorite hobby, and gardening styles are as diverse as Americans. For some people, gardening means planting a flat of petunias and a row of potted geraniums, and perhaps a shelf-full of creepy chemicals to kill anything that crawls. (I still hold out hope for them.) For others, gardening is part of living well. Any one who loves having their hands in the soil, watching things grow, fostering beauty in our daily lives and landscape--now those folks-- and I count myself among them--we can reach. So I've celebrated the biodiversity in my yard this month, and I hope you'll conduct a home inventory of your own--even if it is limited to an African violet in the window sill.

Take a good look at our Five Ways to Create Healthier Homes and Habitat campaign, and see which actions make sense for your life. We've already made plans to improve our garden's habitat value by replacing the tired old alpine current hedge (it never liked living near the walnut) with native winterberry in hopes of attracting more birds and some winter beauty.

Will a few changes in gardening and cooking habits solve the biodiversity crisis? No--but it does helps each of us internalize stewardship and become more keenly aware of our kinship with the living world. When we walk our talk, we expect our decision-makers to walk it with us.

That's all for now. The sun is shining, and I just caught a glimpse of what might be a surviving hepatica--I'd love to confirm it for my inventory. Happy Biodiversity Month!

Jane Elder

Making the Grade: Evaluation for Nonprofits

Non-profit organizations are increasingly under scrutiny from funders who want see evidence of the success of the programs they fund. But how do we evaluate something as complex as communications or long-term behavior change? The field of evaluation itself is very complex – there are many ways to evaluate a program’s success, and many different reasons for doing so.

At the Project, we recently had the good fortune to receive an evaluation training from two of the best evaluators in the field of biodiversity education: Joe Heimlich of Ohio State University and Carol Saunders of Brookfield Zoo. Here’s what we learned.

We all want to change the world, but the reality is that social and behavior change are very difficult and expensive to evaluate. Evaluating “impact” or behavior change in any meaningful way requires longitudinal studies, control groups, and direct observation of behaviors (not self reports, which are notoriously unreliable). Therefore, these types of evaluations are extremely expensive and almost by definition take longer than a one-year grant cycle.

Instead of trying to evaluate such broad outcomes or behavior changes, it is often more feasible to evaluate the steps toward achieving these goals. These steps include:

- Outputs (number of activities, materials, reports, etc. that are produced and number of people reached)

- Reactions to outputs (“customer” satisfaction of our products and services); and

- Outcomes (changes in knowledge, skills, attitudes, and intentions of people because of the program).

One model of outcome-based program planning is the “Logic Model” (or the TOP model, which means Targeting Outcomes of Programs).

The logic model asks program planners and evaluators to examine the inputs you need to run a program (funds and staff), what the program does (program activities), who you are trying to reach (target audiences), the outputs that stem from your program activities (such as publications, presentations, meetings, workshops/trainings, etc.), what reactions your target audience has to the outputs (did they like it?), what outcomes you are trying to achieve (in knowledge, attitude, skills and aspiration), and what behavior changes should result (the desired goal).

Ideally there should be direct connections between all these program components. By walking through these steps, it is easy to see where there are gaps between program elements and goals.

The logic model is also a useful tool for identifying what can be evaluated in a program, and the evaluations increase in complexity as you move across the model. Not all components can or even should be evaluated. It may be enough to show that you achieved certain goals at certain points along the way.

For example, you can evaluate outputs (let’s say a workshop) on different levels. First, did it happen? If it did, how many people attended (quantitative data)? What kind of reactions did attendees have (you can measure reactions using qualitative data, such as workshop evaluations)? Outcomes (knowledge, attitudes, skills, and intention) are harder to measure – did your attendees actually get what you wanted them to get out of your workshop? You may want to survey your audience prior to and after your program activity to see what kind of outcome you achieved. Finally, did their behavior change as a result? Behavior change is the most difficult to measure: for the change to be verifiable, the behaviors must be observed, with pre- and post-testing, against a control group. Recognizing that it’s harder to measure outcomes and behaviors, you may want to focus on formative evaluations (see glossary) instead. Formative evaluation can help you develop or refine your program, and it is less costly and more feasible than a summative evaluation (see glossary), which measures your program’s ultimate impact.

To learn more about evaluation, see the American Evaluation Association’s website at www.eval.org. Another great website that has links to on-line manuals, guidebooks, and instruments is Collaborative, Participatory, and Empowerment Evaluation at www.stanford.edu/~davidf/empowermentevaluation.html.

Content

Getting on Message: Eastern Forests Message Kit

New BEN Web site

Creating Backyard Biodiversity