The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) was established by Congress in 1984. Since then, NFWF has administered more than $600 million for more than 10,000 grants. Throughout that period, it relied primarily on its partners and grantees to establish conservation priorities. During the past two years, NFWF has embarked on a strategic initiative that will revolutionize grant selection and administration for the organization and its future grantees, according to the Wildlife Management Institute. Instead of accepting hundreds of grant applications each year, covering a myriad of species and conservation issues, NFWF will take a more active role itself in identifying those species or issues, to help "move the needle" for conservation.

Four keystone initiatives have been identified to provide structure for NFWF's overall investment in conservation. They include bird conservation, freshwater fish conservation, wildlife and habitat conservation, and marine and coastal ecosystems conservation. The NFWF staff and Board of Directors are in the process of identifying species, groups of species and conservation issues for which NFWF can make the best investments and greatest conservation impacts. The philosophy behind the focus on keystone initiatives is similar to other forms of financial investments. NFWF will select a number of conservation investment opportunities, focus grant dollars on those opportunities, monitor success or failure, and adapt future investment strategies to provide successful conservation efforts.

Currently being evaluated within the bird conservation initiative are three action items: Attwater's prairie chicken, American oystercatcher and red knot conservation. Other species and issues will be considered through time. The wildlife and habitat conservation initiative will focus its first efforts on early successional habitat. Selected for the marine and coastal ecosystems initiative are sea turtles and coral reefs. During the next year or so, NFWF will complete its first round of species and issues selection for each of the initiatives. This ongoing and dynamic process will occur in future years to ensure that NFWF is focused on timely and priority conservation efforts.

The keystone approach, coupled with enhanced scientific expertise within the staff, should allow NFWF to improve its ability to select, monitor and evaluate the success of grantees and their projects. It also will commit financial resources over a longer period for selected conservation efforts. Finally, the approach should result in focusing finite resources opportunistically on the most important conservation issues.

NFWF will continue to administer its long-term charter initiatives in cooperation with numerous corporate partners, such as the Shell Marine Habitat Program, ExxonMobil Save The Tiger Fund and Wal-Mart's Acres for America program. In addition, NFWF will continue to search for and support innovative conservation efforts through its Venture Initiative program. For more information on the NFWF strategic initiatives and information for potential grantees, go to http://www.nfwf.org. (saw)