In the American conservation community, there is no other group quite like the Wilderness Support Center, a cutting-edge team of nationally recognized wilderness veterans based in Durango, Colorado. Backed by the unmatched policy, science, field, and political expertise of The Wilderness Society, the Support Center works shoulder-to-shoulder with grassroots groups to build strategic campaigns that achieve the highest form of federal public land protection: inclusion by Congress in the National Wilderness Preservation System.

The Support Center’s staff of five is small in number, but their skills are wide-ranging and their experience is unmatched: Together, they have more than 60 years of experience on wilderness campaigns and have played leading roles in the most significant wilderness bills of the past two decades. Whether they are mentoring and guiding grassroots groups in the field or working directly with lawmakers on Capital Hill, the Support Center is widely recognized as a creative, credible, and savvy team of strategic campaigners and the country’s leading catalyst for the passage of wilderness bills.

For several years, the Wilderness Support Center has concentrated on campaigns in a number of priority states including Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming. The Center also provides crucial strategic support to efforts in New Hampshire, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Vermont, and Virginia, among others. The Support Center staff provides expertise and on-the-ground support to volunteers and local and state-based wilderness groups to:

Build campaign frameworks for wilderness protection. The Support Center helps build campaigns from the ground up, starting with strategic campaign planning, setting campaign time frames, matching campaign plans to political realities, and designing strategies to move key decision makers.

Create and facilitate effective coalitions. From Nevada to West Virginia, the Support Center plays an integral role in organizing and building effective coalitions of volunteers, conservation groups, businesses, sportsmen, and others to work together in support of wilderness protection. Our staff also provides communications and facilitation services to these state-based groups.

Train volunteers and grassroots groups in key campaign skills. From large conferences to small group settings, the Support Center staff provides training in communications and media, organizing (with an emphasis on rural communities), and educating decision makers.

Provide direct assistance to campaigns in organizing, communications, legislative strategy, fundraising, and educating and working with decision makers. One of the Support Center’s greatest strengths is our staff’s ability to work with grassroots partners and to be an integral part of their campaigns. Over the years, the Center’s staff has helped groups and volunteers to:

• Map and inventory potential wilderness areas;
• Educate reporters and editorial boards about wilderness;
• Work directly with county commissioners, ranchers, sportsmen, and other stakeholders to build understanding and support for wilderness;
• Travel to Washington, D.C., with volunteers and staff for grassroots groups to help them educate members of Congress about wilderness;
• Create brochures, message templates, and other materials;
• Raise funds; and
• Use our contacts and relationships to work with key decision makers.

Galvanize the wilderness movement. Beyond the Support Center’s individual campaign work, part of our mission is to create a broad, connected wilderness movement. To this end, the Support Center organizes trainings, coalition planning sessions, and conferences to create opportunities for individuals and organizations across the country to learn and gain inspiration from each other’s experiences. Leveraging the knowledge and successful strategies advocates learn in other wilderness campaigns is critical to the long-term success of the wilderness movement.

Provide strategic grants for key campaign needs. Without financial assistance, many conservation partners and volunteers would be unable to take advantage of unexpected opportunities, create needed materials, or attend key meetings, among other important actions. The Support Center provides small grants to give these groups the strategic edge to move their campaigns forward.

Enhance communications for the Wilderness Movement. The Wilderness Support Center also provides advocates with effective tools and mechanisms that improve information sharing and professional networks across the wilderness movement. Activities include:

• Organizing and cosponsoring the Wilderness Mentoring Conference, an event created by the Support Center to train and inspire a cadre of new grassroots leaders and re-energize wilderness veterans. The relationships formed at these every-other-year conferences have proven invaluable.
• Publishing a bi-weekly electronic Wilderness Report for thousands of readers on wilderness legislation, campaign accomplishments, media reports, and opportunities to get more information and learn how to take action.
• Distributing information to wilderness leaders: print and electronic versions of the Support Center’s well received Stand By Your Land: An Activist’s Guide to Helping People Protect America’s Wild Places, The Wilderness Society’s Wilderness Act Handbook, and fact sheets on wilderness, public lands policy, and the economics of wildland protection.

Wilderness Support Center
A Program of the Wilderness Society

1309 East 3rd Ave #36
PO Box 1620
Durango, CO 81302-1620

970-247-8788 p
970-247-9020 f
wsc@tws.org

Bart Koehler
Melyssa Watson
Michael Carroll
Jeremy Garncarz
Melissa Giacchino
Jeff Widen
Matt Keller
Spencer Phillips
Nicole Layman

More about the folks at the Wilderness Support Center