Be the change

Our group, the Species Restoration Project, deals with reintroducing organisms back to the wild.  However, for this post, I want to digress.

A couple of months ago, my son-in law, Jason, suggested I join him at a conference in Las Vegas.  He said that since I was not working I had the time, and he thought this conference may be helpful to our fledging not-for-profit.  I thought at the very least I would get some time with Jason, and at the best it would be beneficial to our organization as he suggested. Therefore, a couple of weeks ago I went to Las Vegas for this conference.

The name of the conference was "Be the Change".  It was organized by a woman named Suzanne Evans.  Suzanne Evans is a life coach who has turned her business into a multi-million dollar company. Just a few years ago she was just starting out and posted on her web site "Broke, fat and gay."  This obviously took a lot of guts, but since that time her business has flourished.

I went to this conference a bit skeptical, but Suzanne Evans is a dynamic individual.  To begin the conference, she brought in the Broadway cast of Chicago to do a number.  It brought down the house.  And that was just the beginning.

The basic themes of the conference were "Get out of the audience and get on the stage."  This obviously refers to taking control of your business and life and making things happen; do not wait for things to happen.  Suzanne illustrated this point in a powerful way.

She showed an episode from the Ellen DeGeneres show where a inner city Detroit school was trying to get their choir to a competition with the "happy" song by Farrell.  The choir director was spending large amounts of time trying to achieve this, and it noted that she had been doing things like this for many years.  Suzanne brought this choir director out to Vegas and gave her a spa day, a great dinner, and an Elton John concert, because she was helping her kids get out of the audience and onto the stage.  There was not a dry eye in the crowd of close to one thousand people.

The other major theme of the conference which I noticed was the emphasis on taking the money you make from having a successful business and do some good with the money.  Suzanne herself has a non profit which works with women in Zimbabwe to help them with their businesses.  These are extremely poor people, but Suzanne and her group are making a large impact on these peoples lives.  This is the connection to our group- we are also trying to make a difference.

To say that Jason was right that this conference may do some good for me would be an understatement. I did get to spend some time with him which I would not trade for anything, but I also made some contacts that have already helped our organization. 

Yesterday I had a strategic meeting with Directpay.  They had some great advice, and we are going to talk again next week after they do some research into items we discussed, DESPITE the fact that our organization has no money.  As Suzanne was saying, use your success to do some good.  Also, tomorrow I have a phone meeting to discuss our web site.  He works with IntrigueIT in Syosset, NY and his friends, who are accountants with TPS in Lake Success, New York, want to work with us as well, and they know our financial situation.

Jason already knows this, but this conference was infinitely more beneficial than I imagined.  Not to get over dramatic, but it did to some degree restore faith in the human species, and I hope someday to be able to be as good to someone as some of these people have already been to me.

Species Restoration

Hello.  My name is Elliot Handrus and I have been involved with zoos and wildlife conservation for the past 30 years.  We humans, as a species, have done extensive damage to the planet.  For this reason, myself and a dedicated group my colleagues and friends have helped create a not for profit organization to restore species back to the wild. I will be writing this blog periodically with input and ideas from this passionate group. The excerptss below are from the business plan of The Species Restoration Project, and was written by Jessica Hagbery, and myself.  Enjoy, and I hope all our blog posts touch you deeply and encourage you to do anything you can to repair the damage that we have done.

The world around us is changing. Recent species extinction rates are said to be 100 to 1000 times greater than pre-human levels¹ Scientists suggest that we are in the midst of the earth’s Sixth Mass Extinction with our current extinction rate exceeding those which caused the earth’s previous Big Five extinctions^2,3. Mass extinctions are a loss of at least 75% of species in a geologically short period of time (2 million years or less). Mass extinction levels may be reached within a few centuries if we do n0t address current threats to species extinction², which include natural resource depletion, habitat fragmentation, non-native species introduction, spreading of pathogens, the direct killing of species and changing global climate.

According to the 2012 Red List of Threatened Species, 20,921 species of vertebrate, invertebrates and plants (7,358, 3,734, and 9,829 respectively) have been identified as threatened (critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable)⁴. These numbers are likely under-estimates considering that only 56% of identified vertebrates, 1% of identified invertebrates and 5% of identified plants have been evaluated for conservation status⁴. Scientists encourage that it is not too late to save the world’s biodiversity, but immediate action must be taken if we hope to slow down the current extinction rate.

A variety of strategies have been chosen by the major corporations in the conservation market to decrease species extinction rates. Strategies range from conservation through sustainable zoo/aquarium management and public education (Association of Zoos and Aquariums, AZA) to modification of public policy (Defenders of Wildlife), or increasing the spread of knowledge inside the conservation communities by providing a forum for cooperation (International Union for the Conservation of Nature, IUCN), and others do it all (World Wildlife Federation, WWF).

The Species Restoration Project has chosen to go into wildlife conservation  using a market penetration approach, captivating a greater market share by teaming up with non-profit and not-for-profit organizations. We are facilitating collaborations between local conservation organizations, as well as, offering our knowledge and assets to facilitate species reintroductions and conservation research. Together we can eliminate the current extinction rate one species at a time.