World Wildlife Fund

Multinational conservation organization working worldwide to combat climate change, save endangered animals, protect wild habitats and transform market forces to act in harmony with nature.

How do you help people in my community?

World Wildlife Fund's Community Outreach program is designed to provide opportunities for the general public, families, community leaders, educators, and students to learn about the urgency of the biodiversity crisis and to become engaged-as consumers, voters, and educators-in conservation action. We are collaborating with institutions in communities across the country to link global and local issues that are supported by both the work of WWF and the local institutions.

Working with our partners, we've developed and offered activities and events that reach all segments of the community including public events, lecture series, environmental issues forums, educator training, distance learning, cooperative website activities, and "Pennies for the Planet", a program to get kids excited about conservation.

For more information on Community Outreach, visit us at www.worldwildlife.org/outreach/

Why do you need my support?

If we want to pass on a living planet to our children and our children's children, then we and they need to embrace the idea that our actions matter, that the decisions we make--large and small-reverberate throughout the web of life and endure through time.

WWF's mission is to conserve nature. Using the best available scientific knowledge and advancing that knowledge where we can, we use members' gifts to preserve the diversity and abundance of life on Earth by conserving endangered spaces, safeguarding endangered species, and addressing global threats to the planet's web of life.

Little time remains to shape a future world for our children as rich in natural wonders as the one we inherited. With the generous contributions from our members, WWF aims to preserve species and habitats with a call to action to governments, institutions, business, and people everywhere to make conservation of threatened species and shrinking habitats a paramount concern for the sake of future generations.

How can I be sure that you will use my money wisely and won't waste it?

At WWF, we're very proud of our record of keeping the costs of supporting services low. As SmartMoney and more than one million WWF members recognize, we are dedicated to protecting the world's wildlife and wildlands as efficiently as possible.

How do you get the most bang for your environmental buck? Give to WWF, says SmartMoney magazine in its December 1998 issue.

SmartMoney recommends WWF as the top environmental charity for 1998. This marks the second straight year WWF has received this honor. In an article called "The Great Giveaway," the magazine recommends giving a gift to charity in somebody else's name this holiday season. To make choosing among the country's 650,000 nonprofits easier, SmartMoney divided the nation's 100 leading charities into eight categories and ranked them according to who gives you the "most bang for your donation buck." WWF ranked number one in the environmental category.

SmartMoney advises treating your annual giving like an investment, and they did just that in compiling the top 10 list, comparing total revenue against percentages of money spent on programs and fundraising to come up with overall efficiency scores. WWF's program ratio (percentage of funds actually spent on conservation programs) was 86.9, the highest among all environmental groups.

Can I Volunteer? How?

You can choose from a number of ways to support WWF's conservation work: