Overview
New Jersey Audubon’s SOAR Campaign: Seeking Nature-Positive and People-Centered Solutions to Mounting Challenges
Our planet and our great state of New Jersey face mounting and interconnected challenges, ranging from intensifying symptoms of climate change, to accelerated biodiversity loss, to intolerable social injustice. Challenges abound. However, these challenges, represent a generational opportunity to leave the world better than we found it. At New Jersey Audubon, we exist to push back against these trends: to connect all people with nature and to steward the nature of today for all people of tomorrow. This is our purpose, and it is central to our vision.
Demand for New Jersey Audubon’s services is high. People yearn to connect with nature and to experience the physical and mental benefits of safe, thriving outdoor spaces. We believe that access to nature is a fundamental human right, too often and unequally denied. To increase our capacity to deliver on our purpose, we tested and quietly launched a comprehensive campaign, which we call SOAR. SOAR represents our organizational aspiration to Save wildlife, Organize advocates, Activate people, and Restore habitat to the benefit of the people and ecosystems of New Jersey.
Throughout the testing and quiet phase, our supporters reaffirmed our intuition that now is the time for this Campaign, by responding to this call to action. To date, the SOAR Campaign has raised over $12 million in gifts and pledges, including five gifts of $500,000 or more. This success has driven us to reach even further with a goal to raise $13 million and hope you will join us in this monumental effort!
Campaign Goals and Priorities
SOAR is an acronym which stands for:
- Save Wildlife
- Organize advocate
- Activate people
- Restore habitat
Each of NJA’s four programmatic departments are represented by a SOAR letter: Our Research Department seeks to Save Wildlife; Our Government Relations Department Organizes Advocates; Our Education Department works to Activate People; Our Stewardship Department acts to Restore Habitat.
The SOAR Campaign is comprehensive – the largest fundraising and awareness campaign in NJA’s history, with priorities to:
- Invest in the organization’s endowment
- Expand the organization’s statewide programs
- Renovate NJ Audubon’s Lorrimer Sanctuary
The SOAR Campaign’s programmatic initiatives are in line with our Conservation Priorities.
- Engage 520,000 people through our programs and visitor services and reach an additional 11 million through print and digital media.
- Improve 15 miles of trails, certify over 2,000 properties through Garden for Wildlife, and restore over 14,000 acres of habitat.
- Utilize research, monitoring, and natural resource management to increase populations of focal species.
- Expand our Advocacy work which is embedded throughout the organization, extending beyond legislative victories to inspire conservation action through education and experience.Â
The coming years cannot be more critical, for our planet, for our state, and for our organization.
We invite you to SOAR with New Jersey Audubon!
Campaign Goals and Priorities
SOAR is an acronym which stands for:
- Save Wildlife
- Organize advocate
- Activate people
- Restore habitat
Each of NJA’s four programmatic departments are represented by a SOAR letter: Our Research Department seeks to Save Wildlife; Our Government Relations Department Organizes Advocates; Our Education Department works to Activate People; Our Stewardship Department acts to Restore Habitat.
The SOAR Campaign is comprehensive – the largest fundraising and awareness campaign in NJA’s history, with priorities to:
- Invest in the organization’s endowment
- Expand the organization’s statewide programs
- Renovate NJ Audubon’s Lorrimer Sanctuary
The SOAR Campaign’s programmatic initiatives are in line with our Conservation Priorities.
We invite you to SOAR with New Jersey Audubon!
LASTEST ANNOUNCEMENT: New Jersey Audubon Receives Record Gift
Leadership
Dear Members and Friends,
It has been my great honor to assume the responsibility of President and CEO of New Jersey Audubon at this moment in its history. As this organization marks its 125th year as a pioneer in the conservation movement, we turn the page to a new chapter of leadership and vision with a strong commitment to driving nature-positive and people-centered solutions to mounting challenges while integrating Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice within every aspect of our mission.
This is a time to reflect on our past, rearticulate our unique strengths, and plan ways to adapt and grow to address the needs of our rapidly changing world. We know the needs are great; symptoms of climate change continue to intensify, loss of biodiversity accelerates, and social injustices persist. Demand for our services is high, as people yearn to experience the physical and mental benefits provided by safe and thriving natural areas.
With that in mind, I am thrilled to announce the public phase of an ambitious new initiative that will take our work to the next level and transform our future. We call this campaign – SOAR, which represents our organizational aspiration to Save Wildlife, Organize Advocates, Activate People, and Restore Habitat – to the benefit of the people and ecosystems of New Jersey. This comprehensive fundraising and awareness initiative is the largest in New Jersey Audubon’s history, with goals of expanding our statewide programs for current and future generations, updating our Lorrimer Sanctuary, and securing the organization’s future through investment in our endowment.
Through an outpouring of support and investment in this vision, we have raised $12 million in gifts and pledges during the quiet phase of our campaign. We now invite you and all who care deeply about our natural world to lift us over the threshold to reach our new goal of $13 million.
Your annual gift to NJA is critical and we ask that you please support the organization in that way AND, if you are able, consider making a special gift to our SOAR Campaign that will strengthen our efforts and help us all SOAR toward a healthy, sustainable future. I invite you to peruse both our SOAR Campaign and 125th Anniversary websites to learn all about NJA’s past and about this pivotal upcoming year leading into our future. Thank you!
Alex Ireland, President and CEO
SOAR represents New Jersey Audubon’s organizational aspiration to: Save Wildlife, Organize Advocates, Activate People, and Restore Habitat.
SOAR is the largest fundraising and awareness initiative in our 125-year history, with the goal of expanding our statewide programs for current and future generations, sustaining the organization’s future through investment in our endowment, and renovating our Lorrimer Sanctuary.
Through an extraordinary outpouring of support during the quiet phase of this campaign, we have surpassed our original goal of $10 million, raising an incredible $12 million in gifts and pledges toward our vision. We now invite you and all who care deeply about our natural world to join with the community-minded SOAR Leadership Donors listed here to lift us over the threshold to reach our new and thrilling goal of $13 million.
Joseph L. Basralian, Esq.
Randy Jones
Richard Kauffeld (NJA Board of Directors Chairman)
Dana Pogorzelski
Ashley Rey
Isobel Wayrick (Committee Co-Chair)
Elizabeth Wendy Wilkes
Philip H. Witt, PhD, ABPP (Committee Co-Chair)
