rare Charitable Research Reserve – A Place of Discovery
Strategy and Plans 2020-2024
This year marks a special year for rare as we are looking back on many months of engagement of supporters, staff and the board who have worked together to inform our new iteration of Strategy and Plans that will guide rare’s work for the next five years. We had many great conversations, weathered many challenges, and most importantly, have made progress on many of the goals that we agreed to focus on five years ago. We set out to become Waterloo Region’s premier environmental institute and land trust, and our research programs have grown significantly, now including our first in-house research fellows, and our land holdings have grown alongside the programs, now including the first parcel in Wellington County with many land donations short listed and coming under the rare umbrella in the next few years, across all of Waterloo Region/Wellington.
As a land trust and environmental institute, rare’s ultimate goal is to make the world a more sustainable place. We do this by making the environment more relevant in peoples’ lives through conservation, research and education in ways that are inclusive of different world views and all forms of inquiry. This “braiding” of diverse knowledge systems and approaches enables us to see today’s environmental and social challenges through a lens of justice and innovation.
Our reserve is not a land trust with fences and gates to keep people away from engaging with place — it is a land trust where the community finds land-based programs that are informed by place and its histories as well as by community needs. Our institute is not an institution where unapproachable academics spend sleepless nights behind heavy desks and grey walls, trying to find answers to the world’s problems in isolation. We are an institute where the land becomes a living laboratory and outdoor classroom and where researchers and knowledge keepers of all ages, disciplines and world views connect with each other and the community. Most importantly of all, rare is a place where children and youth are at the centre of the hope our work creates — hope for more people who won’t be mere bystanders, but who are ready to shift their lives towards a carbon-neutral society and a future where we live, once again, in reciprocity with the planet.
Inspiring youth leaders like 15 year old Autumn Peltier, the Anishinabek Nation chief water commissioner whose home territory is in Northern Ontario, are taking the lead, urging the UN General Assembly to “warrior up” and take a stand for our planet; kids are following Greta Thunberg in droves, leaving classrooms behind for climate strikes that are taking place across the planet. Another strong voice, Kehkashan Basu, was awarded the Children’s Peace Prize among many other accolades. Kehkashan travels the world with her messages and to undertake environmental projects with youth and will be a speaker once we have been able to confirm an alternative date for our Earth Day Planet in the Square event post-COVID-19. The volume is rising — and we are listening!
We want to be part of the solution to the complex problems our planet is facing by creating space for the collision of unique ideas and actions. We are a connector that forges links between obvious and unusual partners; an attractor that pulls in the brightest and most caring minds from all sectors and communities; and a catalyst that seeks opportunities for change through collaboration. Through hands-on experiences and the support of the land and the many people who make up rare, we are creating an organization that is a thought leader that makes tangible why the environment matters and how everyone plays a part in protecting it.
Your opinion on what we do and how we do it matters — we kindly ask you to share 20 minutes of your time with us to fill in the following survey.
This survey was adapted using resources from www.surveymonkey.com, www.nonprofitworks.com and www.hanoverresearch.com.