The Future of Nature

Campaign Case Statement: It’s time to make your case. To inspire, delight, and motivate. To tell your story—with big-picture messaging and in-the-field reporting. The excerpts below offer a glimpse of the vision and language that can help launch a campaign for giving. That can remind donors that you’re doing your part to save the world. And so can they—by joining you.

Famous for its natural beauty, including its White Mountain vistas, New Hampshire is proud of its reputation as the Granite State—and committed to carving out a sustainable path, a future where both people and nature can coexist and thrive. © Jerry Monkman/EcoPhotography

The Future of Nature
When TNC’s New Hampshire chapter launched its first-ever fundraising campaign, the messaging needed to convey the state’s distinct character: “After all, we aren’t called the Granite State for nothing. Our character has been chiseled straight from the bedrock that defines our landscape.” From cover to cover, we captured the essence of TNC’s work—the challenges and the opportunities. And we invited supporters to join what grew to be a hugely successful campaign.

The 16-page case opens with a vision, with the story of the landscape itself. “From the beginning, Granite Staters have carved their living from the earth, harvesting crops from the soil and hewing lumber from the forests, drawing water from our rivers and pulling fish from the sea. Generations have explored our rugged mountains, our wooded paths, our rocky coastline, taking in the expansive views, the birdsong, the silence—and then returning restored and strengthened. We know what it means to persevere. We’re determined. Plucky. In short, we’re as tough—and enduring—as the granite from which our state gets its name. Which is a good thing. Because we’ve got some hard work ahead of us.”

We offer readers some straight talk, describing the daunting challenge ahead. “The very landscape that has shaped us—and sustained us—for so many years now faces an uncertain future. From Great Bay to the Connecticut River, from the Monadnock highlands to the forests and mountains of the North Country, the places we’ve always taken for granted—the places that define New Hampshire—are threatened on every front.

“Wildlife habitat is fractured by development. Migrating fish are thwarted by obsolete dams and inadequate culverts. Water pollution is on the rise in our rivers and bays. Oyster reefs are suffocating. Energy sprawl is relentless. And the signs of climate change—severe storms, rising seas, invasive species—are unmistakable.”

And we conclude by inviting readers to join us: “Will the places we love endure? Will our children gaze out across the same views and walk the same paths? Will they catch trout from clean, free-flowing rivers? Will they themselves be shaped, as we have been, by this place we love?

“Change isn’t coming, it’s here. Nature can’t wait. Let’s prove that we’ve earned the reputation we’re so famous for here in New Hampshire. After all, we aren’t called the Granite State for nothing. We’re proud of our name—and we know how to live up to it.”