Florida Wildlife Corridor Foundation 2022 Impact Report

Our Mission is to champion a collaborative campaign to permanently connect, protect, and restore the Florida Wildlife Corridor.  

We exist to champion the Corridor vision. We align efforts to lead conservation of the Corridor’s highest priorities, we accelerate connectivity by providing tools and resources that elevate partners’ work, and we celebrate collective Corridor successes through storytelling and art. These actions raise awareness of the Corridor and inspire support statewide and beyond. 

Successfully connecting the Florida Wildlife Corridor will take the support of many partners. We are grateful to the landowners whose working lands are part of the Corridor, as well as to the numerous agencies and nonprofit organizations doing on-the-ground work to support conservation, including: 

• Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s Florida Forever Program 
• Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Service’s Florida Forest Service (FFS) Rural and Family Lands Protection Program 
• The Nature Conservancy 
• The Trust for Public Land
• The Florida Conservation Group
• National Wildlife Refuge Association
• Tall Timbers
• Conservation Florida
• Southwest Florida Water Management District
• Florida Conservation Group
• Archbold Biological Station 

Federal investment was also provided by the Forest Legacy Program and the U.S. Forest Service through the Florida Forest Service, as well as by the Department of Defense to help buffer military bases in the Corridor.

Protecting the Florida Wildlife Corridor is a daunting task, but it is achievable. We must work urgently. And we must work together.  

We serve on advisory boards to ensure that agencies adequately consider the Florida Wildlife Corridor in planning efforts. These advisory boards include: 

• State agencies such as the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (Florida Greenways and Trails Council)
• Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (Black Bear Technical Advisory Group) 
• Florida Department of Transportation (Florida Transportation Plan Environmental Partners Working Group)

In the Last Green Thread (the connection between the Green Swamp and the Everglades Headwaters featured in the film) we have: 

• Helped shape the design plans for the Lake County Wellness Way development to ensure that a wildlife corridor is established from Lake Louisa State Park to the Lake/Orange County line.
• Secured support from CFX for a wildlife crossing to be built under U.S. Highway 27.  This effort has a long way to go before success can be declared, but significant progress is being made.
• Engaged Orange County in planning efforts to help prioritize land acquisitions with the county.

In 2022, the Corridor Foundation welcomed contributions from new donors, annual donors and previous donors who had taken a break. We appreciate each and every one of them and are especially encouraged by donors who sign up to give sustaining monthly gifts. 

• Total number of donors in database: up 15%  
• Donor participation: increased by 50%  
• Donor retention rate: up 55% 
• New donors: up 55.7%  
• Board and staff giving: 100% 
• We had 309 total donors in 2021 and 536 donors in 2022 — a 74% increase.

Donor contributions make a difference and are accelerating the pace of conservation in Florida. Donations to the Florida Wildlife Corridor Foundation are used primarily to:

• Advocate for increased conservation funding
• Research areas of highest need and potential impact
• Facilitate collaborative partnerships
• Educate and inspire others about the Corridor's importance

In addition to growing our team, the Foundation took concrete steps to review and strengthen internal operations by: 

• Implementing a three-year strategy to anchor and drive the Foundation’s mission and impact through 2025
• Instituting an internal culture committee to ensure the Foundation is a positive, empowering, and impactful place for employees to thrive, even during times of rapid growth
• Completing the first external financial audit to increase transparency and demonstrate stability through an independent assessment of organization’s financial statements, management, and controls.

The Florida Wildlife Corridor Summit brought together 300 conservationists, experts on business and real estate, policy makers, and state agency leaders to work on some of the most pressing concerns facing the Corridor today. The goal was to convene thought leaders for discussions, collaboration, and problem-solving toward conserving the Florida Wildlife Corridor. 
Speakers included:

• Secretary of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Shawn Hamilton 
• Florida House Speaker-Designate Paul Renner 
• Representatives from other landscape-scale initiatives around the globe 
• Representatives from Florida-based entities like Future of Cities, the UF Water Institute, and FDOT 

All speakers and discussions reinforced the need to work collaboratively to ensure the Florida Wildlife Corridor is protected for the generations to come. 

The teams build on the momentum of the annual Florida Wildlife Corridor Summit and are a significant element of our conservation programs, as we seek to enlist the many partner organizations and agencies throughout the state that work on conservation within the Corridor. They maximize efficiency, identify and fill gaps, and magnify impact by: 

• Building the core network 
• Aligning, enlisting, empowering and activating numerous organizations statewide  
• Spreading an effective, unified narrative about the Corridor  
• Tackling Corridor issues in sync with the larger effort

One of the biggest impacts of these teams is their ability to assemble broad stakeholder groups to bring underrepresented voices into the effort, joining those who have been working for years on these issues and those with statewide expertise. 

We also introduced the “Theory of Change” conservation model and enlisted 34 organizations from the conservation community to build the strategic pathways to a permanently connected Corridor. This partnership effort reflects that the success of the Corridor vision is dependent on the collaborative mission-intersections of every organization working to keep it connected. 

The collaboration teams truly live up to their name by facilitating conversations and developing scopes of work from stakeholders that do not typically sit down together yet are willing to work toward Corridor preservation. 

In 2022, the Florida Wildlife Corridor Foundation initiated a paradigm shift across Florida conservation for high-priority, urgent and irreplaceable connections identified in our 2021 Corridor economic study. 

We’ve made a concerted effort to increase our local engagement efforts around hotspot and bottleneck areas that are experiencing high rates of land conversion (habitat loss) and/or contain narrow Corridor segments that are especially vulnerable to fragmentation.   
We’ve identified 10 key counties to focus on: Lake, Orange, Marion, Citrus, Volusia, Polk, Collier, Hernando, Leon and Osceola. Outreach programs are being strategically deployed in these areas. 

In the Nature Coast region, we followed up our 2021 expedition with numerous programs aimed at closing the Corridor protection gaps present in Marion, Citrus and Hernando Counties. These included: 

• Nature Coast planners' presentation 
• Home Waters film screenings 
• Commissioning a Crystal River Corridor Mural  
• County Commission Meeting presentations 
• Public outreach and Local NGO partner engagement efforts 

This figure reflects the total interest in Florida Forever and not just Florida Wildlife Corridor acres. Of lands on the Florida Forever priority list for 2023, approximately 98,352 acres fall within the Corridor. 

After premiering Home Waters at ZooTampa, we screened the film in diverse places: a brewery in Gainesville, a Bote retail store, a virtual screening on WEDU, at foundation headquarters, and outdoors at the Historic Pump House in Crystal River. The Virtual WEDU screening and panel had 273 viewers, and the WEDU cable premiere had the potential to reach 5.5 million viewers. The film also aired at two film festivals: MontPhoto Multimedia Storytelling and World Trails Film Festival. 

Join Jason Lauritsen from The Florida Wildlife Corridor and Travis Thompson with Polk Forever as they discuss Polk County’s important role in connecting The Florida Wildlife Corridor, and how voting Yes on the Environmental Lands Referendum can help.

Florida Wildlife Corridor Foundation representatives gave 25 presentations at one hour per event, equaling 1,500 minutes of Corridor awareness and education. One of the highlights included Chief Conservation Officer Jason Lauritsen’s presentation on Polk Forever about the importance of the Polk County connection; it received 483 views. 

Our inspiring mural campaigns launched in 2022 with three installations: Crystal River, SHINE® St. Petersburg Mural Festival, and Florida Wildlife Corridor Foundation headquarters. The purpose of these murals is to remind communities of the pride they can take in being in the Corridor’s back yard. Some mural locations intersect with some of the Corridor’s most at-risk and ecologically significant ecosystems. 

The Corridor mural campaign creates an opportunity to brand the Corridor geography by visually raising awareness of protected and opportunity areas in the Corridor through art. Featured Corridor cities and towns become recipients of façade beautification that highlights the Corridor, educates visitors, and invites community members and decision makers to join the mission to protect the Corridor. 

The Florida Wildlife Corridor Foundation is raising awareness by working with local, regional and statewide news media to share the urgency and impact of our mission. 

In 2022, the Foundation had 90 media mentions with a reach of 2.55 million, with top coverage in Hillsborough, Pinellas, Duval, Palm Beach and Polk counties. Top media outlets included St. Pete Catalyst, Four Corners News-Sun, Citrus County Chronicle, Florida Politics and WFLA-TV (NBC 8) Tampa. We are grateful to credit some of those media mentions to partners, including Archbold Biological Station, Florida Forest Service, Florida Keys Forever, Florida State Parks Foundation and Save the Manatees. 

The Corridor itself had an even broader reach, with 260 mentions with a reach of 34.3 million, with top coverage in Orange, Alachua, Duval, Lee and Miami-Dade counties. Top media outlets for these outlets were: Four Corners News-Sun, Florida Politics, Citrus County Chronicle, Alachua Chronicle and Orlando Sentinel.

We're so grateful for the following partners who are championing the Florida Wildlife Corridor in their various media spotlights throughout the year: Archbold Biological Station, Conservation Florida, Live Wildly, Florida Wildlife Federation, Save the Manatees and Carolina Panthers. 

Of note: 13 news stories and 63 social media mentions focused on elevating awareness of the Interstate 4 wildlife underpass. Brenda Mallory, chair of the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality, tweeted:

We are more engaged on social media and by email than ever before. This year, we sent 26 email touchpoints and enjoyed over 25,480 engagements. The newsletter open rate grew from 21% in 2021 to an average open rate of 45.6% by the end of 2022.

We can also boast: 

• 4,000 new followers on Instagram 
• 2,000 new page likes on Facebook 
• Total followers at more than 80,000

Our content reached an additional 344,944 Instagram accounts (82% increase from 2021) and 493,750 Facebook accounts (48% increase from 2021). The Florida Wildlife Corridor also saw 10,015 organic mentions on social channels. 

It is especially meaningful when policy makers and elected officials support the Corridor vision.  
Speaker-designate Paul Renner spoke at the Florida Wildlife Corridor Summit and made 11 references throughout the year to the Florida Wildlife Corridor in speeches and news mentions, such as Flagler Live, Bradenton Herald and Miami Herald. On Twitter, Speaker-designate Renner wrote:

Florida Senate President Kathleen Passidomo spoke about the Corridor at Florida Leadership 100 — one of her 16 public references — with notable mentions in Florida Politics, Bradenton Herald and Citrus County Chronicle. In her inauguration speech, President Passidomo said:

Thank you for your continued support of the Florida Wildlife Corridor. Together we can achieve the vision of a fully connected Corridor.