Foundations Of Success Inc

Provide training and coaching:fos helps conservation teams define clear conservation goals, prioritize strategies with the greatest likelihood of success, and use practical tools and systems to support their conservation work. Fos provides training and coaching in methods and tools so that teams can learn what's working and adapt accordingly. By systematically planning and measuring, conservation teams can learn from their successes and failures and use resources more efficiently.accomplishments include:- to continue building on the accomplishments of usaid measuring impact 1 and 2 programs, environmental incentives and fos began work on two new 5-year contracts: improving design, evidence, and learning (ideal), which was intended to support usaid and its partners in the application of the usaid program cycle, and building evidence for decision making (be4d), which will support usaid and its partners in using evidence in the environmental and other sectors.- through the be4d contract, fos staff worked closely with the famine early warning systems network (fews net), which for 40 years has provided the us government and other actors with data to predict and then prevent, prepare for, and mitigate food insecurity and famines. Fos has helped develop theory of change based strategic plans for this program as it evolves to take advantage of new technologies to meet emerging challenges.- fos continued to support the usfws's combating wildlife trafficking (cwt) branch to incorporate adaptive management across their portfolio. In 2023/2024, the cwt branch used their current contract to provide access to fos's services to other groups within international affairs. As a result, fos continued supporting efforts to address tortoise and freshwater turtle (tft) trafficking and marine turtle trafficking. Fos also helped the branch to (1) reflect on their progress implanting their own strategic plan through a series of pause & reflect workshops, and (2) refine the strategic priorities for their human dimensions work.- fos provided extensive coaching and training on the application of miradi and the conservation standards to the san diego zoo wildlife alliance (sdzwa) to grow both their in-situ and ex-situ conservation efforts. As a result, sdzwa has adopted the conservation standards and miradi to manage all of their conservation work. With fos's support, sdzwa has refined their core project development and reporting processes to incorporate miradi, and is helping its programs think about scaling their work. - fos worked with revive our oceans, which is a new effort to help meet the global 30 x 30 target by helping to establish coastal marine protected areas around the world. Revive is a sibling organization to the national geographic pristine seas, which seeks to develop large mpas in remote parts of the world. Fos took the revive team through the fos scaling challenge and then helped them to develop more complete scaling plans for their work in se asia, europe, and mexico. This included conducting intensive economic analysis of the costs and benefits of establishing these mpas based on fisheries and marine ecotourism.- fos supported fisheryprogress to develop a theory of change to document the assumptions behind their work. This theory of change provided the basis for structuring an assessment that fos then conducted. The aim of the assessment was to help fisheryprogress staff understand the degree to which they were achieving the results laid out in their theory of change and identify suggestions for improving their work.

Foster communities of practice:fos convenes conservation practitioners, donors, and educators in vibrant learning communities. Fos helps these communities develop and promote common frameworks to catalyze cross-project sharing and learning. The result of this coordination is improved conservation practices, the ability to demonstrate collective impact, and increased societal support for conservation. Accomplishments include:- fos continued to support cross-organizational learning through the coordination of and participation in the conservation measures partnership (cmp). With funding from the gordon and betty moore foundation, fos provided fiscal, coordination, and technical support to initiatives on behavior change, conservation monitoring effectiveness techniques (comet), actions classification system, and policy impact.- fos led the update process for the open standards for the practice of conservation (conservation standards, v 5.0) - cmp's flagship product widely used by conservation teams around the world. Fos staff coordinated the overall process and led several technical, thematic groups to gather and distill input for updates from the conservation standards community. This update represents the most collaborative and comprehensive version of the conservation standards to date.- fos continued work with a group of experts to update the standard threats (in 2023) and actions classifications and re-unify the cmp and iucn red list versions of these classifications. These classifications systems are used widely across the conservation community. The group, led by fos, published a paper in conservation biology, entitled the classification of direct threats to the conservation of ecosystems and species 4.0. In collaboration with the international union for the conservation of nature (iucn) world commission on protected areas (wcpa), fos leads the conservation outcomes theme and the defining & measuring conservation effectiveness/outcomes task force. Fos led the development of a standard lexicon of terms to describe area-based conservation. This work resulted in a paper published in conservation biology (a standard lexicon of terms for area-based conservation version 1.0. This lexicon was able to include many key conservation standards terms for conservation planning, thus giving the protected area and cmp/ccnet communities a common language that can lead to shared work.

Build capacity for the future:fos partners with universities and conservation organizations to prepare tomorrow's leaders to tackle growing conservation challenges. Fos develops practice-based curricula and teaching materials that provide students with the real-world skills needed to manage complex conservation projects. Together, we are creating the next generation of conservation leaders. Accomplishments include:- fos co-taught a five-day virtual course in collaboration with alcedo conservation and focused on all 5 steps of the conservation standards. Alcedo conservation has become the "go-to" place for individuals looking to learn more about the conservation standards and how to implement them.fos facilitated a one-day introductory training to interested participants of the north american congress on conservation biology in vancouver, canada. This training was a great opportunity to reach a broad audience of both academics and practitioners. This generated a lot of interest in the conservation standards and, more importantly, in effective approaches to conservation planning, monitoring, and adaptation.