Natural Areas Conservancy Inc

Nyc public programs: in 2024, our workforce and internship program, hosted in partnership with the city university of new york (cuny), launched our new year-round urban nature, ecology, stewardship, and training (nest) effort. This fellowship provides over 800 hours of technical training, stewardship activities, and professional development to make our fellows competitive for early-career positions in natural resource management. Our cuny student interns supported staff scientists from the nac and the nyc parks & recreation department (nyc parks) on the 10-year re-collection of ecological assessment data in nyc forests and wetlands, as well as trail mapping in floyd bennett field and native seed propagation. (continued on schedule o)we also served 15 high school interns with our expanded student urban nature (sun) high school paid internship program, serving locations in both queens and staten island. Our high school interns presented their research projects on nyc forests and wetlands at a symposium at the american museum of natural history with nearly 300 other high school stem students. Additionally, the nac's trails team continued to increase access to new york city's 300 miles of nature trails with more programming for seasonal natural areas tours and weekly trainings, made possible by expanding the team with a trails volunteer coordinator. We also hosted our 6th annual trail techniques training for practitioners around the city who work on trails and provided a week-long training and symposium to members of nyc parks and other local conservancies. Finally, we worked with over 400 volunteers, who completed more than 2,300 hours of work to improve access to nyc's natural areas.

Communications & external affairs: 2024 marked a year of continued growth for the communications & external affairs team. The nac launched a new photo-rich and user-friendly website that has encouraged a sense of community among partners and practitioners and has resulted in more than a doubling of site visits and a significant decrease in bounce rates. We released a policy report on the challenges and opportunities surrounding wetlands mitigation banking in new york city, which the team presented at several professional conferences and webinars. We have also expanded our coalition work, playing a leadership role in the creation of the urban forest plan and in the policy and communication efforts of the play fair coalition. (continued on sch o)additionally, we created an impact video highlighting the mission and work of the nac, which contributed to a marked increase in individual donations during our annual night for nature gala. And we were accepted into a public service announcement (psa) accelerator program, where we developed a citywide psa campaign with volunteer advertising professionals to highlight nyc's 300 miles of nature trails. Finally, we released a comprehensive messaging platform that provides guidance and talking points to staff so that the nac's external communications are consistent and impactful. We continued to support the work of the nac's internal teams through communications about the latest ecological assessment and a revamped year-end fundraising appeal.