As you may know all three of us here at 10,000 Birds (myself, Mike Bergin, and Corey Finger) are passionate about conservation - which is why we joined BirdLife International’s ‘Preventing Extinctions Programme’ as Species Champions in January 2009, have supported work on the Endangered Sharpe’s Longclaw since September 2008, fundraised for a winter survey of the Critically Endangered Spoon-billed Sandpiper (the bird featured in our Club logo), work with numerous conservation organisations globally, and highlight conservation projects and threatened species around the world.

We now want to take our commitment a step further - hence [drum roll] …the ‘10,000 Birds Conservation Club’.

 

 

What is the ‘10,000 Birds Conservation Club’?

Simply put, the 10,000 Birds Conservation Club is a way of raising and distributing funds for conservation through our blog, 10,000 Birds. The Club was developed and is managed by Charlie Moores, Mike Bergin, and Corey Finger - the three owners of 10,000 Birds.

The Conservation Club has an annual (365 days starting from date of joining) membership fee of 25USD (or currency equivalent) payable via a PayPal account and receipts will go to providing small amounts of funding to small-scale conservation projects (preferably working on Critically Endangered/Endangered birds) that would benefit from rapid funding.

 

Obviously that’s all wonderful, but I’m sure you want a few more questions answering before you hit the Subscribe PayPal button thoughtfully scattered throughout this page, so here is a selection of FAQ’s. If you’re looking for something specific use these internal Quick Links:

• Current Competitions
• Why would ‘donors’ give products to us to ‘give-away’?
• Money Matters
• Privacy
• * Like to see what we’ve given away so far? Click the link for a list of the Conservation Club give-aways we’ve run to date. *

 

Q) Okay, I see the ‘Subscribe’ button but why should I join?

Ah, the 25 dollar question!

We regularly receive books/birding products etc to review, and rather than keep them ourselves we often run ‘give-aways’ - free competitions where we offer those items to our readers.

• Our aim now is to create a closer relationship between 10,000 Birds, Conservation Club Members, and product donors and make these ‘giveaway competitions’ more rewarding for everyone involved.
• We are therefore approaching potential donors (lots of them!) for products for selected ‘give-aways’ that are specifically open to Club Members ONLY.
• Thus for 25USD (or currency equivalent) our Conservation Club Members will have numerous opportunities over twelve months to win books/DVDs/optical gear/annual subscriptions to conservation organisations or get reduced prices on tours/stays at wildlife lodges etc while funding conservation work.

What’s not to love about that eh - support conservation and have the chance to win quality birding or birding-related products for a whole year!

 

 

Recent and current give-away competitions:

• We began March with a chance to win one of birding’s ‘hottest’ books - the brand new 2nd Edition of the superb Collins Bird Guide (hardback version). Probably the best bird field-guide on the planet, we’re grateful to Caroline March of HarperCollins for sending us both a review copy AND a copy to give-away.

  Next up will be a quite remarkable and unique give-away that involves David Sibley, original art, and the critically-endangered Spoon-billed Sandpiper. Final details are being sorted out at the moment (March 16th) - but I promise you that you really do NOT want to miss this one…

 

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Q) Okay, I’m in! So how do I enter a Conservation Club ‘give-away’?

• Details are posted with each competition, but the most important thing you need to do is join the 10,000 Birds Conservation Club! Competitions are open to Club Members ONLY. Non-members can join the Club up until THREE days before the closing date of any competition they want to enter and then be eligible to enter that and all other competitions.

Q) How will you stop non-members entering a competition?

• Entries to our competitions will be by email only. The entry MUST come from the email address a member used to join with via PayPal. An entry from an email address that doesn’t belong to a Club Member will be deleted.

Q) How will competition winners be picked?

• 10,000 Birds has the one and only ‘jammy finger’ on the team - and winners will be chosen totally at random by said jammy finger.

Q) How will winners be notified?

• By email, using the email address you joined with. If we don’t get a response within 28 days we’ll try again, but if we still don’t get a response we’ll run the competition again.

Q) How many competitions a year will you be running?

• We honestly don’t know yet. We could give you a guesstimate now but we really can’t be sure, and as a matter of policy we prefer to be upfront at all times.

Q) If I win a competition can I then enter other competitions as well?

• During the twelve months of your membership you can enter - and win - as many competitions as you like…and the best of luck to you every time you enter!

Q) As the Conservation Club gets more members won’t there be less of a chance to win anything?

• Actually, no, because we’re confident that the more members we get the more donors we’ll attract - we’ll end up with more things to give-away in more competitions, in other words.
• Also, it’s likely that not all Members will be interested in every product we offer (if it’s a book we’re giving away, for example, some Members may already have it and not enter that particular competition, or if we are giving-away a regionally specific prize a member on the other side of the world may not be especially interested).
• …and, hey, even if you don’t win you’ll have had a bit of fun for a year AND given to wildlife conservation at the same time!

 

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Product Donors:

Q) Why, pray tell, should donors give 10,000 Birds stuff to give away?

Another great question.

Some people (like the wonderful Sound Approach team who backed our first ‘give-away’ before we had a single member) are just decent folk who support conservation initiatives for no personal gain (like Mike, Corey, and me really!).

Not everyone can do that though, so we offer the following incentives:

• Their generosity will be publicised in the 10,000 Birds sidebar (seen on every page view - 235,472 Page Views Dec2009/Jan 2010) for a minimum of a week, publicised for the duration of the give-away (at least a fortnight) on this Conservation Club ‘mainpage’, and permanently archived with links on our ‘previous give-aways’ page.
• If the donation is a book/birding product we will of course review it on 10,000 Birds (see our Reviews Page).
• If conservation organisations donate annual subscriptions to their organisations we will run a full-page feature on the organisation.
• Additionally we’re offering all donors an option to talk about conservation etc in interviews on 10,000 Birds (or, eg in the case of publishers, the people they represent). And you know how much we love interviews on this blog…

And we’re assuring everyone we approach that ALL visitors to 10,000 Birds will be able to view these pages - ONLY Conservation Club members will be able to enter the ‘give-away’ competitions though.

Q) I have a product and would like to be a part of this initiative - who do I discuss this with?

• That’s great. Please contact us through the blog in the normal way, or mail Charlie Moores at charlie10000birds@gmail.com and I’ll get back to you asap!

 

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Money Matters:

Q)What will the money raised by the Conservation Club be used to fund?

• We have stated that the money raised should preferably go to projects supporting Critically Endangered or Endangered birds. That’s not a ‘hard and fast’ rule, but Members will be joining on the expectation that’s what we’ll be supporting.

Q) Who decides where the money raised will go?

• What we propose is that 10,000 Birds (Charlie Moores, Mike Bergin, Corey Finger) will draw up a short list of projects (no more than three at a time) requiring funding and then submit the list to Members - the project which receives the most ‘votes’ will receive the funding.
• Members can suggest projects themselves at any time by emailing charlie10000birds@gmail.com. Once we have full details of the project and confirmed it is both a) active, and b) would like to receive funding from us, the suggestion will then be copied to all Members. They will then vote whether we support it or not.

Bear in mind though that - to begin with at least - the ‘pot’ of funds will be very small as we will only have Membership receipts to donate.

Q) What projects have you supported so far?

We are in discussions with several environmental groups including BirdLife International and BirdLife partners and will be announcing the results of those soon. We have already made a small donation to the International Bird Rescue Research Center to help with crisis facing starving seabirds off the Californian coast; This was voted on by Members as discussed in this post.

 

Click the button above to join
The 10,000 Birds Conservation Club - easy eh…

 

Q) Is my Membership Fee tax-deductible?

• No, I’m afraid not. 10,000 Birds is neither a registered charity nor do we have tax-exempt status. If the Conservation Club becomes HUGE and we fulfill the necessary criteria for charitable status we will apply, but we haven’t done so yet. (Besides, folks, come on it’s only 25USD…)

Q) Be honest now: how much of my 25USD membership are you keeping for yourselves?

Honestly? Absolutely none of it.

• PayPal will extract a small handling fee of course (there’s no way round that), but apart from shipping costs if we need to send competition prizes out ourselves 10,000 Birds will take absolutely nothing. Nothing. Zip. Nada. No salary, no expenses, no ‘Admin Fees’. Whatever is left after PayPal and the postal service have had their slice will be given to conservation projects.

Why are we not taking anything ourselves? While none of us are millionaires (hence we think it’s fair to have the Club pay shipping costs), Mike, Corey, and I are developing this project because we believe strongly in conservation: despite the hours and hours and hours of hard work [ahem] we are putting into this thing we just don’t think it’s right for us to take any of the money raised ourselves (and 10,000 Birds Conservation Club Members will be able to view how any money is spent on request).

Q) Does this mean that you’ll start charging to access the 10,000 Birds blog at some point?

• No way, my friend! All content on 10,000 Birds will always be free for - er, always.

 

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Privacy:

Q) You ask for my email address. Are you going to sell it or mail me loads of stuff I don’t want?

Absolutely not. We need your email address just to verify who you are, to notify you of a new competition, or send you the (optional) Conservation Club enewsletter.

• Your email address is yours and yours alone. We will never pass it on or sell your details to anyone. We will never share membership lists - not even with other well-established charitable or like-minded nonprofit organizations.
• We have no plans to hire ‘list brokers’ or any outside agency. The only person who will have access to your email addresses is the Membership Secretary, and currently that’s Charlie Moores.
• To review or correct your personal contact information or if you have any questions please contact Charlie at charlie10000birds@gmail.com

We really do value the support of our individual members and we want to maintain a strong, trusting relationship with every one of you. That’s the way conservation will benefit the most.

We know that joining the 10,000 Birds Conservation Club is something of an act of faith, but we will not let you down!

 

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One more thing:

Is it just us that thinks that this is a good idea? Hopefully not, but I certainly wasn’t expecting The Conservation Club to get such a unequivocal endorsement as this one from Jim Lawrence, Programme Development Manager of the BirdLife Preventing Extinctions Programme:

“One of the most exciting elements of the BirdLife Preventing Extinctions Programme is witnessing the extraordinarily creative ways our Species Champions raise funds. With the launch of this innovative club, 10,000 Birds further prove their commitment to conservation and to the BirdLife International Preventing Extinctions Programme.” Jim Lawrence, BirdLife International. November 2009.

 

And we’d like to thank the following bloggers who are kindly supporting the Conservation Club by putting our logo on their blogs and/or writing some really lovely articles about it:

Larry Jordan - The Birder’s Report Connie Kogler - Birds O’ The Morning Will Raup - The Nightjar Grant McCreary - The Birder’s Library Rick Wright - Aimophila Adventures Gunnar Engblom - A Bird Blog from Peru Melissa Cooper - Out Walking the Dog

Rob Fergus - The Birdchaser Amy Evenstad - Magnificent Frigatebird Michelle Banks - Rambling Woods Alan Tilmouth - Dusted Off Bins Michael Pope - Birding Kuwait Wren - Wrenaissance Reflections Eva - The Flying Mullet

If you have a blog and would be good enough to post the 10,000 Birds Conservation Club logo on it we’ll add your link to those above. Right now that’s not exactly going to hurtle you up the Google rankings, but the Conservation Club is only going to get bigger as the months go on (starting from zero you have to hope the only way is up anyway), and we’ll be working to get people to the ‘mainpage’ and your link.

If you’d like to support us in this way, please either mail Charlie (charlie10000birds AT gmail.com) and I’ll email you the 160px x 156px image at the top of the page, or just save the image yourself and post it (no permission needed, just help yourself). If you do the latter please let us know though so we can add a link back to you on this page!

 

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The 10,000 Birds Conservation Club has been launched as part of our commitment to supporting projects on Critically Endangered/Endangered birds and to Birdlife International’s ‘Preventing Extinctions Programme‘, which we signed up to as Species Champions in January 2009.

Species Champions are ”a growing community of Companies, Institutions and Individuals who share our concerns and demonstrate their commitment to protecting the planet’s natural heritage by funding the work undertaken by our Species Guardians”.

There are different ‘levels’ of Species Champion (requiring different levels of financial commitment). Whilst we joined the PEP at a ‘lower level’ 10,000 Birds is now officially a Species Champion along with such conservation giants as Sir David Attenborough and the British Birdwatching Fair, conservation minded businesses like Swarovski Optik (who also sponsor 10,000 Birds of course), In Focus, and WildSounds (the Species Champions for the Spoon-billed Sandpiper), and a small number of unsung individuals like Dr. Urs-Peter Stäuble, Ed Keeble, and Peter Smith.

• For a full list of Species Champions please go to BirdLife Species Champions ‘Roll of Honour’.