Nature Conservancy Podcasts Build Conservation Ethic

The Nature Stories podcasts are one component of The Nature Conservancy's (TNC) broader, integrated campaign to build a greater awareness of environmental issues among the general public. "Although more than 55 million Americans claim to be 'conservation  concerned,'  the environment continues to slip on the priority scale of global issues," says TNC staffer Lauren Miura.  "We believe that through targeted communications, we can begin to rebuild the 'conservation ethic' that has been absent in American society in recent years."

According to Miura, the lead component of this campaign is "Stories from the Heart of the Land,"a series that will air on public radio stations nationwide in summer 2007. TNC has commissioned notable writers and artists to share their personal stories. The idea of a podcast evolved from this production, as a way to share the stories in a new media with the ability to reach a broad demographic (younger audiences love podcasts in general, those a bit older love their portability).

Many of the stories from the radio series will be packaged  as podcasts, in addition to the regular podcasts that features interactions between people and nature.

TNC's use of podcasts as a component of a broader, integrated campaign is definitely the way to go . Kudos to TNC to rooting its use of this new communications tool in a holistic campaign in which the podcasts play a very specific role. Too often new tools seduce us to  use them in isolation, which  is far less powerful (remember the first few years of website publication).

Keep posted for more Getting Attention posts on nonprofit podcasting.

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