Customer Reviews

Nature's Keepers: The Remarkable Story of How the Nature Conservancy Became the Largest Environmental Group in the World

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a book about business strategy in a non-profit corporation, The Nature Conservancy (TNC). The book begins and ends with a scandal, a series of articles by the Washington Post that uncovered failures of governance in this non-profit organization. These revelations came after a series of scandals concerning corporate governance in companies such as Enron, and the Nature Conservancy very much needed to keep its image distinct from those kinds of businesses.

When evaluating this book, it's important to keep in mind what Berchard intends it to be (a book about strategy) as well as what it might have been (a history of the Nature Conservancy). In light of some of the other reviews, I think it's also important to remember whether we like the book or not is a separate question from whether we like the Nature Conservancy or not.

Berchard does not intend this book to be a history of the Nature Conservancy, and it isn't. However, it presents selected strategic challenges of the organization in chronological order, so it looks as if it might be a history. There is much left out, in particular, the events between strategic challenges. These make up most of the growth of the organization. I wish Berchard had given us more of that history, since the supposed success of TNC's leadership must be evident in that growth - the proof of the pudding is in the eating, after all. Even so, Berchard has done enough research into TNC's files, and conducted enough interviews, so that this book would be a useful source for someone else who wanted to write a history of the organization.

Berchard *does* intend this book to be about business strategy, even if the business is a non-profit. The structure of each chapter is similar: TNC faces some challenge that reveals the limits of its previous way of doing things. A leader either changes what s/he is doing to meet the challenge, or a new leader comes along who finds a way to meet the challenge.

In other words, the book gives a series of descriptions of successful changes in an organization. But the book is remarkably short of analysis. What were the choices available, and why was this particular response chosen? Would other choices have worked better? Why or why not? Why weren't the changes made earlier? What were the constraints on the leadership that kept it from addressing these challenges earlier than it did?

All in all, the story is remarkably voluntaristic, conveying the sense that any leader can change any organization if he or she has a good strategy. Maybe that's true for some organizations, but it sure isn't true of the one where I work. It also begs the question of why other leaders did not succeed in addressing these challenges. Adding a case study of failure would help round out the book considerably.

These failures to analyze strategy more deeply made for a pretty disappointing book in terms of its own objectives. As a first draft of a history of TNC, it does a decent job.

He gets it. Birchard did a remarkable job distilling what and who made the Conservancy tick at every stage of its development. He captures the genius and passion of stars like Noonan and Jenkins. The dramatic struggles in the formative years were news to me, even though I worked at The Conservancy for 20 years. Others have tried before to penetrate this extremely complicated enterprise and capture the essence of the organization but nothing I have seen captures the pearls of organizational development like this book. Recommended reading for every charity's staff and board. I hoped the book had room to show how much fun we had- such as the hilarious story of the Aggassiz Glacier, a ficitious land project that staff almost got through the Board of Governors. Maybe in the next book. And I thank the author for re-inforcing my own pride in having worked so hard on the Conservancy's mission.

You don't need to be an environmentalist to love this book. The Nature Conservancy is not only the world's largest environmental organizations but one of the most effective. Having worked at other environemtal groups, watching the Conservancy's tremendous growth over the years, I was just amazed and wondered what they were doing to achieve such success. Now Nature's Keepers explains it all. What I really liked was that it was a real honest appraisal about the organization including the mistakes it made and the troubles it faced. It is a great lesson about how to face and overcome challenges to ultimately make your organization stronger.

I am an employee for The Nature Conservancy and have found this book to be a "must read" for current and new employees. Very inspiring and a great overview of the work we do.

Birchard seemingly spares little, including the 2003 gut punch from the Washington Post, in this overview of the development of The Nature Conservancy. He also details how Conservancy President Steven McCormick dealt with that.

That was one of several gut-wrenching management, organizational and philosophical changes The Nature Conservancy has gone through since its founding, Birchard notes. He details all of them, and how TNC has come out on the right side of all of them, so far.

Because of TNC's work, it's a good look at how conservation is changing in general today, and a primer for how TNC and similar organizations can continue to best guide this change.

This may also be a decent primer for staffers at other nonprofit organization, from smaller through larger, and whether at local, regional, state or national offices. As Birchard points out, TNC's pains have, in many cases, been growth pains. Other organizations can learn valuable lessons from TNC actions.

That said, there are things that got left on the cutting room floor. Was Jack Sawhill too abrupt in the changes he forced? Would TNC had been better if he hadn't run off a number of people? One can never know that for sure, but on this and similar issues, Birchard could have made analytical guesstimates or something. The items the Post noted... was more blood spilled on the floor in state chapter self-defense than Birchard tells us?

Beyond conservation, he also doesn't explain how TNC work always benefits the general public. What TNC sites are open to recreation uses, such as hiking, for example? To someone with a less than in-depth knowledge of environmentalism, how well has TNC marketed itself, or not?

Based on the other three-star reviewer, I did further reflecting, and glanced at Birchard's title, or specficially, his subtitle, "The Remarkable Story of How The Nature Conservancy Became the Largest Environmental Organization in the World."

Yes, that's not "his" subtitle, but Jossey-Bass' instead.

In any case, the book comes nowhere close to that. It's nice enough, but, to live up to that claim, it would have needed at least another 100 pages. TNC's international growth is briefly touched on in one late chapter, and no more, for example. We're given no nationwide numbers, let alone charts/graphs, for membership and donation growth. Donation numbers focus only on megadonors. How many mom-and-pop contributors does TNC get? We're not told.

On the analytical side, to the degree the book may be a primer for other nonprofits/NGOs, we're not told how, or how much of it, may be or may not be.

I was not familiar with the Nature Conservancy and its international scope so the book was enlightening. It has a slow beginning but picks up after the first couple of chapters. The biggest fault, and this is major, is a lack of pictures of the players. Some bigger than life characters are described, and it always makes a biography type book much more interesting to have a photos of the characters described. Worth while reading.

This is a well-researched, well-written book that paints a vivid picture of the politics and complexities of an organization -- even one as well-intentioned as the Nature Conservancy.

This would make an excellent book for classes in management and leadership.

A wonderful story of a remarkable organization and how it's various leaders at the state, national and international level dealt with the constant changes and conflicts that are inevitable in a group that has had such an impact throughout the world. What is refreshing is that the conflicts are not hidden but highlighted so that we may know how the organization dealt with them to make the Nature Conservancy stronger.

This is a book that succeeds in many levels. It's an important leadership book for entrepreneurs and insightful for those who are interested in nonprofits/environmental organizations.

I was amazed at how quickly the Nature Conservancy grew, and at its many successful ventures. At the same time I grew more and more disappointed. There is no reason why the CEO of a non-profit organization should earn three quarters of a million dollars. There is also no reason why a charity should lend the same CEO a million and a half dollars to buy a house. When people donate money they are intending for the money to go to the cause that the charity promotes. Had the salary being $200 000 it would have been understandable, since being CEO of such a large organization entailed an amazing amount of responsibility. This huge wage discrepancy should have been obvious without needing a major newspaper writing an article on it.

But even with some errors like the one mentioned above, the Nature Conservancy innovates and is constantly pursuing new ways of saving land and ecosystems. They began by initially purchasing land for conservation purposes, but are now involved in many more ventures. Overall the Nature Conservancy has done an amazing amount of good. The characters profiled in this book are committed and always ready to improve.

The book itself is well written and I give credit to the author for the enormous amount of research this book would have taken.

"Nature's Keepers" is an important and well crafted book. For a young person in the non-profit community, the book has been extremely valuable, as I watch, contemplate, and participate in my own organization's thinking on strategy, management, and governance. I have recommended it to many of my colleagues.