Answers to our most frequently asked questions are below. If you don't find the answers you need, please use our help/comments form.
Adding New Groups
- Does it cost anything to be listed in the Conservation Directory? [answer]
- What groups are eligible for inclusion in the Conservation Directory? [answer]
- How are new records reviewed and approved, and how long does this process take? [answer]
Editing Existing Groups
- Once a group is approved for inclusion in the Conservation Directory, will future information edits/updates also need to be approved? [answer]
- Are there any benefits for groups that keep their Conservation Directory information up to date? [answer]
- How can I determine who my group's designated contact is? [answer]
Login/Password Help
- Can designated group contacts retrieve their passwords if they lose or forget them? [answer]
- Can groups change their designated contact's email address and/or password? [answer]
Data Quality
- How timely is the data in the Conservation Directory? [answer]
- Why is the "last update date" the same for so many groups? [answer]
- How many groups are listed in the Conservation Directory? [answer]
- What information does the Conservation Directory offer? [answer]
Additional
- What happens if I can't find an environmental group that I know exists? [answer]
- Can mailing labels or digital versions of the Conservation Directory data be purchased? [answer]
- How long has the Conservation Directory been in existence? [answer]
- Is the online Conservation Directory slower, for some reason, in Netscape browsers? [answer]
- Are any enhancements planned for the online Conservation Directory? [answer]
- Where can I turn for more information about the Conservation Directory? [answer]
Adding New Groups
Does it cost anything to be listed in the Conservation Directory?
Absolutely not! As long as a group meets the criteria for inclusion in the Directory, listings are completely free of charge.
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What groups are eligible for inclusion in the Conservation Directory?
Organizations eligible for inclusion in the Conservation Directory must...
- have a fundamental mission to protect, and/or encourage the protection of, the natural environment, including all wildlife and wild places,
- pursue their missions through direct conservation/preservation/restoration work, education, advocacy, research, legal work, commercial sales, grant-making, etc., and
- be able to verify their existence, mission, and activities by means of reference from another group already listed in the Conservation Directory, and/or provision of a group web address, paper brochure, annual report, etc.
This may cover any of the following types of organizations:
- non-profit groups
- commercial businesses (or discreet business units within them)
- local, state, federal and international government entities
- colleges and universities (or discreet departments within them)
- zoos, aquariums, and museums
- foundations and grant-giving organizations
- coalitions of any of the above
Regardless of these criteria, the National Wildlife Federation expressly reserves the unqualified right to review, accept, and/or deny any group listing in the Conservation Directory.
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How are new records reviewed and approved, and how long does this process take?
To ensure that all new submissions meet the criteria for inclusion in the Directory, every newly submitted record will be reviewed by the National Wildlife Federation. This review process typically takes 2-3 business days, and involves editorial checks of text-based information, reference verification, tests of WWW and email addresses, phone and fax numbers, etc. New records will be reviewed and approved in the order in which they were submitted.
*PLEASE NOTE: When a new record is submitted, password and login information will be emailed immediately to the group's specified contact. Consequently, newly added groups gain the instant capacity to access/edit their records even while they await initial review and approval.
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Editing Existing Groups
Once a group is approved for inclusion in the Conservation Directory, will future information edits/updates also need to be approved?
No. Once a group has been approved for inclusion in the Directory and provided with the capacity to securely access and update it's own record, all future information edits/updates will be approved automatically. As soon as a group submits edits/updates, the changes will be viewable in the group's online record AND the group will appear as a "most recent update" on the Directory homepage and in search results.
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Are there any benefits for groups that keep their Conservation Directory information up to date?
Yes. The most up to date records in the online Directory are highlighted most prominently, and are thereby easier for browsers to find. The top ten most recently updated groups are featured on the Directory homepage, AND by default, all search results display the most recently updated groups first. The one additional benefit to groups who keep their information up to date is that they ensure they are accurately portrayed to the public.
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How can I determine who my group's designated contact is?
Designated contacts have been selected by the groups themselves. Typically, contacts are either a main administrative secretary or public relations/communications staffer. If you encounter incorrect or outdated information for your group, and cannot identify your group contact to make the edits directly, please use our Recommend Edits/Updates form to suggest edits. All recommendations will be received by administrators managing the online Directory, and processed through our review and approval procedures.
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Login/Password Help
Can designated group contacts retrieve their passwords if they lose or forget them?
Yes. If you are your group's designated contact, you can retrieve your password at anytime through our Password Lookup form. On this form, simply enter your email address, and your password will be automatically mailed to you.
For contacts who don't know which email address was used for their secure login, they will need to ask for their login email address through our Help/Comments form. When Directory administrators receive these help requests from legitimate group contacts, they will phone the group's main number, and ask to be transferred to the contact so that they can pass on the needed information directly.
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Can groups change their designated contact's email address and/or password?
Yes. Both the group contact's email address and password can be changed once a group has, first, logged in securely through our Login form.
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Data Quality
How timely is the data in the Conservation Directory?
Individual Conservation Directory records are updated every day by the groups themselves through our add/edit form. Additionally, every record in the Directory is comprehensively updated once a year by the National Wildlife Federation. A "last update date" is published with every record so that browsers can tell precisely how timely any record is. Also, to highlight the Directory's most timely information, search results are, by default, sorted by most recent update date.
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Why is the "last update date" the same for so many groups?
All of the records in the Conservation Directory were comprehensively updated by the National Wildlife Federation in the fall of 2001. When the online Conservation Directory was first released, all of the records were tagged with the same last update date (11/13/2001). Now that the online Conservation Directory is publically accessible, though, the last update dates will change as groups update their data through our add/edit form.
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How many groups are listed in the Conservation Directory?
The number of groups listed in the Conservation Directory changes each day as new groups are added and defunct groups are removed. The top of the Conservation Directory homepage offers an automatically updated statistic of how many groups are currently listed in the Directory.
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What information does the Conservation Directory offer?
The Conservation Directory is the world's most comprehensive and up to date directory of environmental groups. It offers detailed information for the thousands of environmental groups operating across the planet, including the following: group names, mailing addresses, phone and fax numbers, email and WWW addresses, general descriptions, group types, methods of operation, major issues and activities, scopes of work, founded dates, membership and budget sizes, staff names, titles, and contact information, and major resource titles and descriptions.
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Additional
What happens if I can't find an environmental group that I know exists?
If you cannot find an environmental group that you know exists, the group is likely not yet listed in the Conservation Directory. In such cases, we encourage you to please add the group to the Conservation Directory using our add/edit form. For any other questions related to searching the online Conservation Directory, please see our Search Tips page.
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Can mailing labels or digital versions of the Conservation Directory data be purchased?
At present, mailing labels and digital versions of the Conservation Directory data are not available for sale. For future releases of the online Directory, however, the National Wildlife Federation is exploring options to allow browsers to generate mailing labels and download digital data files. We are also exploring options for offering a CD ROM version of the Directory that would offer the same functionalities. These enhancements could become available as early as winter 2002 / spring 2003.
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How long has the Conservation Directory been in existence?
The first print version of the Conservation Directory was published in 1952, making 2002 the Directory's 50th anniversary. An updated print version has been published annually in all but three years since the initial publication date. In December of 2001, the Conservation Directory was first published online.
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Is the online Conservation Directory slower, for some reason, in Netscape browsers?
Yes, unfortunately Netscape browsers take a longer time to display data formatted inside of nested tables, and much of the online Conservation Directory is formatted this way. We apologize to Netscape users for this inconvenience, and intend to remedy this issue in future releases of the Directory. For now, we hope that browsing is not too slow for Netscape users, or if it is, that Netscape users might be willing to experiment with non-Netscape browsers.
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Are any enhancements planned for the online Conservation Directory?
Absolutely! The current product is only version 1.0 of the online Conservation Directory. This version includes many of the major functionalities we thought would be useful to browsers, but not all of them. There is plenty of room (and plans) for growth. In future versions, we look forward to offering enhancements like the following: the capacity to download data in comma separated files, a CD ROM version of the Directory for offline browsing, the capacity to download Directory data into hand-held devices, additional fields of local environmental data, etc.
If there are any other ways that you think we could improve the online Conservation Directory, we would love to hear from you. Please submit your comments, thoughts, and recommendations through our Help/Comments form.
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Where can I turn for more information about the Conservation Directory?
If you have any questions not answered in this FAQ please submit them to us through our Help/Comments form.
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