Washington, DC — Focusing on skills development and community-centered growth, the National Wildlife Federation’s 2020 Equity and Justice Strategic Plan will help the organization improve its partnerships and relationships with marginalized communities. The newly released plan will support the organization’s staff in acquiring the appropriate knowledge, awareness and skills to work alongside and in partnership with Americans from all backgrounds and walks of life, supporting them in determining what healthy environments look like in their own context.

“The National Wildlife Federation is committed to becoming an organization that actively assesses our work through a lens of challenging systemic racism,” said Chanté Coleman, the National Wildlife Federation’s director of equity and justice. “Together we will work to undo oppression and use our power to uplift and respect the power in communities of color, knowing that only by achieving true diversity and working effectively across differences will we ensure people and wildlife thrive in a rapidly changing world.”

“The conservation movement has historically failed to authentically include the voices of marginalized groups, which has sidelined entire communities and left too much of our movement’s work fundamentally incomplete, inequitable, and unjust. Through our 2020 Equity and Justice Strategic Plan, the National Wildlife Federation will be better equipped to face these truths and start to right the historic disenfranchisement and injustices at the root of the modern environmental movement,” said Collin O’Mara, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation. “In order to have long-lasting, positive impacts for both wildlife and people, we will put equity at the center of all of the work that we do. We also must become an organization that actively confronts oppression and empowers all Americans to enjoy the outdoors, revitalize their communities, and fulfill their potential.”

By implementing this new plan, the National Wildlife Federation will be able to better achieve its mission by learning how to follow the leadership of marginalized communities and value their vital contributions. By tackling and improving both its external and internal equity shortcomings, the organization will fulfill its mission to become a more strategic, effective and wide-reaching institution.