A need for assessing the resiliency of conservation funding

The ability to address conservation challenges hinges, in part, on a robust understanding of complex social-ecological systems. Conservation funding is a critical component that can impede or facilitate our ability to understand issues and overcome conservation challenges. Conservation funding is dynamic and is often dependent on organizations sustained by individual contributions (e.g., memberships, donations). A shift in funding sources, away from federal government support, could lead to greater uncertainty and instability in conservation funding. Herein, we use an individual-based conservation organization database to demonstrate how to assess funding resiliency by identifying subpopulation typologies (subgroups of individuals) that reflect similar patterns in conservation contributions. We identified three typologies that provide North Dakota Game and Fish Department support for managing and protecting natural resources. Most (~68%) individuals (typology I) infrequently contributed to recreational fishing conservation; few (~9%) individuals (typology III) provided frequent contributions to recreational fishing conservation over the 11-year study period. While conservation funding has been relatively consistent for North Dakota Game and Fish Department, it may be subject to rapid change. Identifying the number of conservation typologies (e.g., diversity) and associated characteristics (e.g., frequency and amount of funding contributions, socio-demographic characteristics) could provide conservation-oriented organizations the ability to quantify, track, and predict underlying contribution trends that are masked by overall (i.e., population-level) funding patterns. Ultimately, identifying subpopulations and associated contribution patterns could aid in avoiding potential losses in conservation funding.