The EXCELerator program is an intensive six-month leadership and capacity-building training designed to equip emerging conservation leaders with the skills necessary to implement action projects for the planet.

How It Works

The EXCELerator program is an intensive six-month leadership development and capacity-building training program. If you’re looking to take your conservation project to the next level, whether implementing it in the early stages or scaling it up, we’re here for you. Each participant is accepted based on their individually proposed idea of a conservation project they want to implement that will tackle an issue facing an ecosystem, their community, their culture, or their livelihood.

Participation in the EXCELerator is 100% virtual and offered at no cost, thanks to the generous support of our partners.

As an online program, we will use an online learning platform to post the program materials, and recordings and provide a base for our active discussion forums.

There are four program phases for the program’s FLEX and LIVE versions. These will take you on a guided journey to becoming a youth conservation leader.

Phase 1: Preparing and Planning Your Project for Success

The first phase of the EXCELerator is arguably one of the most intensive of the entire program as it equips you with the principles and methods you’ll need to bring your project idea to fruition. Focusing on the internationally recognized Conservation Standards (known as the CS), Phase 1 will focus on how to use the CS to theorize and plan your project. We’ll start by defining the problem you are addressing, before moving on to developing a step-by-step approach to implementing your solution. The Phase aims to help you ‘fall in love’ with your problem and use sequential thinking to stay on track and be ambitious yet smart in how you implement your solution. In Phase 1 you will also be introduced to how to use a Theory of Change and SMART goals for your project. The Phase will give you a solid base to implement the following skills you’ll learn on the EXCELerator.

Phase 2: Building Partnerships and Genuine Stakeholder Engagement

Phase 2 will concentrate on the people and community involved in and affected by your project. We’ll start by learning with case studies what stakeholder engagement is, when it works and common pitfalls in conservation projects. We’ll learn how to map the different stakeholders in your project, and the different relationships you have with each. A key part of the phase will also focus on project management and monitoring your progress, to keep you on track throughout your planning and implementation phases both on and after the EXCELerator Program.

Phase 3: Achieving Financial Sustainability and Using Resources Efficiently

Often one of the most challenging areas for aspiring young conservationists, this penultimate phase of the EXCELerator aims to demystify fundraising, budgeting, and grant writing. Phase 3 will equip you with the confidence and skills to identify fundraising basics, how to diversify your income sources and work out what funders look for in grant applications. Together, we’ll look at budgeting case studies from real conservation projects, go through tips for grant writing, and how to link them with the Conservation Standards we learned in Phase 1. You’ll also end the Phase with an understanding of how efficient financial planning can ensure your project’s sustainability in the long-term.

Phase 4: Storytelling and Effective Communications

The final phase of the EXCELerator is perhaps the most fun and aims to bring together all the elements of your project that make it specific to you. The success of any conservation project is ultimately down to how its mission, values, and impact are understood by your audience. This phase aims to help you identify the unique qualities and character behind your project and communicate these to achieve success. We’ll look at how to incorporate storytelling into social media and outreach campaigns, and how to develop a winning communications plan and reach your target audience. Finally, the EXCELerator will end with how to pitch your project, assembling all you have learned on the 6-month program into 5 powerful minutes for you to showcase your leadership.

CoalitionWILD equips EXCELerator participants with the tools, support, and confidence needed to implement or scale their unique conservation project idea. We focus on building the three Ps: Project Development, Personal Growth, and Professional Network. Whilst we provide participants with the resources and network to successfully start up or grow their project, it is their own responsibility rather than a requirement of the program.

We look beyond supporting youth leaders for one-off projects. We aim to build leaders for the planet for a lifetime.