Getting Started
Anything worth doing takes time and effort and building a Bear Smart Community is no exception. The movement toward reducing bear conflicts begins with an individual or small group of people who are dedicated to a clean and safe community, and willing to work collaboratively to that end. The very first action is learning: collecting information about bear presence and conflicts, talking with people about how they feel about bears and their interest in participating, and learning about bears and conflict prevention generally. Once you find others with the shared goals of starting a community effort, it can help to form a working group, whether it’s formal or informal, but this can happen at different stages of the project, depending on the people involved and the progress being made.
Learn and Gather
Bear Smart initiatives have been started by single individuals, town officials, groups of interested citizens/residents, nonprofits, and others. It can be a combination of these. Every project begins and evolves differently.
Irrespective of who the initiating people are, there are certain activities and information that help to engage others. Having an idea of current and potential bear conflicts is helpful. Some communities have a lot of black bear conflicts, and this can be a motivator. Other communities may want to prepare for grizzly bear presence if bears are moving closer. Gather information about conflicts, risks, the attractants around the community and begin to talk with people about their interest in addressing these things. This can start informally and without any particular agenda as you learn how others think about bears in/around your municipality. As you talk with people, you will learn who is knowledgeable or motivated, who may present challenges, who may want to join the effort and how they can help.
Other ideas to gauge interest and begin to organize – whether an individual or small group of interested community members:
Participate in local events like a farmers’ market or other gatherings where you can have a table, talk with people, and collect information.
Meet with local officials, a town mayor, or make a comment at a public meeting about your interest in exploring a Bear Smart Initiative there.
Meet with a local wildlife official about what they think the needs are and how they might support or participate in an effort.
Hold a public meeting, “town hall” or other event where this topic can be discussed openly.
Contact a local/regional nonprofit working in wildlife conservation or community building to see what their interest may be or what resources they may have to help. Nonprofits engaging in Bear Smart Community work can be helpful consultants to community leaders in this process.
It may be useful before getting too far into engaging with people to gather some basic information, such as information about bear conflicts and risks (attractants, along with bear presence), and to read up on the Bear Smart Community process on this website. It will be important to consider the specific demographics or social make-up of your locale, who may be supportive, who may not be supportive, etc. – so that you can be strategic as you think about bringing interested individuals together.
Remember, too, that it can take time to get an initiative going or to begin to form enough interest that you can organize a group to work on it together. Sometimes smaller groups of volunteers, business owners, and other community members work together on some initial projects before forming a working group or while they slowly put one together. Other groups of residents have established momentum with/in a group but without designating the group as a Bear Smart working group.
Bear Smart Working Groups or Committees
Whether from the beginning or later on in the process, communities benefit from having a group of stakeholders leading Bear Smart projects together. Forming a working group or committee reflects the fact that the initiative is a community effort. Ideally, diverse stakeholders are included. Among other things, the group develops and helps to implement solutions for minimizing human-bear conflicts, provides a forum for sharing information and resolving divergent views, and allows for a coordinated approach to community outreach and communications. Again, the timing and the evolution of a working group may be different in each community.
Forming a group worked well in Whistler, where the Whistler’s Bear Advisory Committee (WBAC) brought together a variety of community stakeholders who collaborated together to reduce human-bear conflicts in the Resort Municipality of Whistler. The advisory group was comprised of representatives from two local Bear Smart organizations, the waste hauler, the local and provincial governments, the police, the local ski hill operator, and the Conservation Officer Service, who all met regularly.
Another example of a successful Bear Smart Committee is Virginia City, Montana. It took time for this working group to assemble, as the city Mayor took steps in partnership with a nonprofit and wildlife officials to implement one small project at a time, due to funding limitations. Once some momentum was established and bears were no longer walking down Main Street, community members stepped up to expand the program, direct it, and keep it going. The group ended up with various city residents and businesses working with the Mayor. Virginia City is an example of a more “organic” formation of its working group.
The success of small, grassroots organizations almost always depends on the passion and commitment of one or two individuals, but it also requires the buy-in, support and commitment of a diverse team that can help get the work done. Bear Smart working groups have proven to be most effective when they include and/or collaborate with people they don’t necessarily agree with on all wildlife issues. Don’t just involve the usual suspects; invite the stakeholders in the community who must be involved to make your efforts successful: elected officials, environmentalists, bear managers and conservation officers, sanitation supervisors and waste haulers, First Nations and Tribal Nations, business leaders, and concerned citizens. They may not all formally “join” your group, but it’s important that they feel like they are part of the process—and the solution.
Nuts and Bolts
At the point when a group is working together, an instinctual response is to get busy doing “the work,” but the first thing to do is to figure out what the group’s vision for the project and community is, and what the big picture and more immediate goals are. The group must also talk about operating agreements and its process.
Another important question to resolve early on is the legal status of the group, and how it will receive funds once fundraising activities begin or if people or businesses want to donate to the initiative. A group having charitable status from a federal government allows it to issue tax receipts for donations, which individual donors often want in order to get a tax benefit. Click here for information on incorporating and applying for charitable status in Canada. Click here for information on the process in the United States. Becoming a charitable organization takes considerable time and effort. As an alternative, some groups use fiscal sponsors to run funds through so that they don’t have to worry about setting up a nonprofit with charitable status.
Click here for more information about legal status and how to receive funds, as well as resources for fundraising.
Plan the Work, Work the Plan
Once you’ve got a core group of volunteers and a committed working group or committee, it may be helpful to craft a simple strategic plan to help guide the group. This needn’t be complicated or onerous. Depending on how many people there are in your core circle, and how aligned their ideas are, it shouldn’t take more than a couple hours or a half-day session to brainstorm a strategic plan. This should include a vision, mission, more specific goals (the “what”) and strategies (the “how”). Funding and other needed resources (human, capacity, technology) are often included in strategic plans. You could conduct a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) to get a sense of where the effort stands at any one time. The Bear Smart Community process is complex, takes time and effort, so keep your strategic plan simple and clear — there is plenty of other planning work to come!