This past year I have been honored to support the National Forest Foundation’s (NFF’s) Collaborative Capacity Program for Forest & Communities (CCP). The CCP provides financial support as well as technical assistance and peer learning opportunities to promote collaborative forest stewardship. Practitioners of collaborative forest stewardship bring together diverse stakeholders across sectors to work together towards the common goal of managing forests for the benefit of all. Personally, I led an applied research project that will inform the development of the technical assistance and peer learning components of the CCP and also future iterations of the NFF’s online Toolbox of Resources, a resource hub for conservation and collaboration.

I interviewed 15 collaborative forest stewardship experts, including practitioners, academics, resource providers, and convenors of collaborative networks and supplemented this insight with a review of relevant academic literature. Then, I synthesized this information into a report presenting a suite of key findings and recommendations as to how the NFF ought to consider building out the CCP to provide resources that best meet the needs of today’s forest health collaboratives and also more broadly how the NFF can support the growth of the field.

Key findings are that forest health collaboratives seem to require access to people resources like consultants, experts, and qualified coordinators/facilitators and dynamic matchmaking support with existing resources over the creation of new static resources. Further, more support is needed around later stage collaborative activities like scaling and transitions as well as around Tribal engagement and strategic planning. Interviewees also emphasized the value of interpersonal connections through things like peer learning and in-person (over virtual) opportunities. Relatedly, the NFF appears to have a role to play in the field as a connecting and convening entity.

These and other included findings suggest five recommendations for the NFF to consider:

• Elevate access to people resources within the CCP,
• Build out the NFF’s Toolbox of Resources as a dynamic matchmaking tool,
• Develop a diagnostic framework for categorizing collaborative groups,
• Support workforce development and the professionalization of collaborative forest stewardship, and
• Embrace the NFF’s role as a convening entity.

Capacity and resources are finite, so these recommendations likely cannot all be thoroughly pursued simultaneously. As such, my report to the NFF offers a menu of potential actions available to support each recommendation as much as funding, capacity, politics, and mission alignment allow.

This project was deeply fulfilling to me as someone who has long been interested in collaborative conservation and bringing stakeholders together across difference. I particularly appreciated the way that my NFF fellowship dovetailed with my graduate capstone project, which was also to do with collaborative conservation, through the lens of Colorado’s Regional Partnerships Initiative (RPI), a statewide network of collaborative groups working to balance recreation access and conservation within their regions. Many of the same key stakeholders participate both in the collaborative groups within the RPI and in Colorado’s forest health collaboratives, and engaging in these projects simultaneously helped me deepen my understanding of collaborative conservation in a way that would not have been possible diving into either project alone.

Another highlight of my fellowship experience was attending the Colorado Forest Collaboratives Network (CFCN) annual summit and meeting many NFF colleagues and other leaders within collaborative forest stewardship in my state. Likewise, I am tremendously excited to end my NFF fellowship in late April by working together with my NFF supervisor and the Coordinator of CFCN to present a conference session on the state of collaborative conservation in Colorado at the annual Colorado Partners in the Outdoors Conference. In sum, working with NFF has been a highlight of my graduate school experience and the applied work has truly deepened my learning. I am grateful for the opportunity.

Adam Auerbach is a 2024 Conservation Connect Fellow and graduate student in the University of Colorado Boulder’s Masters of the Environment program. He is graduating in May 2025 with a dual degree in Environmental and Natural Resources Policy and Sustainability in the Outdoor Industry. Adam is also a Board Member with the Boulder County Parks & Open Space Foundation, and his professional background before graduate school includes work with the National Park Service, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, Boulder County Parks & Open Space, and conservation corps like American Conservation Experience, the Mile High Youth Corps, and the Nevada Conservation Corps.