Cheetah Conservation Botswana Event

On May 10th I carried out my third event for WCN, this time raising money to conserve and protect the cheetah population in Botswana. This was a huge event, over 100 people, and we raised about $30,000 for the cheetah! Many of the donors at this event were first timers so they don't really write the big checks like we saw at the more established Painted Dog event, but hopefully WCN made some lasting connections and future donations from the new people will come rolling in with lots of zeros tacked on to the end! In the picture below, I am presiding over the pre-event meeting with the volunteers. The man with his hands clasped together is Charles Knowles, WCN's fearless leader.

Cheetah Event, part 2

For each reception, we have the conservationist give a 30- 45 minute presentation about their work, recent achievements, and challenges, as well as what they hope to accomplish in the future. This is really unique opportunity that WCN offers our donors. When you give money to an org. like WWF you don't really know where it is going. That is not to say they are not doing great work, but the donor has no intimate connection to the work he is helping support. At WCN, we fly in our conservationists at least twice a year and give donors the chance to meet them and hear exactly how their money is being spent. People really respond to this approach. Don't be fooled by the picture below. Behind the people who were lucky enough to nab chairs are about 50 people crammed together in the foyer area!
This is Rebecca Klein, Director and Lead Conservationist for Cheetah Conservation Botswana. I will be visiting her and her project in July so this was a great opportunity to get to know her better. She is fabulous! A true conservation hero. She is also an accomplished violinist!

Cheetah Event, part 3

For a lot of our events we hold silent auctions. We have hand made arts and crafts and jewelry brought in from Africa as well as local artwork. It s a great way to bring the culture of Africa to our guests and 100% of the proceeds go to the conservation projects. The first picture below is some of the guests mulling around the items and the second picture is me counting down to the close of the bidding process! What an awful picture of me....but they are all awful so I guess I am not very photogenic!

Cheetah Event, part 4

One of the reasons this event was the largest yet was that we had live cheetahs in attendance which meant we had a lot of little kids running around! This cheetah is called a King Cheetah because the spots on his back are so large that they form black bands . It is a genetic mutation and it is pretty rare. They estimate that only about 30 cheetahs living today have this mutation and thus the stripes on their back. Cool, huh?