Go Wild Gorillas – A local success story delivered excellently

Following the first successful Jersey APM event in October detailing Jersey’s world-leading Gigabit Programme, the Jersey APM committee organised an excellent talk by Beth Gallichan, Fundraising Manager at Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust.

Held at Durrell Zoo, the attendees got a chance to see some of the wildlife on their way through the grounds of the zoo, including the Andean Bear taking it easy on his swing.

19 attended the event, held at 4pm on 21st January 2020.  Beth took the group through Durrell’s recent high-profile fundraising event, driven through their long-term goals of 500 endangered species projects working more effectively, rewilding 10 ecosystems worldwide and putting 100 threatened species on the road to recovery. 

Go Wild Gorillas was a project that ran for over 12 months. It saw 40 artists and 21 schools decorate 85 gorillas that were then deposited around the island for locals and island visitors to find as part of the Go Wild Trail. The Gorillas were then auctioned off, raising well over £1m for the Conservation trust, putting them well on track to build their new Gorilla home.

Beth detailed the partnership that Durrell had with “Wild in Art”, an organisation that organises many such art trails, they indicated that the Jersey trail was their most successful to date in terms of engagement with the public! 

Beth also detailed the key project risks and talked through some of the actions taken to mitigate them. There was also discussion around critical success factors, which include;
 
• creating the right team;
• ensuring appropriate skills,
• investing heavily in communication and stakeholder management,
• working closely with inter-departments to ensure collaboration throughout
• setting measures

The audience asked a number of great questions, all of which Beth was eminently capable to answer.   Thank you to Beth for hosting the APM!

Look out for future events taking place in Jersey!

Eliot Lincoln, APM Jersey Committee Member