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What is Giving Tuesday?
You probably know about Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but have you heard about Giving Tuesday? Giving Tuesday is a global day of giving that occurs each year at the start of the holiday season. It’s a day completely dedicated to charitable generosity – a great way to kick off your seasonal celebrations! To learn more about Giving Tuesday go here!
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How have your Giving Tuesday donations helped in the past?
Because of your 2018 Giving Tuesday donations, we were able to fully fund two highly-needed field vehicles! Giving Tuesday also helps to provide the Fossey Fund with extra reserve. As you can imagine, proper material and supplies are a must-have when our trackers are miles deep in the forest protecting gorillas. The extra reserve helps us when supplies are damaged or crises occur in the field.
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This Giving Tuesday, we’re encouraging people to become Gorilla Game Changers. So what does that even mean?
A gorilla game changer is anyone committed to the conservation of gorillas and other endangered wildlife. Dian Fossey was the original gorilla game changer, and first began changing the game for wild gorillas in Rwanda back in 1967, when she founded the Karisoke Research Center to study and protect these magnificent creatures. With 50 years of dedicated gorilla protection, we’ve learned that conservation takes a community. Though our teams are in the field in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo 365 days per year, changing the game for magnificent gorillas and other endangered wildlife ultimately begins with all of you!
On this Giving Tuesday, we’re asking that you choose to be gorilla game changers!
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Ways you can become a gorilla game changer!
Just like Dian and our teams in the field, YOU can help keep gorillas safe. There are many ways one can change the game for gorillas and other endangered wildlife:
– Follow the Fossey Fund on social media and share our posts with your networks
– Adopt a gorilla — proceeds from symbolic adoptions help keep gorillas safe, by funding daily gorilla protection initiatives in the field
– Supporting our #GivingTuesday campaign — our work to help people and save gorillas would never get off the ground without support from gorilla game-changers around the world!
– Recycle old electronics, especially cell phones!
– Limit your single-use plastics! Rwanda has been plastic-free since 2008!
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Stats about how gorilla game changers have made an impact!
– Just a year ago the mountain gorilla population went from being classified as critically endangered to classified as endangered!
– In 2018, we funded over 100 staff involved in daily gorilla monitoring and protection and 420 anti-poaching patrols and there was no evidence of gorillas caught in snares in Rwanda in 2018!
– Last year, 15,000 Rwandan and Congolese people were impacted by our education, food and water security and livelihood programs and nearly 26,000 tree seedlings were planted in nurseries for distribution in local communities. We also produced 18 scientific publications about gorillas and biodiversity in Rwanda and the DRC.
None of this would have been possible without YOU, our amazing gorilla game changers!
