Working on the wild side
International Fund for Animal Welfare eyes new Cape headquarters as it ramps up global efforts.The world knows Cape Cod as a haven for whales. But what about lions, tigers, great apes and elephants?
To the surprise of many a Cape Codder, the very survival of these species halfway across the globe depends in no small part on a nonprofit organization whose world headquarters is on the peninsula, with offices in both Hyannis and Yarmouthport.
Despite an $80 million annual budget and 15 offices worldwide, the International Fund for Animal Welfare has not made its presence very well known here. But that is beginning to change. After falling short several years ago in a bid to build permanent new headquarters, IFAW has just closed on a $2 million, 5.5-acre parcel at the intersection of Willow and Summer streets in Yarmouth. It hopes to move into a 35,000- to 40,000-square-foot facility – expected to cost $8 million – within the next two to three years.
The fund also has recruited Elliott Carr, the recently retired president and CEO of Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank, to its board of directors – and more significantly, its finance committee.
Even at a time when IFAW is focusing its fund-raising and development activities in Hollywood and Washington, D.C., it views New England as an increasingly fertile arena for financial support.
The financial connection works in both directions. While it targets wealthy retirees and baby boomers, IFAW also employs nearly 140 staffers, who in turn live and shop right here. In addition, the fund has spent nearly $3 million over the last three years with local businesses and vendors.
And it contributed about $300,000 to nonprofit organizations ranging from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and the Association for the Preservation of Cape Cod to the Cape Cod Stranding Network and local land trusts.
Also, during the last year, IFAW and the federal government have directed funds to about 300 local lobster fishermen as part of a $1.4 million pilot program to replace more than 2,000 miles of rope attached to traps that entangle the highly endangered North Atlantic right whale.
Nearly three-quarters of North Atlantic right whales show scarring from encounters with the lobster lines, which snag the mammals and impede their ability to breathe, eat, swim and mate.
“Innovative projects such as this one are a model for fisheries work,” said Paul Diodati, director of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, which also is participating in the program. “Only by balancing the concerns of environmentalists and fishermen are we able to protect our valuable natural resources.”
Led by a hard-charging former Peace Corps executive
IFAW’s growing Cape profile is among the prime goals of its current president, Fred O’Regan, who refined his managerial skills and global passions as a former regional director with the Peace Corps. He can apply a smile as readily as a hard-hitting advocacy campaign, depending on his target and the urgency to save a white coat seal or right whale.
The fund doesn’t hesitate to make headlines while challenging Japanese commercial whalers, Asian tiger poachers or Chinese ivory hunters. Mitsubishi Corporation learned about IFAW’s punch when the fund fought a proposed salt evaporation plant in Baja, Mexico, that could put in peril gray whales there – and won.
A Boston Globe magazine article once quoted a hunting advocate as saying: “Hundreds of groups that use animals for recreation can’t stand IFAW.”
IFAW spokesman Patrick Ramage called that comment “warmed over” and inaccurate. “We don’t campaign against sport hunting. We do oppose commercial hunting of wildlife (such as whales, seals and elephants) and have helped end particular cruel and unethical hunting practices in various countries, such as penned or canned hunting and spring bear hunts.” he said. “We are often joined in these efforts by growing numbers of ‘ethical hunter’ organizations, which also oppose needless cruelty.”
All that pleases the nearly 2 million people whose donations comprise nearly three-quarters of the fund’s entire annual revenue.
IFAW’s aggressive stance and tactics place it in a veritable fish bowl – often challenged, and sometimes castigated. A recent report by Canada’s Transcontinental Media, for example, questioned IFAW’s secrecy over finances.
It reported that IFAW paid Pell & Bales of London, a British firm, $797,489 in 1999 for “donation processing”; Dewey Square Group Strategies Inc. of Washington, D.C., $403,479 for “strategic consulting” and $197,196 to a Boston law firm – one of whose principals was an IFAW director – for legal services.
In addition, the report said, a Washington, D.C., company got $193,848 for collecting press releases.
Ramage did not dispute specific figures, but rejected the article and any suggestion of secrecy.
“We're proud of the way we do business and regularly provide extensive financial reports to our donors, regulatory agencies and media who ask for them,” he said. “This disingenuous article ran in a single, staunchly pro-seal-hunt paper in St. John’s, Newfoundland. We provided extensive financial reports, which they chose to ignore. Instead, they cooked up a secrecy angle, selectively pulled figures and misrepresented the actual use of funds to fit their bias.
“More credible Canadian outlets across the country have given us great coverage,” Ramage said.
He also emphasized that the report chose to selectively focus on events more than five years old, before new practices were put in place by O’Regan. In addition, he said, the IFAW director was “uncompensated.”
(IFAW provided extensive financial information to Cape Business during the preparation of this article.)
“That report was based on financial information we made public,” he said. “Frankly, we were disappointed that the article did not detail more recent years,” when IFAW has been more equipped to handle many of these functions internally.
“We are committed to financial transparency,” said Ramage, who noted that expenditures must be put in perspective. “It’s often a balancing act between hiring staff with permanent recurring costs, or sometimes ramping up for a single event using outside companies that have a one-time expense,” he explained.
A far cry from its roots in Canada
With a bulging war chest and a growing cadre of political supporters in the nation’s capital and Hollywood, IFAW is becoming a force to be reckoned with.
That’s a far cry from when its founder, Brian Davies, moved the fund to Cape Cod 30 years ago after repeatedly clashing with the Canadian government. Back then, IFAW was a virtual one-man band. It was adept at bold and often controversial public relations around the world, but the fund was growing only modestly – creating as many enemies as friends. Eventually, it decided to seek out a
CEO with international experience.
Enter O’Regan in 1997, with a $225,000-plus salary and the mission to enhance IFAW’s public imprint around the world with the same passion as a politician running for office. That often translates into sophisticated media and publicity campaigns.
Eight years later, O’Regan is making it a personal priority to also integrate the fund more broadly and deeply into the Cape’s economy and environment, which in many ways he equates as one and the same.
“Several years ago, we began investing in the local habitat. We worked with the Cape Cod Compact of Conservation Trusts and the Association to Preserve Cape Cod,” said O’Regan during a late afternoon meeting in his office overlooking a Hyannis pond. “Now we think we can influence Washington to help protect hot spots on the Cape.”
The local commitment also is reflected in the fund’s stubborn insistence to build its new headquarters here, despite – ironically – environmental regulations that have complicated the process and increased costs. A new 5.5-acre site is envisioned for IFAW’s headquarters that would accommodate up to 40,000 square feet of office space and as many as 150 staffers.
Meanwhile, O’Regan, who lives in West Barnstable, has become a new member of the Business Roundtable, an influential group of civic, business and environmental leaders focusing on how to protect the Cape’s bays and estuaries from mounting nitrates. That’s where he met Carr, who helped found the roundtable. He also sits on the board of directors for Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce.
“We have to have better branding on Cape Cod,” said O’Regan at a recent Harwich Chamber of Commerce reception. “People here know less [about] what we do than people in Japan.” To that end, IFAW is planning to use its research vessel, Song of the Whale, for local sailing trips this summer, inviting students, nonprofit officials, scientists, media and donors.
Maybe the most significant local step taken by IFAW is recruiting Carr, who has more time to devote to causes now that he has stepped down as CEO of Cape Cod Five.
“We would have reached out to Elliott regardless of where he lives,” said O’Regan. “He is adept at finances, and that is a real challenge for us since we must raise money in eight different countries and spend funds in 15 nations.” Each nation has different regulations and financial requirements, he pointed out. Beyond his financial acumen, Carr is a strong environmentalist, who has written a well-known book, “Walking the Shores of Cape Cod.”
“Three to five years from now, we expect to be far more integrated into the Cape Cod community,” said O’Regan, “even though we are internationally focused.”
The commitment is important for the Cape, considering that much of the fund’s U.S. effort currently focuses on Southern California, where the biggest donors live, including Pierce Brosnan and his wife, who together with stars like Leonardo DiCaprio, Goran Visnjic and Charlize Theron have become part of IFAW’s public face.
It also puts to rest any concerns that IFAW might abandon the Cape after falling short in its first effort four years ago to build a new headquarters. There were local impediments to the plans, recalled O’Regan. But a more significant roadblock turned out to be 9/11. “It took a bite out of donations,” he said, especially coming right after the Internet bubble burst and sent the stock market reeling.
“We’ve recovered fully now,” he added.
The future may mean more activity in California, New York City and the nation’s capital, but the core operation will remain on Cape Cod for three reasons:
IFAW’s staff is deeply entrenched here.
Broadband technology makes it possible to locate administrative and technology operations virtually anywhere.
Moving such a large and complex infrastructure would be very costly.
“I’ve looked at other organizations and many of them want to move out of cities because of the cost and security concerns,” said O’Regan. “We’re actually ahead of the curve.”
At the same time, IFAW encounters one serious problem by basing itself on Cape Cod, and it is the same one faced by businesses of all sizes: the availability of skilled, young talent.
“The biggest constraint we face is the high cost of housing,” O’Regan said. Even though IFAW pays an average salary of $60,000, it is sometimes not enough to compete with other locations that can provide more rental housing for young people.
That reality is making IFAW look to a new source of talent: older workers who may have retired to the Cape or are among the increasing numbers of 50-somethings departing the corporate world to move here for a better quality of life.
Running an $80 million enterprise
Melanie Powers didn’t have to worry about finding a home on Cape Cod when she joined IFAW as chief financial officer several years ago. She is a longtime resident who chose to commute every day to the Boston area so she could raise a family in Sandwich with her husband, Rick Presbrey, who heads the Housing Assistance Corporation here.
Her job is daunting, managing revenues that have grown from $55 million in 1997 to $78 million last year, while overseeing more than $70 million in spending. Making the challenge more complex is that Powers must manage 10 different IFAW companies, all of them not-for-profit, tax-exempt and/or public charities. Each operates under different accounting laws and nonprofit regulations in nearly as many foreign countries.
“Donors need to have a local company to relate to; local impacts for the money they contribute and local tax deductions,” she explained. “It means 10 separate books and an equal number of audits.”
Then there is the growing challenge of negotiating currency exchange rates. The U.S. dollar was declining precipitously for months earlier this year; now, the euro has weakened in the wake of France’s rejection of a European constitution. Guessing the wrong direction could be costly. To help her, Powers has, over the course of her tenure, sought out local expertise, including Brewster resident Andrew Kamarck, a former World Bank economist.
And in dealing with money, there is no way to avoid managing technology. More and more donations are made online; European countries have virtually eliminated paper checks and rely almost entirely on debit cards. That makes information technology critical to IFAW’s success – and a growing expense line, explained Powers.
Recently, the fund created a Web site in partnership with Kintera Inc., www.stopthesealhunt.com, as an online marketing tool, supplementing its highly sophisticated, multilingual main site, www.ifaw.org. With such help, the fund has experienced a 174 percent increase in donations and a 108 percent jump in online membership compared to a year earlier.
“Creating a specific site detailing our efforts to end the (seal) hunt helped us reach a much larger audience, many of whom were not aware of IFAW before,” said O’Regan. “As a result, an unprecedented number of people around the world sent action letters to the Canadian government, urging an end to this barbaric practice.”
With the growing need for revenues to support an array of international programs, Powers acknowledges the “struggle to always be true to your mission.”
Until recently, for example, IFAW would not accept government funding. That changed when it accepted $660,000 from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to assist Massachusetts lobstermen in replacing dangerous floating lines that ensnare the right whales.
The benefits of federal aid in this case outweighed the risks, IFAW officials emphasized, a point reinforced by Gary Ostrom, vice president of the Massachusetts Lobsterman’s Association. “I think this will be a major step in reducing entanglements, especially serious ones, while at the same time assisting lobstermen in meeting the financial challenge of modifying their gear,” said Ostrom.
Under O’Regan’s guidance, IFAW also has worked to diversify its funding sources beyond individual donors to include philanthropic foundations and corporations – from Shell to Zodiac.
At the same time, the fund works hard to avoid investing funds in companies that might be engaged in practices that endanger animals. “We have an absolute prohibition against corporations that conduct animal testing or sell alcohol and tobacco,” said Powers.
As a financial manager, Powers views economic development and environmental protection as interconnected. “You go into an African township to deal with an elephant problem. The issue to them is destruction of their crops. We have to mediate between the elephants’ welfare and the local economy.”
When IFAW stopped Mitsubishi’s plant in Baja, Mexico, it was a battle between creating needed jobs and saving whales. “We struggle with that all the time,” she said.
It is the balance between wildlife and the economy.
That makes IFAW a breed apart from a pure animal protection organization, said Ramage. “Our unique approach is to promote practical solutions that benefit both animals and people.”
To make his point, Ramage cited IFAW’s current efforts to protect the 300 remaining North Atlantic
right whales.
“Some groups take an animals-versus-people approach. We’re looking for win-wins. That’s why IFAW is working to replace thousands of miles of miles of dangerous floating trap lines with whale-friendly gear, leveraging more than $1 million to subsidize the transition and keep lobster fishermen in business.”
