A partnership with Iowa Soybean Association and National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to scale the number of on-farm consultations made by local conservation coordinators. 

THE ISSUE: Resource constraints limit conservation consultations 

Conservation partners across the Raccoon watershed in Iowa face resource constraints that limit their ability to meet with farmers to generate demand for conservation services, like technical consulting on edge of field practices. Organizations rely on consultations with farmers to promote complex conservation practices and infrastructure, such as bioreactors, due to their nature. If partners are limited in the amount of consultations they can hold, then the number of best management practices they can recommend and ultimately get implemented is limited. 

OUR SOLUTION: Generate demand for conservation services   

We partnered with Iowa Soybean Association and others to undertake a cross-platform demand generating communication and outreach campaign, and to provide actionable intelligence to  conservation coordinators for how to target their time and effort. In addition to linking interested farmers to conservation specialists in the watershed directly, the central component of the program used campaign engagement data to segment the watershed’s farmers into groups – ranking them from most likely to want a conservation consultation to least likely – and helping watershed partners prioritize their outreach to farmers most likely to meet with them

WHAT’S NEXT?: Using integrated digital campaigns can enable shortcuts for resource constrained organizations  

Digital engagement data can provide cost-effective ways for organizations to prioritize their outreach, especially if time/resources are limited.