Giving Compass' Take:

• Adele Peters reports on the inspiring story of people who saved a forest near Vancouver from logging by donating $3 million to a crowdfunding campaign.

• How can donors support crowdfunding for nonprofits? What can environmental funders do to help protect our world’s forests? 

• Read more about what crowdfunding means for philanthropy.

When a stretch of remote wilderness on the coast of British Columbia recently went up for sale, a local nonprofit wanted to save it from logging but didn’t have the cash to buy it. They negotiated a purchase price with the owners anyway—and then launched a crowdfunding campaign that successfully raised the $3 million needed to acquire the land.

“We knew that there had been interest and offers from forestry companies,” says Andrew Day, CEO of the BC Parks Foundation, which raised the money to purchase nearly 2,000 acres of forest on three adjacent parcels in the Princess Louisa Inlet, a fjord around 60 miles from Vancouver. “We were very familiar with the beauty of the inlet and these properties in particular, and felt that it was really important to try to step in and see what we could do. We were very lucky and appreciative the vendors gave us an exclusive purchase and sale agreement until the end of August. That gave us three months to try to pull off the impossible.”

Read the full article about saving forests from logging by Adele Peters at Fast Company.