There is no project success without a good story
Every project story is like a little seedling. You need to find a suitable site to plant it and a community that provides shelter. With the help of a continuous supply of water and light, your story will eventually grow into a strong tree with many branches. If we find sufficient space for our story it will give birth to a new forest.
For almost 8 years, OpenForests has been working with many forestry and conservation projects from around the world. Every single one of these projects has an exciting and unique story to tell. But just a few organizations spend a considerable effort to tell it. And only a tiny fraction is telling its story in an authentic, engaging and compelling way, fully playing out this asset.
Instead of closely engaging with stakeholders like donors, investors, product purchasers, and the public, e.g. by showing and sharing exciting and valuable project insights, organizations hold back all that what makes a great story. Valuable information is locked in static PDF reports, while even the impact of such reports is questionable, as we usually do not find the time to study them.
We further observe that high-quality projects are spending considerable resources on adhering to standards and certification. Instead of emphasizing their own exciting story, organizations often focus their communication and marketing efforts on highlighting achievements based on generic standards and certification such as the issuance of carbon credits. While it is certainly good to invest in independent third-party verifications for social and environmental benchmarks, little resources are spent on telling a unique project story.
But what if instead of fully focusing on the certification and carbon unit itself, the multiple positive contributions of a carbon credit, donation or investment are also emphasized with the same weight in communication? How will people react if they can virtually see that their contribution is transforming the degraded bare land into a green oasis with diverse animals and plants, and is helping local communities live a dignified life? In the end, a healthy and sustainably managed forest is more than a simple carbon sinking machine.
These are the important considerations that have kept our team busy in the latest years and inspired the development of explorer.land, a platform enabling projects to focus on unique storytelling while connecting with like-minded organizations and stakeholders from around the world.
With the vision of continuous improvement and enrichment with cutting edge technologies we want to hold a space where projects and their stories receive deserved attention from the OpenForests team, our community, and the public in general.
Therefore, selection of the projects will go through a careful assessment based on their unique story, communication skills, and sustainability criteria.
Only a limited number of high-quality projects will be selected.
If you believe that your project has a great story to tell, then please register for a free account.
