ENVIRONMENTAL ORGANIZATION
Wilder Helps Presenters Speak Across Cultures

The Situation Environmentalists in Latin American and Caribbean organizations give presentations to people who visit their land preservation projects. These visitors are frequently prospective donors who, if motivated, would provide major funding.
English is most often the first language of the prospective donors, but not of the presenters. The speaker therefore has two problems. First, the potential donor must be able to understand, literally, the speaker's English. Second, prospective donors must be convinced that the project is worth funding.
These environmentalists are also frequent speakers in their own countries. Some of them travel the world telling the story of their preservation project, usually with slides. Although the slides are pretty, they are not organized around key points that reinforce the major theme of the presentation. Audiences are therefore left without specific reference points that linger in the mind after the presentation.
The Wilder Process Wilder Presentations offered a 1-day seminar during a weeklong conference for environmentalists from 22 countries. To make the most of classroom time, we sent pre-work to participants in advance. They came prepared to give an overview of their preservation project.
Wilder designed an organizational format that solved some of the environmentalists' presentation problems. This format structured presentation content to include very specific information about conservation problems, short- and long-term strategies for solving them, and what the listener could do to help. We also actively encouraged speakers to practice their English presentations in front of the group. The feedback they received helped them overcome their self-consciousness about accented or less-than-perfect English.
The Results

• The environmentalists now organize their slides and examples for the purpose of raising funds, not just to show gorgeous pictures and entertain the audience.
• Participants feel confident about their delivery, especially when speaking English. Their confidence in raising funds has increased accordingly.
• They use the session information and practice exercises to train their own staffs.
• They are now prepared to easily give a two-minute to one-hour talk on their land preservation project.