Donation Doubling Days!
Dear friends and followers of BRC,
Today – March 1st 2022 – marks the start of our 3rd and final spring count in Batumi. A historic day, which also marks the start of our final sprint to complete the crowdfunding for the BRC autumn count of 2022. Of course, it feels strange to make this announcement while Ukraine is suffering an invasion from the same aggressor that invaded Georgia during the summer of the first Batumi Raptor Count in 2008. However, it is precisely by celebrating our common values, such as the love for nature and birds, that we can create strong friendships across national and cultural borders, and build a more peaceful future.
Since we started our campaign late December, we have been fortunate to receive 192 donations totalling 17.200EUR. That means we are tantalisingly close to reaching our 20.000EUR target. Close … but no count just yet!
In order to help us reach our fundraising target, our long-time friends at the Ornithological Society of the Middle East, the Caucasus and Central Asia (OSME) now generously offered to match all donations made between March 1st – 15th, up to a total of 2000EUR!
In other words: by making a donation in the coming days, you can make every euro you donate count double! More than ever, now is the time to step up and support your favourite raptor migration project.
The BRC community already showed great strength by helping us get so far in our crowdfunding efforts. But we do need to reach the 20K target in order to continue our long-term raptor migration monitoring in Georgia – which offers a unique tool to monitor raptor populations in the East African-Eurasian flyway, and remains the backbone for all the other good work we do in Georgia. The sooner we reach our fundraising target, the sooner we can guarantee the autumn count for 2022, and the more energy and time we can invest in additional efforts to counter raptor persecution in Georgia.
Yours in raptor research and conservation, for the love of birds and people,
The Batumi Raptor Count team
Count Coordinators for Autumn 2022
We are still raising funds, but preparations for the BRC Autumn Count of 2022 have started. The count will run from the 12th of August until the 21st of October. We are searching for brave count coordinators to lead the team of raptor counters in one of the most magnificent bottlenecks in the world.
If you are interested in the position, please continue reading for more information and submit your application by the 31st of March.
PS. Applications to volunteer counter positions will be opened in April.
World-class migration monitoring at Batumi soars or falls with your support!
Dear raptor enthusiast,
Over the past years we have been getting more and more surprised reactions from volunteers and visitors about the fact that Batumi Raptor Count is a 100% volunteer-based organisation. “How can it be that this world-class migration count is run by people in their spare time?” And they are right to be surprised! The fact of the matter is that our monitoring work is of extraordinary quality, delivering unique data to detect trends in the abundance, demography and migration timing of otherwise poorly known raptor populations. Our open and transparent data collection and sharing procedures far exceed common standards for bird observatories worldwide. At the same time we have provided numerous young people from around the world with life-changing and career-defining experiences in raptor research and conservation. Our migration counts and physical presence in Georgia also serve as the platform from which we have run numerous education and conservation projects in the past.
For thirteen years we have managed to keep the counts going without big crowdfunding efforts. However, despite the fact that long-term monitoring is critical to understand how bird populations are faring in our rapidly changing world, structural funding for monitoring schemes such as ours is very hard, if not impossible, to find. Until now we have been able to get by on grassroots conservation grants, support from loyal sponsors like Swarovski Optik and OSME, t-shirt sales, donations from ecotourism operators and members of the public, and last but not least: thousands of hours of unpaid work by 395 volunteers from dozens of countries. However, times are a changin, and now that BRC is entering its 14th year of continued monitoring efforts the moment has come to tell you loud and clear: the Batumi Raptor Count soars or falls with your support. The best way to ensure our world-class monitoring work can continue is to donate generously to our charitable cause!
Asking for money is never fun. But we believe we have earned our place as a respectable, reliable, and resilient organisation that helps make the world a better place for raptors. So here is the deal: we need 20.000EUR per year to run our autumn count, and the only way we have left to get it is by asking for your support. If we do not get the required amount before June 2022, there will not be a raptor count in Georgia next autumn. However, given our large international base of supporters and followers, we believe it should be possible to raise this amount through an annual crowdfunding campaign, the first of which will run from Dec 2021 through May 2022.
On the crowdfunding page you will find more details on what the money will be used for exactly. On average, 200EUR funds one day of high-quality counts. With 130EUR you fund a one-week participation of a young Georgian conservationist. So what are you waiting for? Please, help us circulate this message widely, and let’s get the funds we need asap. The sooner we get our budgets together, the better our team can focus on organizing a high-quality count, producing important research, and organising valuable education and conservation work in parallel to the counts, instead of wasting our time competing with other conservation groups for small grants. Your donation makes a massive difference to us, and you know we’ll use it wisely!
Warm wishes,
Batumi Raptor Count team