Since day one, 1% of every WildYard sale has gone to environmental nonprofits through 1% for the Planet. Until now we couldn't tell you exactly where it landed. Now we can.
WildYard has chosen Bird Conservancy of the Rockies as the first of our 2026-2027 nonprofit partners. Your 1% goes to them.
Who they are
Bird Conservancy of the Rockies is a Colorado-based 501(c)(3) founded in 1988, originally as the Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory. Their mission is the conservation of birds and their habitats through an integrated approach of science, education and land stewardship. Their vision is a future where birds are forever abundant, contributing to healthy landscapes and inspiring human curiosity and love of nature.
Their headquarters is the Old Stone House Environmental Learning Center at Barr Lake State Park in Brighton, Colorado, roughly 15 miles northeast of Denver. The park is an important stopover for birds migrating along North America's Central Flyway. They also keep offices in Fort Collins, Colorado and Scottsbluff, Nebraska, and their work radiates from the Rockies to the Great Plains, Mexico and beyond.
Their own line sums it up: "We believe the world needs birds."
What they do
Science. They run the second largest breeding bird monitoring program in North America, stretching across private and public lands. Their migration ecology program uses tracking technology to follow bird movement, address threats and inform recovery across the full annual cycle. Birds work as an indicator of environmental change, so the data has a reach well beyond the species being counted.
Education. Bird banding stations, bird camps, school programs and community outreach, built as outdoor and classroom learning for all ages. This is where a kid sees a songbird up close before it's released.
Land stewardship. They work with landowners of all kinds, who provide habitat for birds and other wildlife as well as food and fiber for people. The premise is that healthy wildlife habitat and human communities can co-exist on the same ground.
Partnerships. More than 250 agencies, businesses, nonprofits and universities work with them on bird and habitat conservation, including the Central Grasslands Roadmap Initiative and the Sustainable Grazing Network.
Community science. They also run programs that let people contribute to bird conservation in their own community, from the Bald Eagle Watch to volunteering at banding stations.
Why them
They work the way we build: science-backed, species-specific and open to anyone who's curious. No expertise required to take part, and no guilt attached to learning as you go.
The stewardship piece matters to us too. A WildYard habitat gives a species a place to live in your backyard. Their fieldwork looks after the grasslands and flyways those same species use for the rest of the year. The two ends meet.
For the record on where the money lands: Bird Conservancy holds a four-star rating from Charity Navigator and a Platinum seal on Candid, and is itself a 1% for the Planet nonprofit partner.
What happens next
Your 1% is already at work with them. We've got more conservation news coming, and we'll share it here as it lands.
If you want to go deeper, their site is the best place to start: birdconservancy.org.
For the birds,
The WildYard Team
