Jumpstart Nature’s mission is to catalyze everyone to make a meaningful difference for the environment. “Everyone” is a big task! To make this tractable, we’ve developed a simple framework to assess where people are at in their own personal relationship with the environment.
On the ladder (on the right) we see some simplified labels. On the left, we see a sample of characteristics of people at that ladder level.
The ladder metaphor helps us assess where people are, and more importantly, why they are there. The above graphic only shows a small sample of reasons why someone has the relationship with nature that they do. But, this graphic at least begins to open our minds to the myriad reasons why people relate to nature in the way they do.
As we develop new media solutions, we consider which rungs of the ladder the solution is designed for, and what pressures cause them to be at a given rung.
Ladder Limitations
As the image depicts, some people may be trapped at a certain level due to economic pressures, such as no access to nature or needing to focus their time and energy on core survival and security. Solving these problems is outside the core expertise of Jumpstart Nature.
Also, we want to point out that the ladder metaphor does not mean to imply that everyone must reach the top. Rather, our vision is that everyone has the ability to use, seek, and ideally, find personal meaning in nature.