Saving animals with venture-capital techniques

SAN FRANCISCO -- Some of the world's most famous conservationists will gather here this weekend to recruit volunteers and raise money through the Wildlife Conservation Network, which applies the techniques of the venture capital world to save endangered species.

The Network is the brain child of former Silicon Valley engineer Charlie Knowles, a Stanford grad who built an industrial software company, then sold it in the 1990s. He had the rare opportunity to retire in his 30s and ask himself what he wanted to do with the rest of his life.

His answer was to apply his business skills to help animals, a passion he developed as a child living in the country and raising pets in Illinois. His grandfather, who was born in Mexico and raised by German nuns, started an international company, Knowles said. His family also lived in England for a year.

"We all define our community differently," said Knowles, 49, of Los Altos Hills. "I've always felt more of a kinship with the world."

Founded in 2001 with conservationist John Lukas and Akiko Yamazaki, wife of Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, the Wildlife Conservation Network supports innovative conservation entrepreneurs on nearly all continents who are working on behalf of a variety of exotic animals -- elephants and cheetahs in Africa, snow leopards in Central Asia, and Andean cats in South America, among others.

To qualify for funding, conservationists must live in developing countries, be actively working to save threatened species and integrate the local community into their work. In return, they get office support like marketing and accounting as well as introductions to donors, volunteers and other conservationists.

The network also helps teach conservationists how to build nonprofit organizations.

"Conservation is needed at all levels, whether it's elephants or avocets here in the Bay Area," said Elizabeth Murdock, executive director of the Golden Gate Audubon Society.

The network has attracted support from some high-profile people over the years -- conservationist Jane Goodall, actress Isabella Rossellini, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and model Cindy Crawford all have spoken at fundraising events or worked for the organization.

Silicon Valley venture capitalists Steve Jurvetson and William Hearst III are donors, as is Microsoft, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, and Yahoo's Yang and his wife.

Supporters say the network is efficient -- it gives more than 90 percent of contributions to the groups it supports -- and the business model is unusual. No group is totally dependent on the network for support. Donors are encouraged to get to know the groups they contribute to and spend time with them in the field if possible. The groups coordinate with local governments to ensure their work gets established and will continue.

That local involvement has led to some interesting side projects. A group working in Zimbabwe tested its staff and discovered that about 40 percent of them were positive for HIV, Knowles said. Arrangements were made for free counseling and treatment, and the network is now rolling out this program to groups in other parts of Africa.

Being headquartered in Silicon Valley helps the network, Knowles said, because of the number of people here who come from somewhere else and have interesting ideas.

A chance meeting a couple of years ago between people from Google and one of the world's top elephant conservationists, Dr. Iain Douglas-Hamilton, led to Google modifying Google Earth so it could use GPS to track elephants in the wild.

But raising money has been harder than he anticipated, Knowles said. In general, people don't donate much to wildlife. Last year, the network had revenue of $2.1 million and ran a small deficit.

So the group will soon use its Web site to support more types of animals and match animals and donors the way Kiva, a San Francisco nonprofit, matches lenders with people in developing countries who need small amounts of money to start businesses.

Knowles came to wildlife conservation through a chance encounter. He read a story in the New York Times in 1993 about a woman in Oregon, Laurie Marker, who sold her possessions and moved with her husband to Namibia to save cheetahs from extinction.

"I had an epiphany about what I was going to do," Knowles said.

On the Web: www.wildnet.org

E-mail Deborah Gage at dgage(at)sfchronicle.com.

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)