Reach Out and Save the Orangutans
Orangutan Outreach was founded in 2007 to bring attention to the crisis facing orangutans in the wild due to deforestation and the expansion of palm oil plantations into previously undisturbed areas of forest.
Based in New York City, the organization collaborates with partners throughout Borneo and Sumatra.
It has also built a strong grassroots online network with the philosophy that by giving people everywhere a platform from which to get involved and do their part to help protect orangutans we can save the red apes together.
Croeni Charity supported this initiative through a grant.
Impact
Our 2015 grant for Orangutan Outreach was used to support three key areas:
Expansion of the Orangutan SOCP Baby House
The SOCP Baby House is managed by the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Program and houses infant orangutans who had been orphaned due to deforestation and oil palm plantations expansion.
Subject to matching funding raised by Orangutan Outreach, the first part of our grant enabled them to launch a fundraising campaign via their website, newsletter and social media to fund the expansion of the Baby House in order to accommodate sudden influx of new infants.
The campaign was meant to last for a month, but was such a massive success that the target amount was exceeded in just 3 days. In total, the campaign generated almost USD6,000 in new funds, consisting of:
- 46 online donations totaling around USD3,700.
- 11 new adoptions of Megaloman and Nadya orangutans, each worth USD120.
- 2 check donations, with one for USD1,000.
Had the campaign ran for the whole month as originally planned, Orangutan Outreach estimates that it would have raised USD10,000 or more.
Core Website Development
The seconds portion of the grant was used to implement two long-overdue updates to Orangutan Outreach’s main website, www.redapes.org:
- A new payment gateway was added to supplement the existing donations via PayPal, in order to accommodate a growing number of international donors who did not want to use PayPal.
- The website’s layout was reworked and made responsive and mobile friendly across different devices and browsers.
Support of Partner Organizations Saving Orangutans
The last part of the grant was used to fund important partner organizations, Orangutan Information Centre (OIC) and Centre for Orangutan Protection (COP), both of which are small, Indonesian-run organizations without substantial international presence and thus brand recognition. Similarly, neither of them operates a rescue centre and hence cannot generated funds through orangutan adoptions.
OIC rescues Sumatran orangutans and brings them to SOCP for rehabilitation and re-release into safe areas of the forest. COP has a field team that monitors illegal forest destruction by palm oil companies in Borneo and rescues orangutans from these areas. Both organizations also have joint operations to catch illegal animal traffickers.
Croeni Charity 