Thousands of students have uncovered bugs, learned about wildlife tracks and discovered their place in the natural world with Durango Nature Studies, in part because Executive Director Sally Shuffield’s efforts to grow the nonprofit over the last decade.
“Getting kids learning outside in the real world is so different than finding a YouTube video on something. ... It’s a way to get kids actually thinking about their connection to the natural world,” she said.
When Shuffield, 50, started as the executive director of Durango Nature Studies about 10 years ago, she wanted to make the small and struggling nonprofit an integral part of the community. She is confident as she prepares to leave on June 15 that she’s achieved her goal.
“It does feel very stable and beloved in the community,” she said.
At the beginning of her tenure, Shuffield ran the nonprofit with a program manager, and the two offered school programs that teachers could participate in.
To reach more people and raise money, Shuffield decided she had to have more programs, and over the years she added summer camps, after school clubs and workshops for adults. Last year, the nonprofit reached 9,620 people.
In 2011, a grant allowed it to offer students in Durango School District 9-R the opportunity to take a field trip the nonprofit’s Nature Center each year and learn about wildlife and the environment. Durango Nature Studies has also brought in students from around the region as it has grown.
It has sparked students’ curiosity and helped pull students outdoors after they get home and brought them back to the center for camps.
“A lot of kids have to be taught how to explore nature,” she said.
As students come back year after year, they gain a sense of ownership over the center. It’s an experience her own kids, Carson Matz, 15, and Celia Matz, 8, have also enjoyed.
Outdoor environmental education can also help alleviate depression and reduce obesity while increasing science test scores, Shuffield said.
The school program solidified the nonprofit’s niche in the community and helped increase interest in its extracurricular activities, so when the grant funding ended, Shuffield raised money to preserve it so kids across the district would have the same experiences.
“I really feel like we are a model for the state and that might be the next step – to train other organizations to do what we do,” she said.
As the organization has grown, Shuffield has shifted into a more traditional executive director role, overseeing five staff members and 40 volunteers.
Building the organization let her be the public persona of the nonprofit, and allowed her to apply the writing, public speaking, environmental and nonprofit management skills she learned before she moved to Durango.
She had toured as a professional folk musician for seven years and recorded three CDs, including one that charted nationally.
When she arrived in Durango with her family, she was ready to stop touring and so she made a list of the three places that she would want to work, including Durango Nature Studies.
“The next day there was an ad in the paper for a position,” she said.
The job let her pitch people, a skill she learned playing guitar professionally and drew on her prior experience.
Shuffield worked for six years as the development director and acting director of the Land and Water Fund of the Rockies, now known as Western Resource Advocates, in Boulder where she learned nonprofit management. She also worked for the Colorado-based Keystone Science School, Calwood Environmental Education Center, and the National Wildlife Federation.
With bachelor’s and master’s degrees in anthropology, one of her favorite topics to teach was human prehistory at Durango Nature Studies.
Leaving the nonprofit doesn’t mark the beginning of Shuffield’s retirement. She plans to look for another position eventually. But she is taking time off to have adventures with her family and perhaps play guitar a bit more.
mshinn@durangoherald.com
