JENNY O'DONNELL

I’m the Fundraising Director at WWF and my role, together with my team, is to inspire Australians to donate to our conservation work. Every day I am touched by the warmth and generosity of our wonderful supporters who, each time we reach out, respond with their encouragement and donations, enabling our on-ground teams to give some of our most threatened Australian species a chance to recover. One of the highlights of my job was to visit the rocky outcrop of Nangeen Hill in Western Australia, where the population of black-flanked rock-wallabies was decimated by foxes and feral cats. I spoke to our on-ground partners there who were concerned that the tiny remaining population of five rock-wallabies could be extinct within months. We put out an urgent call to our supporters for help and they gave, first to help build a predator-proof fence – then they gave more to replant feeding grounds. Just three years later 39 black-flanked rock-wallabies were living on Nangeen Hill; 15 of the females with pouch young or joeys by their sides! There is so much work to be done to save endangered species worldwide, and before joining WWF I had no idea how many species were dying out in our own backyard! Every time we celebrate a success with our partners and supporters, I am reminded of the famous quote by Sir Peter Scott, WWF’s Founder: “We shan’t save all we should like to, but we shall save a great deal more than if we had never tried.”