What We Do
At Lacy Consulting Services, we use applied environmental social science and robust relationship building to better understand the communities and partners impacted by conservation outcomes. We ensure the results are usable to your organization so that you come away with concrete, immediate next steps integrating equity into your work. We also train your staff to better integrate equity into conservation planning. Contact us today to get started.
What We offer
Our services fall into a few different categories. Get in touch and see what we can do for you!
JEDI Workshops
4- to 12-hour interactive workshops around a variety of topics
J.E.D.I. Presentations
2-hour educational overviews of a variety of topics
Social Science Projects
In-depth social science analysis and reports
Speaking Engagements
Request-based educational overviews of various topics
Building and Sustaining Trust Workshop or Presentation
With staff, LCS will help identify possible actions that your organization can take to increase and sustain trust. This will be based on LCS's extensive background and research into the social science of the connection between trust and conservation success. We will be utilizing a framework created by Professor Marc Stern called The Trust Ecology.
JEDI 101 Workshop or Presentation
This workshop or presentation is aimed at internal staff and will be intended to provide a common framework and shared vocabulary for considering and acting on JEDI principles.
Qualitative Social Science Project
This project will take into account the equity and social issues surrounding a current or planned project at your organization. It may include focus groups, 1-on-1 interviews, town halls, literature reviews, and anything else that will help you understand your community of stakeholders. The report will include potential pitfalls and recommendations for implementation.
Social Science Subject Matter Consultation
If you are implementing a social science project or designing a conservation project and want it to be sensitive to a particular sociological theory or framework, our social science department is trained in and familiar with multiple literatures, including conservation social science, environmental justice, and trust ecology. In addition, the team has experience with both qualitative and quantitative methodologies.
JEDI in Conservation Planning Workshop or Presentation
This workshop or presentation will take the information and lessons learned from the LCS's work (here) and incorporate them to propel your organization into a process to effectively incorporate JEDI into the Conservation Planning Process. This ensures that the JEDI work keeps momentum, and staff can see the J.E.D.I. commitments incorporated into an organizational structure.
Disability and the Outdoors Workshop
This workshop introduces your staff to modern thinking around disability, ablism, and conservation. We will dive into the social model of disability and the most common barriers to including disabled people in conservation work. Staff will come away with a deeper understanding of the intersectionality of identities, both in others and themselves, and a customized toolkit for creating sustainable conservation initiatives that intentionally include disabled communities.
Social Science Gap Analysis Report
The analysis covers the performance of your company or organization to determine if objectives are being met, and if not, what measures should be taken to meet them. The process is a comparison of the company or organization’s current programming with its future goals. The results highlight areas of improvement, potential knowledge gaps, and opportunities for expansion so that programming may align with future goals.
Listen, Empower, Transform Workshop or Presentation
We will look at the science of how to effectively listen to communities that have been marginalized, empower local collaborators, and transform the relationship between conservation groups and communities away from transaction and towards relational. This powerful workshop will give you the tools you need to effectively take your J.E.D.I. learning and apply them in a way that will transform how conservation gets done at scale.
LGBTQ in Conservation Workshop
This workshop serves as both an introduction to LGBTQ+ communities and as a primer on creating conservation strategies that include these communities. This is based on social research and the lived experiences of the LCS team within conservation spaces. We will review terminology, intersectionality, the history of LGBTQ+ people in conservation, and how to become not just an ally, but an accomplice.
Social Science Demographic Report
The report provides a summary of readily available population data for the population(s) or area(s) of project interest. This information is useful in providing background socioeconomic information for factors such as age, race, sex, income, employment, and education to gain baseline insight on the population(s) or area(s) of interest prior to a project.