About
Make a Difference Week Is Held in Conjunction With:
Make a Difference Week Is supported by:
SER’s Global Week of Restoration
Make a Difference Week is an annual week-long event hosted by the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER), a global non-profit organization that works to advance the science, practice, and policy of ecological restoration to sustain biodiversity, improve resilience in a changing climate, and re-establish an ecologically healthy relationship between nature and culture.
Through Make a Difference Week, individuals and organizations from across the globe are able to host and participate in restorative local volunteer events, including weed pulls, seed collections, plantings, and restoration monitoring surveys. By facilitating participation in these events, Make a Difference Week empowers individuals to make positive changes in their local communities while simultaneously engaging in collective restorative action at the global scale. This initiative also allows organizations who host events to better attract volunteers and increase the impact of their restoration activities.
Make a Difference Week is just one facet of SER’s extensive work in the field of ecological restoration. Since its inception in 1988, SER has sought to advance the discipline through policy engagement, development of publications and guidance documents, facilitation of knowledge-sharing, and certification of both restoration projects and practitioners. SER has a membership base of over 5,000 individuals and institutions from around the world, representing a diverse group of academics, researchers, practitioners, artists, economists, advocates, legislators, regulators, and others who are actively involved in ecological restoration.
Learn more about SER and the benefits of membership below.
An Annual Event With a Global Impact
Given the nature of our mission, SER feels a unique responsibility to address the environmental impact of our World Conferences and contribute positively to the ecological health of the host destinations. In the past, one day of our in-person conferences was designated as Make a Difference Day, which consisted of a hands-on volunteer event for conference participants hosted at a restoration site near the conference venue. By participating in Make a Difference Day, participants got a first-hand look at restoration priorities in the local context while giving back to the host region.
In conjunction with the launch of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration in 2021, however, SER decided to permanently transition Make a Difference Day into Make a Difference Week, a week in June during which anyone around the world can host or participate in a volunteer restoration event as part of a collective global movement. By expanding the scope of this event, SER has created a framework in which the local impacts of small-scale volunteer events can combine to produce large-scale restorative change. And thus, Make a Difference Week was formally launched in June 2021.
Explore The Impact
Learn More About SER's Impact
Interested in the full impact of Make a Difference Week and SER’s other work in the field of ecological restoration? Read our most recent Annual Report.
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