LEAPing on Over to Rally

GWC is proud to announce that we’ve awarded scholarships to eight of our land trust members to attend Rally, 2011, the national land trust conference in Milwaukee this fall.

The land trusts receiving scholarships include:

• Baird Creek Preservation Foundation
• Baraboo Range Preservation Association
• Driftless Area Land Conservancy
• Glacial Lakes Conservancy
• Northwoods Land Trust
• The Prairie Enthusiasts
• Tall Pines Conservancy
• West Wisconsin Land Trust

We’re awarding these scholarships as part of our commitment to making land trusts stronger through the Land Trust Excellence & Advancement Program (LEAP).  These scholarships have been awarded through our LEAP universally-available services.  We’re also working on customized services with six land trusts right now and plan to bring more into the program later this year.

Now more than ever we’re committed to standards of excellence in land trust work.  Click through to support our efforts to help land trusts protect the places that make Wisconsin special.

Federal Tax Incentive Needs Our Support

Legislation to make the federal tax incentive for the donation of conservation easements permanent has an incredible 260 co-sponsors in the House (H.R. 1964)!  That’s more co-sponsors than any other bill that’s currently pending before Congress.  The Senate version of the tax incentive bill has 11 co-sponsors (S. 339).  The Land Trust Alliance has spearheaded the advocacy effort on this legislation nationally, but they always need help at the state and local level.  See this fact sheet for more information.

Wisconsin’s Congressional delegation really needs to hear from land trust leaders and their constituents on this important issue – Representatives Kind, Baldwin, and Moore have signed on to the bill, but Representatives Ryan, Sensenbrenner, Petri, Duffy and Ribble have not.  Neither of Wisconsin’s U.S. Senators – Johnson or Kohl – are cosponsors either.

You can reach Members of Congress by calling the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121.  When you get through to a Member’s office, ask for the staffer who handles tax issues, and let them know how important this tax incentive is to land conservation in your local community and to your conservation work.  If landowners in your area have benefited from the easement incentive, please share their stories!

The enhanced federal tax incentive for conservation easement donations is set to expire at the end of 2011, unless it is extended or made permanent.  A permanent tax incentive would create predictability for landowners who are trying to plan for the future, and would significantly bolster private land conservation nationwide.

We know that land trusts are strategic with their time and resources, particularly when deciding to engage in public policy advocacy, but every land trust – large or small, staffed or all-volunteer – can help the broader conservation community by developing relationships with their elected officials.  In an effort to enhance the role of land trusts as policy advocates, Gathering Waters recently partnered with the Land Trust Alliance to host a one-day training in La Crosse, Wisconsin, called Advocating for Success – How do I get from here to there?  This workshop provided land trust leaders with an opportunity to learn from LTA and GWC staff, to hear from an in-district staffer for Representative Ron Kind, and to talk to their peers about making their advocacy efforts more efficient and effective.  Stay tuned for more opportunities like this in the future.

LEAP is Underway!

By Kate Zurlo-Cuva

In January we kicked off the Land Trust Excellence and Advancement Program and are pleasantly surprised by the tremendous positive momentum we have garnered in the land trust community.  Our two years of preparation and development are coming to fruition this summer – we’ve kicked off our first round of customized services grants and have made new trainings universally available to Wisconsin land trusts.

MaryKay O’Donnell from the Land Trust Alliance (our program partner) and I have been furiously aligning our resources for services with the six land trusts receiving an assessment, implementation plan, and a grant to reach a major goal.  Just this past week alone we had the pleasure of beginning an implementation plan on a gorgeous sunny day for the Green Lake Conservancy with a porch-side view of Green Lake itself, began the guided organizational assessment process for the Ozaukee Washington Land Trust, and initiated a path to accrediting the Ice Age Trail Alliance.

Green Lake Conservancy board members, Kate, & MaryKay celebrate planning success over lunch

Each of these organizations is the recipient of a multi-year commitment from GWC and the Land Trust Alliance for mentoring, coaching, and improvement activities – these services total nearly $20,000!  The land trust community has collectively pledged a commitment to perpetual land protection and we take this very seriously.  We feel striving for excellence is the key to our future success.

We’ll continue to develop new opportunities to learn from experts in the field as well as our peers in the Wisconsin land trust community.  And, we’ll open up a new period for applications to the customized suite of services for land trust excellence at the end of the year.

Later this year, we’ll head to Lac du Flambeau to tackle a few goals with the Northwoods Land Trust. We’ll also carry out guided organizational assessments with Natural Heritage Land Trust and the Prairie Enthusiasts.

Please support our efforts to strive for excellence in the land trust community.  Your contribution can make the difference in a land trust becoming nationally accredited, contribute to vital trainings to bring land trusts up to industry standards, and assist us with meeting our mission of protecting the places that make Wisconsin special.

We’re Awarding Six Wisconsin Land Trusts with Capacity-Building Grants

Beyond the universal services, these six land trusts will receive customized services in the coming year including a guided organizational assessment, implementation plan, individualized mentoring and coaching, and a discretionary grant for use on a major project such as preparation for national land trust accreditation status.

The six land trusts receiving grants include:

• Green Lake Conservancy Foundation
• Ice Age Trail Alliance
• Kettle Moraine Land Trust
• Natural Heritage Land Trust
• Northwoods Land Trust
• Ozaukee Washington Land Trust

For 17 years, we have provided a variety of universal services to land trusts.  LEAP builds on and enhances this tradition of quality support to land trusts.  In fact, next Thursday all land trust staff and board members are invited to attend a Webinar on board member evaluations, and an in-person workshop on Tax Benefits for land trust work will be held on June 21^st in Madison.  We will be unveiling more of our universal services through LEAP in the next year.

Our next round of customized services applications will be announced later this fall and we’ll continuously update and refine our universal services to land trusts.

We are thankful to the following organizations for their support of LEAP: The C.S. Mott Foundation, The Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation , The Forest County Potawatomi Foundation, The McKnight Foundation, The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, and Wisconsin Energy Foundation.

Three WI Land Trusts in the Running for National Honor

We’re pleased to announce that Mississippi Valley Conservancy, Bayfield Regional Conservancy, and Caledonia Conservancy have submitted applications to the Land Trust Accreditation Commission.  Our hats are off to you!

See a video we made about the process and hear testimonials from these land trust leaders.

This status demonstrates proof that a land trust is operating beyond reproach in a series of operational and programmatic standards and practices. Independent accreditation provides the assurance of quality and permanence of land conservation the public is looking for and publicly recognizes a land trust’s ability to protect important natural places and working lands forever.

The invitation to apply comes after many months, often years, of work revising policy, updating records, and fund-raising to ensure perpetual agreements are upheld.

There is currently only one accredited land trust in WI, Kinnickinnic River Land Trust, so these three applicants are significant!  Each of these organizations has had connections with and received services from GWC and the Land Trust Alliance as recently as this year.  As we look ahead to meeting our goals for the Land Trust Excellence and Advancement Program (LEAP), we’re proud to share with you these accomplishments that align so squarely with our commitment to land trust excellence.

More information on the Land Trust Accreditation Commission can be found here.

LEAP Year

Happy new year from Gathering Waters!  As we settle back in to our routines and look ahead to the opportunities on 2011′s horizon, we’re thrilled to announce that Gathering Waters Conservancy (GWC) is launching a new, ambitious program to raise the ships of all Wisconsin land trusts.

Working toward our shared goal of land trust excellence, GWC has partnered with the Land Trust Alliance (the Alliance) – the national organization working to strengthen land trusts – to create Wisconsin’s Land Trust Excellence and Advancement Program (LEAP).

The goals of LEAP are to:

- Strengthen individual land trusts

- Strengthen the fabric of the land trust community statewide

- Advance strategic, collaborative conservation

- Prepare land trusts for Accreditation

Through LEAP, GWC and the Alliance will promote collaborations among land trusts and conservation partners, provide peer-to-peer mentoring to strengthen land trusts and the land trust community, and foster excellence among larger groups of individual land trusts through integrated capacity building services.

LEAP promises to provide land trusts staff and board members with the knowledge and organizational capacity that perpetual conservation demands.

WHY COLLABORATE?

GWC and the Alliance bring different, but complementary expertise to the LEAP program.  The Land Trust Alliance has developed and implemented excellence programs nationwide and brings valuable experience to the table.  Over the past 16 years, Gathering Waters Conservancy has built a strong foundation of trust and support on the local level with Wisconsin’s land trust community.

Now, we see an opportunity to coordinate our complementary services and, in doing so, channel more financial resources to Wisconsin’s land trusts than we have in the past.  By employing a coordinated, formal approach of integrated services, GWC and LTA will strengthen each partner’s mission.  Additionally, they’ll ensure that program benefits will be realized through increased efficiency of service to the Wisconsin land trust community and, by extension, the private land conservation movement.

OUR GOALS

Our overall goal is excellence, but LEAP programming is not prescriptive.  Wisconsin’s land trusts are as diverse as the landscapes they protect.  LEAP’s goals are to help participating organizations define their own path to excellence and pursue it.  GWC and the Alliance will provide support and guidance, whether excellence means Land Trust Accreditation, an agreement to combine resources with neighboring land trusts, or completion of a first strategic plan.

Wisconsin has approximately 50 land trusts that protect more than 200,000 acres of land, but to date only one has attained accreditation: the Kinnickinnic River Land Trust.  The gap in land trusts pursuing accreditation is due in part to a lack of resources available to help them prepare.  LEAP will provide the technical assistance necessary to help Wisconsin land trusts fully implement national Land Trust Standards and Practices, a pre-requisite for accreditation.

We expect that, through LEAP, Wisconsin land trusts will make great gains in overall capacity and capability.  Our goal is that in the next three years:

- 12 land trusts will take significant steps forward in improving their organizations as full participants in the program

- 4-6 land trusts will be accredited or be ready to apply for accreditation

- 200 land trust professionals and board members will have been trained on a variety of technical and organizational management topics

And, our overarching goal is that after these three years, the land trust community in Wisconsin will be stronger, more cohesive, and invested in long-term peer learning opportunities.

Gathering Waters Conservancy would like to thank the following organizations for becoming early supporters of the LEAP program.  If you’d like to support LEAP, please visit our website to make a tax deductible donation.

• The C.S. Mott Foundation
• The Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation
• The Forest County Potawatomi Foundation
• The McKnight Foundation
• The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
• Wisconsin Energy Foundation