Summer 2007

Standards and Practices made easy

There are several fundamental elements to running an effective, sustainable land trust organization. The Land Trust Alliance has compiled these fundamentals into a guidebook: Land Trust Standards and Practices.

These Standards and their related Practices relate to the two main components of running a non-profit conservation organization: operations and programs. One set of Standards provides guidance on maintaining an ethical, effective and efficient organizational structure, including fundraising, legal compliance and accountability. The complementary addresses how land conservation and management programs are implemented, funded and reviewed.

All land trusts should be familiar with Standards and Practices, and should have as one of their organizational goals the adoption of at least the most basic of these guidelines. Over the next several years, it will become increasingly important for land trusts to demonstrate adherence to Standards and Practices, as a national program for land trust accreditation is rolled out. This accreditation program is based on Standards and Practices and will involve an in depth review of how well an organization has implemented them.

As part of our program to help land trusts prepare to apply for accreditation, Gathering Waters Conservancy has assembled a set of sample organizational policies, procedures and template documents that pertain to each Standard in Land Trust Standard and Practices. These collections have been compiled with Wisconsin’s land trusts in mind; our goal is that we have selected the most relevant examples of the various elements of each Standard, rather than a random set of samples. We have included notes and commentary in many examples, to help you better determine their relevancy for your particular organization.

In each edition of Currents, we will present the compiled set for a particular Standard. This edition includes our set of documents for Standard 1: Mission --

“The land trust has a clear mission that serves a public interest, and all programs support that mission.”

Standard 1 deals with the reason for your organization’s work – why you do what you do. It also deals with the way in which you ensure that your programmatic actions are consistent with your goals. Visit our web page for these sample policies and procedures.

Gathering Waters Conservancy can help you organize your policies! Please contact Karen Bassler at karen [at] gatheringwaters.org or 608-251-9131 x 12 to learn more about our program designed to help land trusts review and update your policies and procedures.

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Strategic Conservation: Site Conservation Planning

Gathering Waters Conservancy announces a new online tool for land trusts: Site Conservation Planning Manual. This workbook includes direction for each step of the planning process, examples from actual plans, and where to go for more information. Available for download on our website, or call 608-251-9131 for a copy.

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Building Your Case for Support
by Sara DeKok, Member Relations Director

Before you can begin to raise money, your organization must state clearly why it exists and what it does. This is done through the creation of a “case statement.”

WHAT IS A CASE STATEMENT?
A case statement is a written document that describes in some detail the need an organization was set up to meet, the way the organization will meet that need, and the capacity of the organization to do so. This is an internal document for use by the staff, board, and key volunteers.

WHY DO I NEED ONE?
1. Helps define and focus an organization’s fundraising message.
2. Ensures that the information and philosophies that are presented by board members, staff and volunteers in their personal solicitations and interactions are consistent.
3. It reminds people why they are raising money – to do the important work of the organization.
4. A good case statement rallies people to the cause and reinvigorates staff and volunteers.

WHAT ARE THE ELEMENTS OF THE CASE STATEMENT?
The case statement includes the following components:

• A statement of mission that tells the world why the group exists.
• A description of goals that tells what the organization hopes to accomplish over the long term – in other words, what the organization intends to do about why it exists.
• A list of specific, measurable, and time-limited objectives that tells how the goals will be met.
• A summary of the organization’s history that shows that the organization is competent and can accomplish its goals.
• A description of the structure of the organization discussing board and staff roles and what kinds of people are involved in the group (such as land conservation professionals, lawyers, etc.).
• A fundraising plan.
• A financial statement for the previous fiscal year and a budget for the current fiscal year.

HOW IS A CASE STATEMENT DEVELOPED?
A case statement is usually developed by a small committee, but the board, staff and key volunteers must all agree on its contents. Parts of the case statement, such as the fundraising plan and budget, change every year. The entire document should be reviewed at least annually to ensure that everyone is still in agreement with its premises and that the words used still accurately describe what the organization is doing.

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State Acres for Wildlife Enhancement Initiative

On March 22, 2007, the Farm Service Agency (FSA) announced a new initiative to allow FSA State Offices to address local wildlife conservation needs. SAFE allows producers to install practices that benefit high priority State wildlife conservation objectives through the use of targeted restoration of vital habitat. This cooperative conservation effort is based on locally developed conservation proposals that address the highest priority wildlife objectives in the State before the practice may be implemented. The proposals will be considered by FSA State Committee (STC) after a review by the State Technical Committee. The FSA National Office will review all STC recommendations.

General Information
SAFE provides an opportunity to develop grassroots cooperative conservation projects to address high priority wildlife needs through habitat restoration. The practices must be used to address wildlife habitat that can be enhanced through the restoration of eligible cropland through the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). SAFE practices can be used to restore the following:

• threatened and endangered species habitat
• habitat for species that have suffered a significant population decline
  Examples: This could include species, such as Lesser Prairie Chicken, Sharp-Tailed Grouse, or Northern Bob White.
• habitat for species that provide significant social or economic value to the community.
  Note: This includes restoration of habitat for game species, such as pheasant or quail habitat, salmon or steelhead stream habitat, or for other economically significant species. SAFE practice proposals must afford measurable and tangible benefits to the desired species.

For more information about the SAFE program, visit the FSA website.

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Meadow Birds in Precipitous Decline, Audubon Says

Spreading suburbs and large-scale farming are contributing to a precipitous decline in once common meadow birds like the Northern bobwhite, the Eastern meadowlark, the loggerhead shrike and the field sparrow, a report released yesterday by the Audubon Society said.

Twenty common birds have lost more than half their populations in 40 years. The population of the bobwhite, a rotund robin-size bird that lives in meadows from the mid-Atlantic to the Plains, has dropped more than 80 percent, to 5.5 million from more than 31 million.

The evening grosbeak, with a range from northern New England to the Pacific Northwest, has declined 78 percent, to 3.8 million from 17 million.

The report covers a period when suburbs and exurbs were being carved out of Eastern and Midwestern farmlands and Southern wetlands. It also documents the loss of large numbers of Canadian and Arctic birds like the mallard-like greater scaup, the Northern pintail and the greater tern, all affected by a combination of climate change and development along lakes and rivers.

Read the full New York Times article

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I.R.S. Seeks More Charity Transparency

The Internal Revenue Service yesterday proposed a vast overhaul of the main tax form for charities, an effort to make it easier for the I.R.S. and the public to tell how much nonprofit groups are paying their executives and how much of their money goes toward fund-raising. The proposed changes to Form 990 also include separate schedules to help determine how much nonprofit hospitals actually spend on charity care and to provide more information about gifts of goods and services to charities.

Read the full New York Times article

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From Beaches to Pine Barrens, a Study Puts Values on New Jersey's Natural Assets

The New Jersey Pine Barrens are known for a lot of things: ghostly legends of a bat-winged Jersey Devil; weekend canoeing among mossy bogs; a place where Tony Soprano and company like to dump their dead.

The Pine Barrens, it turns out, also have an environmental value of about $1,476 an acre a year, based on their ability to provide the earth with water, animal habitat and pollination, according to a report being released today.

The report, by economists commissioned by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, tries to put a dollar value on the state's natural resources, from the Jersey Shore to the Kittatinny Mountains, to places like, well, Weehawken.

Read the full New York Times article

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Help Make the Tax Incentive Permanent

The current, generous Federal Income Tax incentives for conservation gifts have driven some remarkable land protection nation wide and here in Wisconsin.  These incentives will "sunset" -- or expire -- on December 31, 2007 unless Congress votes to extend them.   Making these incentives permanent will be a victory for conservation.  Congress needs to hear now that the current tax rules are beneficial and should be extended.  The Land Trust Alliance (LTA) has made it easy to contact your lawmakers about this important issue.  Visit LTA's web page for more information about the tax rules and contacting your federal legislators to urge them to support conservation by making those rules permanent. 

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Upcoming Events

Visit the Events section of the Gathering Waters website for more information about the following events:

Hosted by Gathering Waters Conservancy

9/20/07— Land Conservation Leadership Awards Celebration

Other Conferences and Events

8/4/07— North American Prairie Conference: The Prairie Meets the River
8/4/07— Introductory Wetland Restoration Workshop
9/6/07— 3rd Annual Great Lakes Restoration Conference
9/29/07— National Public Lands Day
10/3-6/07— National Land Conservation Conference: Rally 2007
10/05/07— 4th Annual Citizen-based Monitoring Conference
10/11/07— Leopold Restoration Awards Ceremony & Dinner
10/19/07— 4th Annual Grassroots Symposium: Lake Michigan Basin

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