Ensuring that conserved lands remain protected in perpetuity requires careful financial planning. These Stewardship Reserve Calculators help land trusts estimate the funds needed to support the long-term stewardship of a property, including monitoring, legal defense, and management costs. These tools provide data-driven projections to help land trusts set realistic financial goals and ensure the sustainability of their conservation commitments.
Strong, well-crafted conservation easements are essential for protecting land in perpetuity. This collection of model easements provides land trusts with a solid foundation for drafting agreements that are legally sound, adaptable, and enforceable. Whether you’re working on a new easement or ensuring compliance with best practices, these resources offer expert-vetted guidance to get you and your attorney started on drafting a conservation easement.
Understanding nonprofit governance is crucial for land trusts, and the Connecticut Nonstock Corporation Act provides the legal foundation for how nonprofits operate in the state. This resource links directly to the full text of the Act, offering guidance on board responsibilities, member rights, and organizational compliance. Whether you’re forming a new land trust, updating bylaws, or navigating governance questions, this is a key reference for ensuring your organization stays legally sound.
Strong policies are the foundation of a well-run land trust. CLCC’s Sample Policy Library provides a collection of ready-to-use templates covering governance, land stewardship, financial management, and more. Whether your land trust is refining existing policies or drafting new ones, these samples offer a valuable starting point to ensure best practices and compliance with Land Trust Standards & Practices. Use this resource to streamline policy development and strengthen your organization’s operations.
A collaboration of the Land Trust Alliance and Connecticut Land Conservation Council, the Connecticut Risk Management Initiative was created help land trusts ensure the permanency of their work by understanding and identifying risk, and assessing current risk management strategies through a series of online training sessions. Risk management is all about helping land trusts cope with uncertainty, and includes examining areas of potential risk within the organization including governance, financial practices, land transactions, stewardship, and programming.
Together, land trusts have established a set of guidelines for how to run a land trust responsibly: Land Trust Standards and Practices. These guidelines describe how to operate a land trust legally, ethically and in the public interest, with a sound program of land transactions and land stewardship.
Land trusts developed the first Standards in 1989 and revised them most recently in 2016-2017. Hundreds of conservation leaders contributed to the 2017 revisions, so these guidelines represent the experience of diverse land trusts from across the country. More than 1,000 land trusts have adopted the Standards.
Managing restricted gifts is an essential but complex part of land trust operations. These resources, originally presented through a CLCC workshop in Spring 2021, explores best practices for negotiating, documenting, and tracking restricted gifts. Learn from three accredited land trusts as they break down key accounting principles, donor restrictions, financial reporting, and accreditation requirements. Whether your land trust is developing gift policies or refining its tracking systems, these resources offers practical insights to help you stay compliant and financially sound.
Below, you will find a recording of the webinar, as well as a PDF of the slideshow.
There’s no perfect time to apply for land trust accreditation—but being prepared is key. This checklist-style quiz helps your land trust assess its eligibility and readiness for accreditation by walking through critical requirements, from legal structure and land stewardship practices to financial planning and governance. If you’re considering accreditation, use this tool to identify what’s in place and what still needs work before applying. Ready to take the next step? Check your status and plan your path to accreditation!