2023 Schedule – Pacific Time

The scale of the work that land trusts do is often difficult to see from the ground. Drones are dynamic, accessible tools that allow conservation professionals to create powerful, landscape-level imagery that would have required chartering an aircraft only a few years ago. Being able to capture and share an elevated perspective on the places that we all work so hard to protect can be eye-opening, incredibly useful, and easier than ever. In this session, we will showcase the many ways that we’ve used drone imagery to enhance our conservation storytelling and facilitate a conversation around ways attendees can do the same. We’ll introduce attendees to modern consumer drone technology and cover the basic skillsets needed for flying, practical considerations, anticipated costs and how to get licensed. Flying a drone for the first time can be intimidating, so at the end of the session, we’ll head outside for a short drone flight demonstration (weather and time permitting). In our experience, this is the best way to get people comfortable with the idea of flying a drone themselves. We will plan to capture a session photo from the air!

With the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, there is more support than ever for implementing Natural Climate Solutions on both public and private lands. Land trusts can play a key role in helping to implement these solutions. This session will share message guidance on how to effectively communicate the benefits of Natural Climate Solutions, illustrate how that messaging can be integrated into compelling content, and spotlight other resources that can help improve understanding about the potential of these solutions among landowners and decision-makers. During this session, U.S. Nature4Climate staff will share the findings of recent polling conducted by USN4C designed to help our coalition members (including the Land Trust Alliance) communicate the benefits and opportunities provided by Natural Climate Solutions - spotlighting how different constituencies respond to different messaging approaches. We will share resources that USN4C has developed, including our Decision-Makers Guide to Natural Climate Solutions and several campaigns designed to help communicate this messaging and help navigate the implementation of these strategies. Finally, USN4C collaborators will discuss how they integrate this guidance into their own communications.

Are you looking to make your content shine? With the right technique and a little bit of magic, your storytelling efforts can stand out and capture your audience's attention. And with some intentionality, we can build community and a sense of belonging online and in person. We’ll share highlights from POST’s journey, experiments, successes (and failures) so you don’t have to. From social media, to blogs, to events, we’ve looked for quick and easy wins to increase engagement and elevate diverse stories and voices. This workshop will be interactive, come prepared to chat with your peers tackling this important work!

A growing number of tools and resources can help land trusts identify where conservation is needed most. However, navigating these resources and communicating the results can be confusing and time consuming. Join members of Trust for Public Land’s new Land and People Lab to learn about simple, accessible tools and resources that can pinpoint where conservation is needed most to increase equitable access to the outdoors, support climate action and spur economic benefits. Access: Did you know that across the US, over 100 million people do not have access to a park within a 10-minute walk of their home? Learn how the ParkServe mapping platform empowers users to plan and advocate for new local parks to help close gaps in park access. Climate Action: Conservation Carbon Map is a newly updated tool that maps and quantifies forest carbon storage and sequestration, threats to that carbon from development, disease, and wildlife; and where co-benefits can be maximized. Economic benefits: TPL’s Conservation Economics team has analyzed the economic benefits of parks and green space in dozens of communities in the US. Learn how this research was applied in New York City, where TPL estimated ecosystem services and economic development benefits to help target potential investors for long-term park maintenance. Attendees to this session will learn how to leverage the data and evidence presented in these tools to help make the case for new or expanded funding for conservation, in places and for people that are most in need.

We will explore ways that diverse communities with connections to and history with the land can tell their stories their way. We will get to the hard questions if how to tell the tough stories as well as the inspiring ones, drawing from the experiences of our panel of culturally diverse partners as well as engaging attendees in sharing their experiences so that all of us can learn. Every story of the land is part of a continuum without a beginning or an end of tough stories, sad stories, easy stories and exciting stories, all of which are chapters in the bigger story about a place, its people, communities, cultures and natural history. One benefit of this session will be exploring ways to tell the tough stories in the context of, and part of, that continuum, not only to better inform each generation but as a form of healing .This process starts with building partnerships, listening, offering platforms, having patience and valuing the results. The panelists all work telling land-based stories from educational to archived digital audio content to mobile storytelling. The session will encourage audience discussion of developing these strategic story-seeking and storytelling skills.

This session will focus on clear, actionable communications recommendations from a 2023 national public opinion poll and series of focus groups conducted by the bipartisan polling team of Dave Metz and Lori Weigel. The research builds upon a series of national polls that track voters’ opinions on land, water, climate and other conservation priorities. This year's research will have with an intensive focus on emerging conservation policy issues that impact all of our work, including energy siting, implementation of federal infrastructure and climate spending, resiliency and equity.

Does the thought of updating your website give you anxiety? Maybe you think you’re going to break something because you “don’t know code.” Maybe you always put it off because even small changes take so much time. Maybe, no matter what you do, it never actually works right, so it sits there tormenting you with its problems. Because it’s a burden, it goes unmaintained and slowly starts to fall apart, and then you don't know how to start fixing it. The reality is that when you have the right tools, there’s nothing to be afraid of. Managing a website can not only be very easy, but also very fun when you have the confidence to keep things up to date. And we’ll prove it by building a website on the spot during this workshop. Join Bold Bison for this engaging, skills-based workshop where we’ll unpack some of the common challenges land trusts face in maintaining their websites. We will learn how to evaluate your website not only for the quality of its content, but also for the tools you need to run it. We’ll learn about some of the many tools that exist to make your life easier because they’re designed for non-technical web managers. Finally, we’ll spend time reviewing the pros and cons of building a new website and how to get the process started.

Land conservation and strengthening our working lands play an important role in protecting water quality, storing greenhouse gas emissions, and establishing climate-resilient communities. As trusted messengers, it’s important that we equip land trusts and watershed groups with tools to effectively communicate about the climate crisis and how local land management is a critical solution. The Water Hub will present the latest national polling on climate change and water from its summer 2023 public opinion research. We’ll share the best practices for talking to different audiences about climate change and provide the most compelling conservation messages. Potomac Conservancy will share key lessons learned from Rising to the Challenge, an online report series that was informed by local climate research, audience attitudes and message best practices. We’ll share examples from our pre-release audience assessment questionnaire and message development.Short and fun interactive opportunities will be incorporated throughout the session before concluding with breakout groups by region that will get land professionals thinking about their own audiences, local messages and engagement tactics.