SEM01. Innovative Fundraising Strategies with Great Promise
In this session we will be exploring three innovative approaches to major gift fundraising from individual donors: Legacy Match Campaigns, Tradelands, and Call Gifts. Legacy Match Campaigns use the idea of a matching gift applied to incentivize planned giving. In such campaigns, a portion of the matching grant is "released" when a donor advises the land trust of their bequest intentions in writing. Tradelands are more commonly thought of in circumstances where the transaction itself is simple and easy. But what about donors who want money back? Or want to support multiple charities? Or whose property still has a mortgage? Call gifts are future pledges - pledges that can be "called" when and if certain circumstances come to pass. For example, if a specific land acquisition project comes under contract. In each case, we will present the basic concept, explore several case studies, and split up into discussion groups to further imagine more localized applications. These are all ideas that can and should be applicable everywhere and with land trusts of just
Session Location: Marriott New Orleans
Price: $150/$180
SEM02. Original Principles of Right Relationship & Indigenous Peoples
This session will offer an opportunity, in a safe space, to dive deeply into exploring Right Relationship with Indigenous People. There will be interactive exercises where attendees will socially locate themselves, provide processes for making adjustments on a personal and organizational level to meet Native Communities in a good way, and review Original Principles that have been handed down since time immemorial. We will have small group breakouts, stories, case studies and resources that explore the following: Embodiment of our differences and acknowledgment on how this creates bias in our perspective; Define some pillars of the Euro-Centric Framework; Outlines the importance of Original Principles in working with land, water and the community and recognizing their place before ethics can truly be practiced; Brainstorm around obstacles or challenges the attendees are seeing in their work ; Interweaves the effect on land, water and climate change when Original Principles are not followed.
Session Location: Marriott New Orleans
Price: $150/$180
SEM03. Strengthen Land Stewardship and Management with Remote Monitoring Technology
Hear how organizations of different sizes and budgets implemented remote technologies and how the technology has saved time and money to justify the expense. Learn from land trusts that have been able to expand the scope of their stewardship and outreach, including increased accessibility and ability to track climate change measures. Skytec, LLC and Upstream Tech Lens will also demonstrate the use of these tools to monitor land, climate change, ecological health indicators, water and soil health, and restoration projects and to showcase future acquisitions.
Session Location: Marriott New Orleans
Price: $150/$180
SEM04. Unpacking the Gift: Appraisal & Charitable Substantiation Rules for a Tax Deduction (CLE)
Many landowners expect to obtain a federal charitable tax deduction as part of their gifts of money or property to land trusts. However, there are rules that landowners must follow to prove that they properly made the gift and deserve a tax deduction for it. The IRS has fully denied deductions because of improperly completed forms, the absence of required documentation, or the failure of an appraisal to comply with all the rules in the Tax Code and the Treasury Regulations. Standards and practices that apply specifically to gift substantiation and appraisals will be discussed along with the legal requirements.
Session Location: Marriott New Orleans
Price: $150/$180
CLE: CLE
SEM05. Business Planning to Recalibrate and Align Your Land Trust
Effective land trust leaders have spent the last couple of years rapidly adapting how they operate while sticking to a clear strategy and focusing on strategic goals. Now what? Your board and staff have learned how to work virtually. You held your annual fundraiser on Zoom. You created a whole new approach to staying connected to landowners, donors, and partners. And people in your community are relating to open space and spending time outdoors in new and exciting ways. Too much has changed to return to business as usual. This interactive session will cover lean how to develop (or update) a business plan and will walk through a series of questions that aligns your operations and capacity with your strategic goals and this new reality. Clarify for yourself and others which changes you will sustain, what opportunities you will pursue, and how you can leverage strengths to meet your conservation goals and serve your community.
Session Location: Marriott New Orleans
Price: $260/$300
SEM06. Trails for All People: Guidance for Accessibility and Inclusive Design
Session Location: Marriott New Orleans
Price: $260/$300
SEM07. Branding is Not a Dirty Word
Branding is the way your organization authentically shares your story about the work you do and why you do it. We emphatically believe that to be successful you must create and communicate messages that clearly describe what you are doing and why others should care. The complicating factors are that many people are delivering the message, you are communicating with many different audiences and well it is noisy out there so messages are hard to hear! In this workshop we will go through eight concrete steps to create meaningful and clear messages and then create an action plan for sharing these messages.Participants will receive tools to take with them such as branding worksheets and some recommended articles for learning more about nonprofit (and conservation) branding and marketing. By the end of the session, participants will feel more confident about what to communicate (and why!) to whom and how to communicate effectively.
Session Location: Marriott New Orleans
Price: $150/$180
SEM08. New Endeavors in Land Conservation: Conserve, Redevelop, Undevelop (CLE)
This session focuses on land trusts as social entrepreneurs, shepherding the movement from large-scale, raw land protection to small-scale, interconnected repurposing of land and its uses. Presenters will share their new forms of conservation experiences engaging people of all backgrounds and abilities with land for outdoor recreation, agriculture, and education; redeveloping already-built environments for new uses such as shelter, food sharing, and gathering places; and undeveloping lands to support revitalized ecological and human systems, including sacred and foraging Indigenous spaces.
Session Location: Marriott New Orleans
Price: $150/$180
CLE: CLE
SEM09. Transform Your Board, Change Your Life!
It is often said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Yet that is exactly what we do with our boards. We use the same old processes to recruit, train, assess, and develop our boards but are disappointed when new board members are no more connected, influential, diverse, or committed. We have long discussions, we develop matrices, we leverage our networks, and in the end, we ask the same kinds of people to join our boards and offer them the same experiences. This session invites you to break free from that pattern! Using case studies from two recent board transformation successes at Outdoor Afro and Hispanic Access Foundation, we share best practices from the field and a board transformation planning framework that will enhance your board and generate dramatically new results for your organization. We will then lead you in an interactive workshop to create a plan to transform your board
Session Location: Marriott New Orleans
Price: $150/$180
SEM10. Empowered Donor Development: Building Relationships that Reward
Major donor fundraising is where it’s at! With the audacity of perpetuity staring us in the face, land trusts need good strategies for raising money that fit our short-term and long-term needs. For most land trusts, nothing is more central to this goal than a relationship-based, individual giving program, with the most significant fruit of that tree coming from major donors. This workshop focuses specifically on the relationship-building process for major donor fundraising – what it looks like, how to engage everyone in your organization in that responsibility, and how it can help donors feel more connected, more satisfied, and more generous with their support. It will have a fundamental focus on how to do this work, including specific strategies, tools, and experiential activities to support learning and confidence building
Session Location: Marriott New Orleans
Price: $150/$180
SEM11. Considering Carbon in Forest Protection and Management Decisions
The changing climate we are experiencing today is caused mainly through the release of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide. Given that forests, wetlands and other natural lands can absorb and store large amounts of carbon, land conservation and stewardship are essential for climate change mitigation. The session is designed to give you an understanding of the concepts, science and tools needed to incorporate carbon and climate adaptation principles into your forest protection and management and will introduce a framework for considering and assessing carbon sequestration and storage at the landscape and project scale. We will also explore the challenges and opportunities when communicating the benefits of climate-informed land conservation practices. This session will require active participation and attendees will need a laptop with a wireless connection.
Session Location: Marriott New Orleans
Price: $150/$180
