The worlds of land conservation and watershed protection often function parallel to one another despite their many areas of overlap. To bridge this gap, LTA and EPA have released two guides to aid land trusts in increasing their involvement in water quality work. In this session, we will provide an overview of these newly released resources, covering a range of topics useful in more effectively communicating water connections, including key watershed components, the Watershed Approach, Clean Water Act programs/funding sources related to land conservation/stewardship, and watershed protection strategies pertaining to building partnerships, strategic land conservation/stewardship, and community outreach techniques. To exemplify this type of work at the local level, Alachua Conservation Trust of Florida will present on its “springsheds” outreach strategy to protect the Santa Fe River Basin, which contains diverse forests, wetlands, wildlife, and working lands that are the base of local tourism and the state’s economy but are under threat from development, groundwater pumping, and nitrogen pollution. Lastly, Groundwork will discuss its community driven, designed, led, and implemented largescale green infrastructure projects aimed at improving the quality of life in New Orleans and at contributing to a healthier watershed that includes surrounding wetlands and Gulf of Mexico estuaries. Overall, we hope to encourage participants to utilize our guides and to take inspiration from the strategic, personable watershed protection/communication work being done in these East Coast settings. This session will also inform S&P1 (Ethics, Mission, Community Engagement) and S&P8 (Evaluating & Selecting Conservation Projects).