Help Build Support for Land Trust Ideas in America's Great Outdoors

We need your help spreading the word about the America's Great Outdoors Initiative! Please ask your members and supporters to comment in two ways--by voting and commenting on the America's Great Outdoors IdeaJam and by sending suppotive e-mail messages via the America's Great Outdoors Campaign.

Last Chance to Comment -- Make it a Million Message Month!

As the comment period comes to a close this month, we need your help flooding the administration's website and inbox with supportive messages, innovative ideas and inspiring stories of private conservation! Please personalize the sample e-mail – or replace it entirely with your own ideas and examples!

& 

Templates to Get Your Members and Supporters Involved

Sample Facebook Post

President Obama wants your ideas for conserving America's Great Outdoors! Vote for tools [YOUR LAND TRUST] needs to conserve special places in our community (http://tinyurl.com/landtrustideas) and send a message of support to the administration (http://tinyurl.com/AGOemail).

Not your top choices? Create your own short links at www.tinyurl.com.

Sample Tweets

Make it a million message month! Support America's Great Outdoors by e-mailing your comments: http://tinyurl.com/AGOemail

Vote for land trust ideas in the America's Great Outdoors IdeaJam: http://tinyurl.com/landtrustideas

Vote to make the enhanced easement incentive permanent in the America's Great Outdoors IdeaJam: http://tinyurl.com/AGOEasements

Sample e-mail Action Alert

This is drafted as a generic message you can copy and paste, but it's far better to customize this with references to your land trust and it's priorities.

Subject: How Should We Protect America's Great Outdoors?

Thousands of land trust supporters have spoken out as part of the America’s Great Outdoors Initiative this summer – sharing creative ideas about what the federal government can do better to help land trusts keep farm, ranch and forest lands in productive use, protect important fish and wildlife habitat, and conserve our scenic and historic heritage.

Why speak out now?  The growing threat of overdevelopment demands smarter ways to protect our rivers and lakes, wild and working lands, wildlife, and cultural and historic sites – and this administration is willing to listen!  This is key opportunity to place land trusts at the center of the Obama administration’s vision for the future of conservation!

Now it’s your turn to be heard!  We’re asking you to do two things to support this initiative and urge the inclusion of critical tools for private lands conservation such as conservation tax incentives, farm bill conservation programs and a fully funded and more flexible Land and Water Conservation Fund:

• Email your comments (please personalize): http://tinyurl.com/AGOemail
• Vote for land trust ideas on the IdeaJam: http://tinyurl.com/landtrustideas

The Obama Administration is deciding on the next generation of conservation incentives right now and they need to hear from you.  Ask them to take bold and urgent action to protect our land, water and history for the generations to come!

Thanks for voting and sending your comments! To learn more about this exciting initiative visit our America's Great Outdoors page.

More About the America's Great Outdoors IdeaJam

The America's Great Outdoors IdeaJam is a creative social networking tool where anybody can post an idea and vote to "promote," "demote" or comment on ideas posted by others. Just a few land trusts promoting their priorities could have a significant impact:

1. Register to participate -- it's free and easy
2. Vote to "promote" ideas that would help your land trust
3. Post your own idea (but check among existing ideas first)
4. Join the conversation by commenting on ideas important to you
5. Email your members and partners and urge them to vote (templates below)!

Dozens of land trust leaders have already posted creative ideas on the administration's "IdeaJam" website.  We need your help voting for these ideas, commenting, and posting your own!  We'll admit the site is somewhat cumbersome, but we've tried to make voting for land trust ideas as easy as possible by gathering them together in one place: http://tinyurl.com/landtrustideas.

Unfortunately, when updating their site to match the new categories for discussion in their report, many land trust ideas posted in the original categories were "archived."  You can still vote for and comment on the archived ideas but they aren't searchable on the public site and won't show up via http://tinyurl.com/landtrustideas.  Here's a full list of land trust ideas from the first few months, only some of which have been re-posted:

• Make the Enhanced Tax Incentive for Conservation Easements Permanent
• Expand Use of LWCF for Private Lands Conservation and Third-party Administration
• Defer Estate Taxes on Family Farms and Ranches
• Expand the Estate Tax Exclusion for Lands Protected With a Conservation Easement
• Full & Dedicated Funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund
• Support Farm Bill Conservation Easement Programs
  
• Increase Forest Legacy Program Funding
• Enhance the Farm and Ranchland Protection Program and Grasslands Reserve Program
• Community Forestry Bonds - leveraging private markets for working forest conservation
• Beyond tax Deductions: Tax Credits for Conservation
• Reauthorize the Federal Land Transaction Facilitation Act
• Block Grants for Conservation Landscapes
• Make current federal land conservation funds available to qualified land trusts
• Adopt Legislation to Avoid Protected Lands During Siting of Utilities
• Public Funding for Land Conservation
• Debt for Nature Swaps in USA
• Civil War Battlefield Preservation
• Non-gov Organizations holding Forest Legacy conservation easements
• Support Local Land Trusts
• Preserve our Healthy Heritage with the Land and Water Conservation Fund
• New York’s Conservation Partnership Program—A National Model for Building Local Capacity
• Great Outdoors Colorado—A National Model for Supporting Private Lands Conservation

You can also post your own idea. If you do, please include "land trusts" as a "tag" so you show up under that search and let us know at policy@lta.org so we can add it to this list.

To follow the latest news on this exciting initiative, see five other ways you can get involved and find our talking points for submitting feedback, please visit our America's Great Outdoors page.