Land Trust AllianceLand Trust Alliance

2020 National Land Trust Census Preview

The 2020 National Land Trust Census will launch January 4, 2021. To help you prepare, you can find a preview of the questions below. If you are a land trust member and your information is in our database, you will receive an email invitation with a link to the web survey in January. If you would like to check whether we have your current contact information, please email us at census@lta.org.

Questions

SECTION A: CONTACT INFORMATION 

A1.  Please verify that you will serve as the primary contact for the Land Trust Census by entering your information below.   

  • First and last name
  • Title or position
  • Phone number
  • E-mail
  • Land trust name

A2. Which of the following best describes your organization: 

  • 501(c)(3) private nonprofit 
  • 509(a)(3) supporting organization 
  • Governmental agency
  • Quasi-governmental organization
  • Other: please specify 

SECTION B: ORGANIZATIONAL INFORMATION

B1. What is your organization’s mission statement? 

B2. A land trust may be run by paid employees, volunteers, contractors/consultants or a combination of these. Not including contractors or consultants, did your land trust employ paid staff during 2020? 

B3. Not including contractors or consultants, how many of your land trust’s paid employees worked full-time? 

B4. Not including contractors or consultants, how many of your land trust’s paid employees worked part-time? 

B5. As of December 31, 2020, how many people were on your land trust’s board of directors? 

B6. Not including board members, how many active volunteers did your land trust have during the past year? 

B7. During the past year, how many members or financial supporters did your land trust have? 

Geographic Focus

B8. Please list the state or states in which your land trust operates under Column A. Then, for each state, list all of the counties in which your land trust operates.

SECTION C: BUDGET

The next questions are about your land trust’s budget and financial resources. As a reminder, none of the information you provide will be released in a way that could identify your land trust. The information you provide will only be reported in aggregate form.

C1. For your land trust’s most recent fiscal year ending in 2020, how much was the annual operating budget of your land trust?

C1 NOTE: The annual operating budget is the projected income and expenses during one fiscal year for an organization’s entire operations. 

Land trusts often set aside funds designated for certain uses. These funds may be called endowments, dedicated funding, reserves or other similar names. 

C2. How does your land trust manage its designated funding for monitoring/stewardship and legal defense? 

  • Funding for monitoring and stewardship is separate from funding for legal defense and enforcement. 
  •  We have one combined fund for monitoring, stewardship and legal defense.

C3A. If separate, approximately how much did your land trust have in designated funding, as of December 31, 2020: 

  • Monitoring and stewardship only
  • Legal defense and enforcement only

C3B. If combined, approximately how much did your land trust have in combined funding, as of December 31, 2020?

C4. For each of the following purposes, approximately how much did your land trust have in designated funding, as of December 31, 2020: 

  • Land acquisition
  • Operating reserve
  • Other

SECTION D: LAND PROTECTION

D1. The next set of questions is about the total cumulative number of acres of land your land trust protected as of December 31, 2020 — in other words, from your land trust’s founding through the end of 2020. Please use the table below to record the number of acres your land trust protected in each of the following categories for every state in which your land trust operated: 

  • Acres owned
  • Acres under easement
  • Acres acquired and reconveyed to government entities
  • Acres acquired and reconveyed to non-governmental entities
  • Acres protected by other means

D2. D2. Next, as of December 31, 2020, please record the number of properties owned and the number of conservation easements held by your land trust for each state in which your land trust operated:

D3. As of December 31, 2020, approximately how many acres has your land trust protected of each of the following types of land?

  • Forests
  • Agricultural land, including farms and ranches
  • Wildlife habitat

If your land trust owns land, please answer the following three questions: 

D3A. During the past year, about how many acres of the land your land trust owned allowed any form of public access? 

D3B. During the past year, about how many of the properties owned by your land trust allowed any form of public access? 

D3C. During the past year, about how many people visited properties owned by your land trust?

SECTION E: CONSERVATION EASEMENTS

The questions in this section are about conservation easements your land trust held during the past year, that is, from January 1, 2020 through December 31, 2020. 

If your land trust did not hold any easements in 2020, please skip to section F. 

E1. We recognize that the pandemic may have affected your land trust’s ability to do in-person monitoring in 2020. During the past year, how many of your land trust’s conservation easements was monitored at least one time? 

E2.  As of December 31, 2020, how many of your land trust’s conservation easements had a baseline documentation report?

SECTION F: COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

The next questions are about your land trust’s community engagement. 

F1. During the past year, did your land trust provide trail access for public use? 

F1B. About how many miles of trails did you provide for public use? 

F1C. Universal design is designing programs and facilities to be usable by all people to the greatest extent possible, without separate or segregated access for people with disabilities. Of the miles of trails your land trust had accessible for public use in the past year, about how many miles were designed for universal access? 

F2. Over the past year, about how many people did your land trust directly serve through programs and activities? 

F3. Currently, does your land trust have a community engagement plan? 

F4. Over the past five years, did your land trust have programs or events that directly engaged people not traditionally involved with land conservation? 

F4B. Over the past 5 years, did your land trust engage people who:

  • are Black, Indigenous, or people of color (BIPOC)? 
  • identify as LGBTQ+ 
  • are living with disabilities?
  • are Veterans or active duty military?
  • are older adults or those living in retirement communities?
  • are part of a group not listed here? Please describe.

F5. Currently, does your land trust engage in partnerships with groups working in any of the following areas? 

Does your land trust partner with groups involved in… 

  •  …health and wellness? 
  •  …youth education and development? 
  •  …community and economic development? 
  •  …food security and agriculture? 
  •  …affordable housing? 
  •  …faith-based work? 
  •  …social and environmental justice? 
  •   …other areas not listed here? Please describe.

F6. Vulnerable populations are groups and communities at higher risk for climate-related impacts as a result of the barriers they experience to social, economic, political and environmental resources, as well as limitations due to age, illness or disability. Currently, does your land trust partner with any groups working on the impact of climate change on vulnerable populations? 

 F7. Over the past five years, has your land trust’s focus on community engagement… 

  •   …decreased a great deal 
  •   …decreased somewhat
  •   …decreased a little
  •  …stayed about the same 
  •  …increased a little 
  •  …increased somewhat 
  •  …increased a great deal 

SECTION G: CLIMATE CHANGE

The next questions are about the impact of climate change on your land trust. 

G1. How often are climate change considerations part of your organization’s current… 

  • …land project planning and selection? 
  • …stewardship practices, including land management and restoration? 
  • …communications with external audiences
  • …public policy advocacy? 

G2. Over the past five years, has your land trust received any funding to address climate change in your work?

G3. Over the past five years, did your land trust receive funding from any of the following sources to address climate change in your work? 

  • carbon offset markets?
  • state or federal funding?
  • private foundations?
  • climate-specific appeals to individuals, such as donors, members or supporters
  • other sources not listed here? Please describe.

G3A. What were the specific state or federal agencies from which you received funding to address climate change in your work? 

G4. Over the past five years, has your land trust’s focus on climate change… 

  •   …decreased a great deal 
  •   …decreased somewhat
  •   …decreased a little
  •  …stayed about the same 
  •  …increased a little 
  •  …increased somewhat 
  •  …increased a great deal 

Anything else you’d like to tell us?