And for our next trick…

By many measures, 2015 was a big year for the Land Trust Alliance. You can learn more in our newly released annual report and our retrospective blog post.

How does the Alliance follow such an impressive act? Already, you’ve seen some of the answer across the first five months of 2016: We’ve built on our achievements and taken our next steps toward achieving the goals we and our 1,100 member land trusts identified as pivotal. A few examples of that work include:

• Our training and mentoring of 100 people, a mix of land trust staff and volunteers, to help achieve policy goals on Capitol Hill that benefit all who support land conservation. This will bring to 400 the number of people who are prepared to strongly advocate for land trusts.
• Our pursuit of long-term reauthorization of — and full funding for — the Land and Water Conservation Fund. We reached a key milestone in this journey last month.
• Our revision of the seminal Land Trust Standards and Practices. Working with land trusts, we’re collaboratively updating this document to reflect changes in our legal and operational environments while making it more user friendly, as well. See more here.
• Our investment in the 100 land trusts and 75 executive directors participating in our Land Trust Excellence Program and our Leadership Program. These programs pursue deep organizational and individual development, generating more high-impact land trusts.
• Our forthcoming rollout of results from the latest National Land Trust Census. This information both illustrates land trust growth across the past five years and affords an opportunity to widely broadcast the story of our amazing conservation community.

This is just a sampling of the many ways the Alliance will continue to assist, improve and delight land trusts in 2016. Watch for more announcements from us as the year progresses and we continue to help you save the places people need and love.

Joshua Lynsen is media relations manager for the Land Trust Alliance.