Because everyone needs a good advocate.

Advocacy Matters, LLC founder, Gwendolyn Lacy, principal attorney, consultant, and mediator, works with private landowners, regional, local, and national land conservancies, as well as governmental agencies and environmental organizations to actively preserve those special places where life-long memories and legacies are forged. Client Services, include drafting and/or review of conservation easements, land acquisitions, historic preservation, mediation of easement violations, legislative advocacy, eminent domain, succession planning and non-profit capacity building.

Serving the Mid-Atlantic and Southwest Regions of the U.S.

At AgVisory, we have deep roots in agriculture with extensive experience and in-depth knowledge of agricultural industries. When you are looking for an appraisal for your farm, ranch, or agribusiness, you want to work with qualified experts that understand the complexity of agriculture. AgVisory can provide you a unique perspective having a broad range of experience in both the agricultural industry and the finance and banking industry.

BackOffice Thinking is the creator of LOCATE, the premier land trust database built on Salesforce. Besides LOCATE, we also design, built, and support websites as well as implement and support nonprofit CRMs ( Salesforce, NeonCRM, and CiviCRM ) and provide technology assessments to help guide nonprofits to right decisions.

Although we work with a variety of nonprofits, we have particular expertise with conservation-focused organizations and cultural destination nonprofits such as land trusts, botanical gardens, and smaller museums. Last year we worked with over 50 conservation-based organizations.

Bold Bison provides creative communications solutions, engaging facilitation services and inspiring workshops and trainings for the conservation movement, the education sector and the arts.

Conservation communications needs to be bolder. We bring a down-to-earth, common sense approach to communications strategies and tools from digital and print to content creation and media relations. We also provide hands-on workshops and skill-building training sessions, and we facilitate retreats, coalitions and networks.

Braun & Gresham provides legal services to owners of rural land — advocating for their interests in estate planning, land conservation, real estate investment and property taxes; and defending them from condemnation, groundwater depletion, surface water pollution or infrastructure routing. Braun & Gresham believes that its conservation counsel is more effective if it stays focused on representing landowners rather than trying to represent land trusts and landowners.

Judy Anderson of Community Consultants has worked in the land trust sector for over 30 years. She currently assists nonprofit organizations on practical strategic conservation initiatives incorporating local communities, climate change, governance, communications and marking, and community-based fundraising strategies.

Judy offers a free bi-monthly newsletter related to climate change, conservation and land trusts taking action to slow down climate. Judy also provides coaching on inclusive conservation, easement drafting and stewardship, and building greater community relevance to ensure land trusts withstand the test of time.

Judy coaches remotely as well as proving in-person trainings, workshops, and discussions.

Confluence Law, PLLC is a full-service law firm experienced in resolving complex water and natural resource issues.  Our clients include large and small instream and out of stream water users, public entities, associations and nonprofit organizations. Confluence Law works with clients to create resilient solutions in water law, land conservation, public utility regulation and nonprofits.

The Conservation Consulting Group (CCG) is a collective of highly experienced professionals who are passionate about land conservation and dedicated to building the capacity and advancing the mission of nonprofit environmental and conservation organizations throughout the United States. Specialties include strategic planning, organizational assessment and improvement, Board development, meeting facilitation, coaching and mentoring, training and education. We assist organizations with planning and developing initiatives that engage, invigorate, and mobilize stakeholders and constituencies. We offer assessments and specific recommendations based on best practices to empower staffs and Boards. We deliver so our clients can deliver — results second to none.

Danosky & Associates is an action-oriented, results-driven consulting firm that helps non-profit organizations build the capacity to move their strategic vision forward with a solid foundation and an army of support behind them. Our approach draws on five key principles that can work as an integrated solution or be used independently to address specific concerns: Board Energy, Philanthropic Enrichment, Organizational Effectiveness & Learning, Community Engagement and Financial Empowerment.

David Allen at Development for Conservation assists conservation organizations raising money from individual donors by improving renewal, cultivation, and major gift development systems. David brings 25 years of experience to the practice, including 13 with The Nature Conservancy. With a focus on implementation and follow-through, he has worked with dozens of land trusts across the country on fundraising audits and plans, board training, campaigns, and coaching. “You can raise more money for your land trust. I can help."

Ecopixel creates and sustains websites for conservation, collaboration, and community. Join other land trusts who use our platform, and let us help you with outreach, events, and online fundraising. We'll collaborate with you on a compelling design that meets today's mobile-friendly responsive design and accessibility standards. Easily update all of your content using the open-source, nonprofit-run TYPO3 CMS (content management system). We provide a complete solution that includes reliable, carbon-offset hosting as well as personal support and ongoing training. While Ecopixel serves a variety of nonprofits, small municipalities, and socially responsible businesses, it's with land trusts that we have the deepest experience. We know that web projects can seem complex. We're here to help! Contact us for your website needs.

Effect Size Consulting provides nonprofits with strategic leadership, coaching and support in three main fundraising and organizational growth focus areas: Major Gifts & Campaign Fundraising Strategy, Data-Driven Fundraising, and High-Performance Team Development. Principal, Anthony Rupard has over fifteen years of experience leading progressive fund development teams, most recently as the Development Director for the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy’s $71.4M comprehensive Campaign for Generations which exceeded $80M in campaign support.

Our team can analyze your existing base of support and help you determine the potential for increased annual giving and major gift support and identify and develop planned-giving program opportunities. We can create a plan that positions the organization to increase annual support, assess campaign feasibility and comprehensively manage your campaign. We also conduct capacity audits, invest in team culture through training and create performance metrics to attract and retain talented fundraisers.

The Effect Size Consulting team is experienced with raising money for complex conservation land transactions including conservation lending and has a reputation for teaching staff, board and other key volunteers how to build authentic and trusting relationships that lead to transformational gifts.

Grant & Lyons was founded in 1994. Since founding, our practice is dedicated solely to environmental, land use and real estate law. One of our founding partners, Drayton Grant (now deceased), was a founding member of the Winnakee Land Trust in Rhinebeck, NY. Current partner, John Lyons, presently sits on the Board of Directors of both the Winnakee Land Trust and the Catskill Center (whose land trust was recently accredited by LTA) and sits on the Board’s stewardship committee. John is an individual member of the LTA. Our legal practice regularly involves all facets of conservation easements. We represent both land trusts and landowners. We have drafted, negotiated and reviewed many easements, and provided legal advice to parties on both sides of the conservation easement equation. In addition to helping Winnakee and the Catskill Center, we also have worked with Scenic Hudson, Dutchess Land Conservancy, and Hudson River Heritage (for whom we successfully defended a lawsuit seeking to extinguish a conservation easement). We participate actively in continuing legal education to remain at the forefront of new developments in this field. We also work regularly with planners on open space preservation initiatives for our municipal clients.

Representing land trusts and public agencies in conservation transactions and organizational management.

CONSULTANT | COACH* focusing on executives and emerging leaders | ORGANIZATIONAL PROBLEM SOLVER | BOARD FIXER | STRATEGIST | PLANNER.

MAYES | WILSON & ASSOCIATES knows your world and your pain-points. Our team's core focus is organizational development and sustainability, building better boards and solving board problems, solving organizational and team challenges, planning for the future (strategic, succession & transition) and fundraising. We conduct organizational assessments, deliver accreditation guidance and application management and prepare fundraising plans. We problem solve, we build, we train. We're bada** consultants who are passionate about solving your problem and love our work. We bring experience in leading nonprofits, programs and businesses to our solution oriented approach to your most challenging problems. We work throughout the US & in the Caribbean in person and by conference/video calls.

*CTI coach certification program 2018.

Sarah is skilled at managing organizational change, developing and mentoring people and managing complex projects. She has worked in the not-for-profit, research, technology and education fields and has over twenty years of experience, most recently in the land trust community. Sarah served in several leadership roles at the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy, including Director of Human Resources for five years and the Director of Stewardship for three years prior. She was instrumental in supporting the growth of the organization with attention to culture, development of staff and volunteers and monitoring benchmarks and outcomes. Sarah has extensive experience in the creation, implementation, and review of policies and procedures, and successfully led the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy through the accreditation process in 2009 and again in 2014. Today, Sarah supports land trusts as they plan and prepare for accreditation. She provides guidance and training to develop people and systems to meet the goals of the organization.

My name is Brian J. Gatzke, ARA, Certified General Appraiser, owner of Northern Plains Appraisal L.L.C, located in Brookings, South Dakota. Together with my team we specialize in professional services for opinion of value for real property.

Research-based strategy and management consulting for the 21st century social sector.

Brenda Schick, principal of Singing Stream Conservation Consultants, has over 20 years of experience in land conservation across the United States. Singing Stream's services include assessing and accessing public and private funding, completion of due diligence (appraisals, surveys, etc), strategic brainstorming and mentoring in project design and much more.  Brenda was the Vice President for land protection at the Trust for Public Land and she is eager to share her expertise to help you achieve your mission.

After 19 years as a conservation professional, I decided to launch Strong Outcomes to use what I learned to help environmental agencies and organizations be more successful.

In my career, I have helped dozens of communities and organizations build capacity to conserve natural resources and authored a book on natural resource-based land use planning. I developed conservation plans, organized workshops and events, developed community engagement strategies, and implemented practical measures of success.

I have a BS in Biology and an MS in Biodiversity Conservation and Policy from the University at Albany, and a Certificate in Change Leadership from Cornell University. I am a Senior Fellow with the Environmental Leadership Program and have 13 years of nonprofit board experience.

Tim Sweeney is a land conservation attorney advising land trusts in Colorado and New Mexico. Tim has more than 30 years of experience representing real estate developers, shopping center landlords and tenants, lenders and global media companies in complex real estate transactions and corporate matters. Tim is a second-generation Colorado native and a graduate of the University of Colorado School of Law.

TK.designlab, LLC is an ecological design and planning studio that employs innovative and experimental design solutions to address issues related to regenerative development, climate resilience and environmental integrity for landscapes and communities. We work directly with communities, non-profits, companies and individuals to design and plan these responsive landscapes. We are a lean, visionary, mobile and technologically inclined studio. We are purpose-driven and process-oriented. And we believe that people and place matter.

Upstream Tech is a technology company that uses satellite data and machine learning to help conservation organizations better manage and monitor environmental projects and natural resources. Upstream Tech works with a range of land trusts to support efficient, cost-effective monitoring through our Lens™ service. Lens™ is a web-based dashboard that draws upon a broad range of public and private satellite data to view and monitor the property using high resolution and ecological data throughout the year. This remote monitoring complements on-the-ground efforts by focusing strategic field visits and providing automated detailed annual monitoring reports to reduce workload and increase the quality of information about each site.

Thirty-six-year history in biological conservation, science education and organizational management.

William F. “Fritz” Paulus is a real estate attorney who focuses on land protection transactions and land use matters in Oregon. Representing government entities, nonprofits, and individuals, Mr. Paulus has extensive experience in assisting and advising clients with all facets of the willing-seller-and-buyer property acquisition process from project assessment to closing, including negotiation consultation, preparing purchase and sale agreements, conducting due diligence involving condition of title, appraisals, surveys, and environmental compliance, deed preparation, and escrow instructions. In addition to fee title acquisitions, conservation easements are one of his practice areas, including those to maintain and protect working farmlands. In 2015, he authored a chapter about conservation easements in the Oregon Real Estate Deskbook, published by the Oregon State Bar and is a frequent speaker on the topic. Prior to his current practice, he served as the Executive Director of the Oregon Water Trust and was a Real Estate Negotiator with the Natural Areas Program at Metro, the Portland-area regional government. He is a graduate of the University of Oregon law school and has been an Oregon State Bar member since 1991.