Case Study: Cardinal Land Conservancy Inc.

Please note: This case study about Cardinal Land Conservancy Inc. is excerpted from the Land Trust Alliance's publication, “An Introduction to Mergers for Land Trusts,” which lays out guidelines based on established best practices, including tips from land trusts that have been there and tools to make the process easier.

Established

July 22, 2015 (first board meeting)

Merging Organizations

• The Citizen’s Land Conservancy of Hamilton County (surviving organization)
• Clinton County Open Lands, Inc. (land trust)
• Southern Ohio Farmland Preservation Association, Inc. (land trust)

Strategic Partner

• Cincinnati Nature Center

Reasons for Merger

• Need to secure lands in perpetuity
• Desire for growth
• Addition of staff

Recommendation for Other Land Trusts

Mergers are not easy. Expect the unexpected and allow time to deal with challenges as they arise.

Capacity and perpetuity were the mutual needs that brought three all-volunteer land trusts together to form the Cardinal Land Conservancy (CLC) near Cincinnati, Ohio. “All three groups came to the same decision independently,” explains Laura Curliss, board president for CLC. “We could not preserve land in perpetuity without professional staff and without growing bigger—bigger in budget, bigger in territory, bigger in membership and bigger in our capability to get grants.”

Curliss, a founding board member for Clinton County Open Lands (CCOL), began her search in 2012 for one or more partners with which to merge when she initially reached out to a larger land trust. The CCOL board soon determined this land trust was not an ideal fit for its organization. Meanwhile, the founders of the Citizen’s Land Conservancy of Hamilton County (CLCHC) had begun to consider the perpetuity of their organization beyond their own tenure. They hired a consultant to help find their organization’s path to perpetuity and they eventually also came to the conclusion that merging with one or more land trusts would be the best solution. Then, the Cincinnati Nature Center (CNC) stepped in, offering a strategic partnership that ultimately brought CCOL, CLCHC and a third land trust — Southern Ohio Farmland Preservation Association (SOFPA) — to the negotiating table.

Each of the three merging land trusts were entirely volunteer-led, held only a few easements and had serious concerns about their ability to remain solvent into the future. By joining together, the three merged their service areas and resources, allowing them to accomplish more as a single organization than they could as three separate organizations. However, they had to overcome challenges and work out agreements that they could all live with.

Challenges of Merger

The path to the merger was not always smooth. The process took longer than anticipated, required the hiring of a second consultant when the first left the project, revealed previously overlooked violations on some conserved lands and required confronting a natural resistance to change.

The land trusts set up a merger task force to identify and address these challenges and potential deal-breakers. “A potential deal-breaker would have been if any of the three land trusts said they did not want to continue as a member of Terrafirma. All three were enrolled, and we wanted to make sure coverage continued,” said Curliss. “Another potential deal-breaker was membership in the Land Trust Alliance and eventually seeking accreditation. All three land trusts said that they wanted to be an Alliance member, operate according to Land Trust Standards and Practices and eventually achieve accreditation. Finally, all three land trusts expressed a desire to protect natural areas and farmland. In our part of Ohio, we have valuable soils to protect, water resources and natural areas worthy of protection. All types of land protection—both type and method (fee simple and easements) —were supported by each land trust, and that enabled us to go forward with a shared vision.”

Curliss is honest about both the benefits and challenges of the merger process. “We were all so highly motivated to make this happen because we all realized we could not survive without it. The bottom line is you have to be committed to the merger process. It is not going to be easy. No matter what merger story you have, grit, determination and a sense of humor are essential to making it.”

Benefits of Merger

The newly formed land trust immediately realized several benefits:

• Expanded geographic reach. The new land trust now serves seven counties in southwest Ohio — the original five counties served by the merged land trusts, plus an additional two that sit between the merged organizations’ geographies and had been without a land trust presence prior to the merger.
• Secured a $100,000 grant from the Greater Cincinnati Foundation to support the hiring of professional staff and increase acres preserved. The new land trust is also eligible for other funding opportunities that were not available to the smaller merging land trusts.
• Retained the services of an accountant specializing in nonprofit accounting and a consultant for monitoring properties. As a result, the land trust’s accounting and monitoring reports are now more detailed, professional and meet the requirements of Land Trust Standards and Practices, grant-funders, donors and government reporting.
• Board size, collective experience with land trust work and leadership capacity increased. The combined board (with additions) has enabled the land trust to make better decisions, particularly when unusual or challenging issues have arisen.
• Secured a generous, in-kind donation from LPK, a global brand development company, to refine the new organization’s mission statement and develop new branding and communications materials.

In addition to the fiscal benefits realized through merging, CLC is also reaping programmatic rewards due to its strategic partnership with CNC. “We want to do science-based strategic planning for nature preservation in our region,” says Curliss, explaining that CNC will assist with developing science-based plans for habitat preservation and restoration through its new Center for Conservation. “The Center will provide planning and resources — such as state-of-the-art mapping and partner outreach and coordination — to help guide Cardinal’s work.”

By all accounts, the merger that led to the creation of CLC was a success. The organization is fiscally stable, will soon be launching a major donor effort and hired an executive director, its first full-time staff person, on January 1, 2017.