Durable Collaborations: Strengthening Land Conservation through Lasting Partnerships

Durable collaborations are robust, mutually beneficial and long-lived approaches to achieving conservation success that enable groups to leverage their combined efforts. They also offer solutions that can benefit land trusts by making them stronger organizations with the potential to save more land and have a bigger conservation impact. They help to meet the perpetuity challenge.

The Obligation of Perpetuity

No other class of nonprofit organizations bears the equivalent burden of perpetual stewardship that land trusts are required by law to perform. Most land trusts are small organizations; in fact, 57% of land trusts are all-volunteer, and the challenge of securing the necessary financial and human resources necessary to run a professional conservation operation can be difficult. These organizations are often stretched thin, needing additional volunteers or staff to handle the permanent stewardship obligations they have already undertaken, as well as additional capacity to grow their land protection programs.

The greater conservation community is rightly concerned about the potential ramifications of individual land trust failures. If one group fails, nearby land trusts may need to assume that group’s stewardship duties — a burden that can place the receiving organization in a perilous position without the requisite financial resources.

If there is no organization capable of stepping up to the plate, the failure of a land trust may lead to “orphaned” easements and eventually the loss of protections on those properties. In domino fashion, these events could lead to loss of public confidence in the land trust model. In the face of these challenges, the question is how to keep the best of local conservation while ensuring conservation quality and conservation permanence.

An Emerging Need for Collaboration

Because land trusts are focused on perpetual stewardship, they must be especially mindful of the need for organizational sustainability, particularly for smaller groups hardest hit by the economic downturn. Durable collaborations are one of the most important responses to the sustainability challenge. Collaborations occur along a continuum that runs from informal networking and project sharing all the way to more structural integration, including shared staffing or even merger.

In addition to helping leverage limited organizationalresources, collaborations provide the opportunity for synergy and specialization, helping to eliminate redundancy in the different organizations by allowing land trust personnel to specialize in their areas of expertise, rather than people at each organization having to be “jacks of all trades.” For example, sharing of back-office staff (reception, secretarial, bookkeeping and such) or stewardship and management duties can free up staff and volunteers to work on fundraising or proactive land acquisition strategies. And perhaps most important, it results in the integration of local conservation into regional conservation efforts, increasing the reach of conservation.

Considering Collaboration

The greatest regional conservation impacts come when geographically related organizations are constantly learning from each other, sharing experiences and understanding their communal needs, opportunities and challenges. Open discussions about the range of potential collaborative endeavors, even if not immediately implemented, can prepare groups if or when the time comes to proceed with a collaboration or merger.

One impetus for considering collaboration comes from the increasing numbers of funders who feel that grants to collaborative efforts, rather than smaller grants to a number of groups with similar missions, provide a greater societal return on their investments because of the synergy that can come from such efforts.

Strategic planning is an excellent time for examining the opportunities and benefits that can result from collaborative efforts and provides an organizationwide forum for careful consideration. It is also an opportunity to learn about the projects of other conservation organizations in your region and familiarize yourselves with their current visions, goals and aspirations.

Examining potential collaborative ventures during strategic planning is also a good precautionary step because the impetus for considering collaborative partnerships with other organizations possessing overlapping missions can be the result of a triggering event, such as loss of crucial personnel, diminished core funding or lack of capacity to respond to conservation opportunities. Depending on the degree of crisis presented by the triggering event, it may or may not be possible to take a long, careful and deliberate look at the best collaborative opportunities at that time.

Spectrum of Collaboration

The range of potential collaborative ventures is broad and there is no “one-size-fits-all” choice. Location, mission, organizational culture, financial resources, expertise and leadership all influence which path to choose. In general terms, the various opportunities increase in complexity from cooperation to coordination to integration to full organizational merger. The inherent risks and responsibilities for the partnering organizations also increase with more complex collaborations. Beginning with lower-risk collaborations can increase interorganizational understanding and build trust, as well as raise comfort levels to pursue appropriate higher-risk ventures, such as shared staffing or even merger.

Networking is a simple, low-risk way of opening the door for local organizations to learn more about their regional neighbors. The key ingredient of successful and durable collaboration is personal relationships. In the simplest form, this could mean quarterly Sunday afternoon gatherings on different conserved properties to share appreciation for conservation, as well as to understand each other’s organizational culture and conservation visions. Having a member of another land trust serve on your board also increases interorganizational knowledge, trust and understanding.

Shared Trainings are a cost-effective way of gaining professional expertise while getting to know your neighbors. Land trusts that may not have the resources to send staff or board members to regional or national Land Trust Alliance trainings or conferences could pool their limited funds to bring in expert trainers for everyone’s benefit. Preparing for accreditation is a particularly important example of where a group of land trusts could benefit from a collective training. More general sessions, such as board development or fundraising planning, could also involve other non-land conservation partners to help spread the costs.

Joint Programs are a more formal step along the collaboration continuum and could include any variety of activities, ranging from environmental education and legislative advocacy to regional land conservation planning and mutual participation in land conservation projects. Joint programs allow each organization to focus on an area of specialty while benefitting from the resulting product.  The Trust for Public Land, for example, often works in conjunction with local land trusts, providing expertise in fundraising and acquisition of important conservation lands for which the local land trust assumes ownership, management or stewardship responsibilities.

Regional Associations that have formed throughout the country in the past two decades often provide or facilitate many of the collaborative opportunities described in this article. Such associations often include a variety of non-land trust conservation organizations whose missions dovetail with the conservation efforts, but may focus specifically on such areas as environmental education, environmental advocacy or habitat restoration for endangered species, for example.

Shared Back-Office Services or Shared Staff Members can be a very effective way of gaining professional services at a bargain price. Many of the day-to-day operations of nonprofit organizations, such as bookkeeping, human resources, database management or IT services, may require only a few hours a week. Two or more organizations with similar needs can work together through “shared services agreements” to support full-time professional help. Larger organizations with existing staff may effectively subcontract a portion of the staff member’s time to smaller organizations with limited needs, or two organizations could split the cost of a shared staff member position. That staff member could be housed in either organization or might split his or her time between the two organizations, depending on locations and convenience.

Merger is an increasingly attractive option in the nonprofit world, but as the most complex option, it should not be approached without very careful consideration and planning. Organizations that have worked together in some manner, whether on joint projects or staff sharing, are typically in a much better position to address the many critical issues that must be examined for a successful merger. When the trigger for considering merger is a crisis event of some type, the pressure to move quickly may not provide the opportunity to perform the careful due diligence that helps ensure success.

Evaluating Collaboration Needs

Whatever the reason for considering collaboration options, the process of evaluating the best path for your land trust has the same elements: exploring what it will require of your organization and balancing that against the potential advantages of the various collaborative options. The more thoughtful and thorough that evaluation, the greater the likelihood you will make the best decision, especially if the collaboration brings significant financial investment. This evaluation should include:

• A realistic self-assessment of your organization’s needs and capacity (see the Land Trust Alliance’s Assessing Your Organization);
• An understanding of the missions, organizational cultures and capacity of potential collaborative partners;
• An assessment of human and financial resources needed and available for the collaboration, including outside funding;
• Communication with core supporters and community stakeholders to assess their response to the proposed collaborative efforts; and
• Ensuring there are champions of the collaboration and trusted leadership in the collaborating organizations.

Primary Challenges to Durable Collaborations

Failure to implement or sustain collaborations typically occurs when the participants have not adequately evaluated the costs and benefits of the collaborative effort or have not clearly articulated the roles and responsibilities of each organization. The main hurdles to developing acceptable plans typically result from:

• Lack of familiarity with the other organization(s) and insufficiently developed mutual trust;
• Substantially different organizational “cultures” of the different groups;
• Uncertainty by board and/or staff about their future duties, particularly if the higher-risk collaborations, such as staff sharing or mergers, are contemplated;
• Strong egos unwilling to accept a sharing of duties or decision-making; and
• Concerns that work on local conservation projects could be overshadowed by regional projects.