Community Engagement

Building enduring community-based support for conservation.

Community engagement is a vital strategy and necessity for land conservation, creating supporters, advocates and champions—many among them “non-traditional”—at many levels. These new audiences may become conservation easement landowners and/or donors to conservation organizations, but the benefit of their support runs even deeper.

By engaging more people and expanded audience groups, we build an expectation for and a commitment to conservation. We build public awareness and acceptance for our work, ensuring a deep and broad base of local support that champions our work, wards off challenges and threats to vital landscapes and serves to promote stewardship of the land for generations to come.

Colorado Conservation Trust’s nationally-innovative community engagement grant making program was launched as a pilot program in the fall of 2009. The ultimate goal is to help grantees to become “the community’s land trust,” an organization that is deeply relevant and valued, and that will be championed and protected for years to come. This sort of investment is our greatest protection against orphan easements, legal battles over easements and land protection, and development threats. By bringing the community to support conservation, we create local champions that ensure the long-term success of land protection visions and missions, both locally and across the state.

Colorado Conservation Trust currently is working with the consultant support of The Metropolitan Group to identify best practices, offer strategic counsel, and contribute implementation grant support to two partners through the pilot effort—the Rio Grande Headwaters Land Trust and the Palmer Land Trust. To learn more about the program and progress to date, please contact Patrick Holmes, conservation program coordinator.

Moving Forward into 2011

In 2011 we will begin the second year of the Community Engagement Program.  A key focus moving forward will be to engage groups without strong previous connections to land conservation: small business owners, people of color, public officials in smaller, rural counties and educational groups.  We plan to present the results of this program at the 2011 Land Trust Alliance national convention.   Numerous land trusts wish to participate in this program, and CCT will assess how to expand the program once we complete a thorough analysis of the pilot program.