The average age of a conservation donor is between 66 and 67. This isn’t a guess. I’ve been tracking data from land trust organizations all over the country for about ten years, and it’s been consistently in that range for at least that long....
26 October 2021 By David Allen, Development for Conservation In the past twelve years, I’ve worked with more than 100 land trusts across the country. To be honest most of them are struggling with very similar issues. And they need very similar things. You’d think I’d get bored. Nope. Everywhere...
19 May 2020 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Matching grants have been used forever to stimulate giving. It seems like today, they are most closely associated with public broadcasting campaigns and state giving days, but nearly every nonprofit has at least some experience with them. Thirty...
By David Allen, Development for Conservation First off, I hope that you, your family, and everyone in your orbit is well and stays that way. Hunker down, wash your hands, stay six feet away from others. Stay home and stay well. Last week I sat in on...
By David Allen, Development for Conservation In the early days of Nature Conservancy history, the organization spent a great deal more time figuring out how to buy land than they did how to take care of it later. As a result, by the mid-1980s, TNC nationally...
By David Allen, Development for Conservation Planned gifts can be a game changer for your land trust when they come in unexpectedly and are not restricted by the donor. Ninety-plus percent of all planned gifts are bequests or named beneficiaries on various insurance policies. So, if you...
Give five times your annual gift – $125,000 – each year for five years. The land trust will pull the first $25,000 each year as a continuation of your annual gift. And they’ll invest the rest. After five years, they will have a $500,000 endowment...