A. Capacity
- Regularly evaluate whether the land trust has sufficient volunteers, staff and/or consultants/contractors to achieve its strategic goals and carry out its programs, and then add capacity as needed.
Background
A land trust must have enough knowledgeable and dependable assistance to carry out its programs, no matter what its level of activity. A land trust needs to be sure not only that it can undertake the necessary work of the land trust today, but also that it can sustain its work into the future. Because land trusts promise to protect their conservation properties forever, their responsibility to structure transactions knowledgeably and manage their organizations wisely is especially great. With conservation agreements in particular, this places obligations on the land trust to develop conservation agreement stewardship systems and to implement these systems consistently. The land trust should periodically assess the stewardship obligations it has, determine if more assistance is necessary to fulfill these obligations and plan accordingly. A land trust should evaluate projects carefully and select projects that are consistent with their capacity to manage the projects in the short and long-term.