Keep It Colorado Receives Over $1.5 Million to Advance Conservation
Investments support a 10-year conservation roadmap
June 21, 2024 – GOLDEN – Keep It Colorado announces that it will launch year three of its Emerging Conservation Opportunities (ECO) program with a total of $1.52 million to advance conservation initiatives. These monies will provide transaction, planning, capacity and community engagement support to Colorado’s land conservation community. The funds are organized under two programs: the Transaction Cost Assistance Program and Organizational Advancement. The Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO) board today voted to approve $1.45 million in investments, and Ducks Unlimited will contribute $75,000.
The investments will help Keep It Colorado and its coalition members, including land trusts, public agencies, and other conservation nonprofits and professional organizations, take steps in implementing Conserving Colorado: A 10-year Roadmap for the Future of Private Land Conservation.
Transaction Cost Assistance Program (TCAP) - $1,075,000
This program awards grants to nonprofit land trusts working with Colorado landowners who volunteer to conserve their land with a conservation easement. GOCO’s investments of $1 million, and Ducks Unlimited’s investment of $75,000, will enable Keep It Colorado to award grants to land trusts between July 1, 2024 and June 30, 2025.
For landowners who want to conserve their land but face financial barriers to covering the significant costs of the transaction, grants ease the financial burden and make the project feasible. With TCAP assistance, landowners can conserve more land more quickly – thereby protecting critical plant and wildlife habitat, local food systems, iconic viewsheds, wetland and river corridors, and places of historic and cultural significance.
Since 2021 when Keep It Colorado formed TCAP in partnership with GOCO, it has awarded more than $2 million in grant assistance, enabling land trusts to help landowners complete 45 conservation projects and protect nearly 43,000 acres of land across Colorado. The program has attracted additional support from Ducks Unlimited with goals to advance wetlands protection projects, and from Walton Family Foundation to support water-focused projects in the Colorado River Basin – creating even more far-reaching impacts in conservation. The most recent Spring 2024 grant cycle awards were announced in a separate news release today.
Organizational Advancement - $350,000
As part of its work to ensure that the conservation sector stays healthy and relevant for all current and future generations of Colorado, Keep It Colorado will leverage $350,000 in GOCO funds to continue a partnership with the Land Trust Alliance and other strategic partners to deliver grants, learning resources and a leadership cohort. Grants will support land trusts’ organizational development, community-centered conservation, and diversity, equity, inclusion and justice (DEIJ) initiatives. Learning sessions will build upon teachings about the history of land conservation in Colorado. Coaching and mentorship resources will respond to needs identified in organizational assessments designed to grow capacity across the conservation community. And a DEIJ Cohort will support cohort members on projects designed to build or expand community-centered conservation initiatives.
In 2023-2024 thanks to GOCO’s investment, the partnership between Keep It Colorado and Land Trust Alliance awarded $159,250 in grants to 11 conservation groups; provided direct consultation meetings and a technical assistance grant; offered trainings and webinars on technical topics such as water, climate, and stewardship and topics on nonprofit management, HR, DEIJ and fundraising to land trust staff and board members; hosted a cohort training program for new directors; conducted organizational capacity assessments for land trusts to inform future capacity planning; and offered “Relearning the History of Land Conservation,” a three-part virtual series focused on Black history and experiences in Colorado, for land trusts, public agencies and conservation nonprofits. In partnership with leaders from Montezuma Land Conservancy and Cultivando, Keep It Colorado offered community engagement strategy workshops; organized a DEIJ Cohort for land trusts; and hosted a convening for DEIJ Cohort participants at Keep It Colorado’s annual Spring Summit.
In addition to the programmatic allocations above, Keep It Colorado will receive $100,000 from GOCO to support program administration.
The Conserving Colorado Roadmap, which Keep It Colorado published in April 2023, sets goals to double the conservation community’s impacts in the next decade: double the number of acres conserved, double the engagement of Coloradans in this work, and double the resources needed to achieve the goals. Investments from partners such as GOCO and Ducks Unlimited are essential to supporting the roadmap’s five strategic pillars, which are: Climate-resilient Landscapes; Community-centered Conservation & Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice (DEIJ); Collaborative Water Solutions; Resilient Agriculture; and Lasting Conservation Movement.
About Keep It Colorado
Keep It Colorado serves as a unified voice for conservation organizations focused on private lands conservation, and does so by bringing together land trusts, public agencies and conservation champions around a vision to create a Colorado where people, lands, waters and wildlife thrive. Keep It Colorado advocates for sound public policy; provides connection and collaboration opportunities for conservation partners; offers a forum to address emerging conservation issues and opportunities; pursues sustainable funding and programmatic tools and solutions; and works to advance a culture of conservation in Colorado. Learn more at www.keepitco.org.
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Photo: Courtesy Montezuma Land Conservancy