The Center for Conservation and Development pioneers unique solutions to environmental protection by encouraging better development decisions. Faced with the accelerating consumption and fragmentation of land across all 50 states, the Center offers creative projects and models that balance social, economic, and environmental interests. The Center works with private, public, and nonprofit partners to conserve significant natural resources and build better communities. Through the Center's initiatives, we seek to achieve a healthy economic return and conservation benefits.
The Center engages private, public, and nonprofit landowners and developers and works with them to foster, promote, and document environmentally friendly development practices. The Conservation Development initiatives include:
The Center challenges both existing and new communities to realize better development choices, providing Better Models resources including:
For select signature projects, the Fund’s Land Advisory Services team provides planning and consulting services to create exceptional places that meet quality of life goals, protect sensitive resources, support healthy and diverse communities, and achieve financial objectives.
Underpinning the Center’s engagement in development is the strongest commitment to achieving solid conservation outcomes and building the leadership capacity of those stewards of our community heritage and natural resources. The Center works in partnership with other Conservation Fund programs including:
The Conservation Fund offers a number of print publications, videos, DVDs and free online resources on a number of conservation topics.
Browse our publications and resources:
A list of all publications for purchase is also available in PDF form. (Download PDF - 1MB).
Note: Our online publication and resource webpages are updated periodically. Please visit these pages for the most complete list of online resources and publications.
The Conservation Fund's work to balance economic and environmental objectives requires financing to bring it to life. Whether through bridge loans to land trusts for conservation acquisitions or through small business financing to launch natural resource-based businesses, the Fund engages directly in promoting the sustainable use of financial and natural resources.
Unlike an endowment, 100 percent of every dollar invested in the Revolving Fund is used to acquire important conservation lands. Our Revolving Fund provides ready capital to purchase top priority lands for conservation across the country. On average, each dollar in the Revolving Fund is recycled three times in five years.
Administered by The Conservation Fund, the Mississippi River Revolving Fund provides loans to nonprofit organizations and government agencies to aid in the protection of land along the main stem of the river or along key tributaries, as well as greenways that are part of larger regional projects.
In 2002 The Conservation Fund launched its Great Lakes Revolving Loan Fund with a generous grant from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. Using capital from this source, the Fund provides technical assistance and bridge financing to nonprofit land trusts working to preserve resources within the Great Lakes Basin—the nation's most significant freshwater ecosystem.
Does your land trust need financing to make a project happen? The Conservation Fund, through its Land Trust Loan Program, provides bridge financing and short-term loans to more than 1,700 local nonprofit land conservation organizations across the nation to accelerate the pace of conservation at the local level.
Some of the best business ideas start small—and rural. But how can these ideas move from the drawing board and into the community? Two of our programs offer solutions to small sustainable businesses. Our ShadeFund is a microloan program that individuals, corporations and foundations can donate to in order to provide loans to green entrepreneurs across America. Our Natural Capital Investment Fund (NCIF) provides flexible, “patient” capital to small and emerging natural resource-based businesses that will advance sustainable economic development throughout West Virginia, North Carolina, Virginia and Northeast Tennessee.
The Fund provides a comprehensive range of conservation services to a diverse clientele including government agencies, corporations, foundations, nonprofit organizations, and individuals. From land identification and acquisition to mitigation and disposition to land advisory and training, the Fund’s services are designed to offer turnkey solutions to meet our partners needs.
Through this full-service approach, the Fund works closely with partners to determine the most effective solution to achieve on-the-ground results. As one of the nation's most efficient environmental nonprofits, the Fund's fees and overhead rates are often the lowest of any national conservation organization.
Since 1985, The Conservation Fund has worked closely with local, state and federal agencies as well as private landowners and land trusts to protect our nation’s outdoor heritage – our National Parks and Monuments, Wildlife Refuges and Recreation Areas. The Fund helps its public and private partners achieve their specific land conservation goals by providing risk capital, effective negotiation, legal skills and leverage of limited funding. This partner-driven approach enables us to act quickly and effectively to meet our partners' needs.
The Fund's services include:
The Fund’s experienced real estate staff effectively manages all stages of the transaction, from preliminary landowner contact through closing.
The Fund can provide bridge financing for land acquisitions (fee and easement) when funding is not immediately available utilizing the Fund’s own risk capital.
As a private, non-membership third party, the Fund is uniquely positioned to work with private landowners to resolve potential conflicts and structure innovative transactions.
The Fund’s fees and overhead rates are the lowest of any national conservation organization.
Gift Lands
The Conservation Fund uses market-based initiatives that balance economic development and environmental protection to transform surplus real estate from a financial burden to a financial benefit while preserving open space, wildlife habitats and river corridors for future generations.
By working with the Fund to dispose of properties that are underperforming or are incompatible with a company’s long-term strategic goals, management can reduce expenses, lower debt, and increase pre-tax profits, enhancing shareholder value while protecting the environment.
For more information on any land acquisition services contact us.
The Fund works with local municipalities, land trusts and other organizations to create exceptional places that meet quality of life goals, protect sensitive resources, build healthy and diverse communities, and address regulatory and fiduciary matters in innovative ways. Services include:
For more information, contact Douglas Horne, Land Advisory Services
Phone: 703.908.5802
From our efforts to protect America's working farms, forests and ranches to our programs to help communities advance strategic conservation—including land use planning, ecotourism and job development—we are developing sustainable solutions that integrate economic development with environmental quality. Through vision, investment and leadership, with our partners we are helping to revitalize underserved areas, preserve local character and finance natural resource-based businesses.
Population growth, suburban sprawl and emerging technologies have transformed the American landscape and land-use planning in the 21st century. As pressures increase on undisturbed landscapes, choices about public and private land use have become more complex and require new strategies for balancing social, economic and environmental interests.
As part of our Community and Economic Development programs, we support land-use planning to demonstrate environmentally based development strategies. We work with local municipalities, land trusts and other organizations to create exceptional places that meet quality of life goals, protect sensitive resources, build healthy and diverse communities, and address regulatory and fiduciary matters in innovative ways.
Every community is unique, with varying natural resources and needs. We draw from our strategic conservation toolkit to help city and county planners, regional and watershed organizations, natural resource agencies and nonprofits design comprehensive and customized strategies that balance land protection and development.
Working with private, public and nonprofit partners to conserve significant natural resources and build better communities, the Center for Conservation and Development pioneers unique solutions to environmental protection by encouraging better development decisions. Initiatives include Conservation-Based Affordable Housing and the Partnership for Conservation Development.
Our Land Advisory Services specialize in applying principles of sustainable development to real estate projects with sensitive resources—ecological, visual and historical. We work closely with a variety of clients, and our services range from defining the initial vision to managing implementation.
Our balanced approach to land conservation and economic development includes creating new economies through ecotourism, providing critical financing for small businesses in rural areas, and assisting underserved communities in developing new economies that protect and restore natural resources.
Natural Capital Investment FundNCIF provides financial services to small and emerging natural resource-based businesses in economically distressed urban and rural communities in North Carolina, Northeast Tennessee, Southwest Virginia and West Virginia.
www.ncifund.org
ShadeFundEstablished by the Fund with a lead grant from the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities and Mercedes-Benz USA, ShadeFund is a microloan program that helps green entrepreneurs grow their businesses and create jobs. www.shadefund.org
Resourceful CommunitiesThe Resourceful Communities program blends innovative techniques, such as the "triple bottom line approach," to help North Carolina's underserved communities create new economies that protect and restore natural resources.
www.resourcefulcommunities.org
Texas Pineywoods ExperienceThe Texas Pineywoods Experience is a Sustainable Tourism Program that combines economic development and tourism. The Pineywoods area offers some of the best birding and wildlife viewing in the United States.
www.texaspineywoodsexperience.org
Even if you’re just learning about The Conservation Fund, chances are you already know many places we’ve helped protect—national parks, Civil War battlefields, recreation destinations of all kinds. For more than 25 years, we’ve combined a passion for conservation with an entrepreneurial spirit to protect your favorite places before they become just a memory.
To save land and sustain communities, our team supplies conservation strategy and tools. When local leaders wanted to expand a park in Pennsylvania, for instance, our real estate team managed the purchase of the land. When Nashville’s mayor needed a plan to protect the city’s best natural features, our land use planners designed it. And when 11 low-income Michigan counties needed a more reliable supply of fresh food, our community development team found the funds to help disadvantaged farmers succeed.
We know that for conservation to last, it needs to make economic sense. We invite you to learn more about our efforts across America, from the places we protect to our part in fighting climate change and improving our nation’s green infrastructure. These are just a few examples of what we do at The Conservation Fund every day.
When you give to us, you don't get calendars or toys. You get results.
Note: A pop-up may appear to verify our site—press continue, our site is secure!
Charity Navigator and
American Institute of Philanthropy
give us their highest rating.
Powered by: Phase2 TechnologyThe Conservation Fund National Office
1655 N. Fort Myer Drive, Suite 1300
Arlington, Virginia 22209-3199
Phone: 703-525-6300
Fax: 703-525-4610
Email: postmaster@conservationfund.org
