Kingsbury Browne Conservation Leadership Award

The Kingsbury Browne Conservation Leadership Award celebrates individuals whose leadership has enriched the entire conservation community and whose contributions embody the values Kingsbury Browne, a founder of the Alliance, demonstrated in his own life and work on behalf of the land trust movement.

A key attribute of leadership celebrated by this award is that of a generous spirit — the sharing of ideas, experiences and knowledge with others to nurture and mentor the next generation of conservationists and leaders. To enable this sharing of knowledge, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy provides a Fellowship to the recipient to facilitate a project that builds upon and shares their experience with the broader conservation community. The Alliance will work with the award winner to disseminate their insights to the broader land conservation community.

The recipient of this prestigious award is celebrated each year at Rally: The National Land Conservation Conference.

Nominations for the 2024 Kingsbury Browne Award are no longer being accepted.

Questions?

For additional information on the criteria for the Kingsbury Browne Conservation Leadership Award, please email awards@lta.org.

Award criteria

The recipient has demonstrated extraordinary leadership in advancing land conservation through direct involvement with the land trust movement.
The recipient embodies the values that characterized Kingsbury Browne and led to his own impact on the land trust movement, especially:
- Innovation: Working to improve the practice of land protection through new approaches, creative initiative and uncommon vision
- Collaboration: An active and effective collaborator with other land trusts, community groups and diverse interest groups, unusual alliances, etc. and explore partnering to leverage their potential
- Generous Spirit: Sharing ideas, experiences and knowledge with others to nurture and mentor the next generation of conservationists and leaders
Their impact reaches beyond a single community, land transaction, or organization to help the land trust movement reach new levels of maturity, competence and success.
The recipient may be at any stage in their career, so long as they demonstrates the qualities and impacts that are embodies in the award criteria.

Nominate an outstanding leader

Kingsbury Browne (1922-2005) was one of the founding fathers of the Land Trust Alliance — his wisdom and counsel formed the bedrock of today’s Alliance and the land trust community. In 1980, as a Fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, Browne first envisioned a national network of land trusts and persuaded the Institute to convene the first-ever gathering of land trust leaders from coast to coast. From that beginning, the Land Trust Alliance was founded in 1982 to lead the growing movement. His wisdom, wit and patient guidance inspired a generation of land conservationists. Now his values and generous spirit live on in the Kingsbury Browne Conservation Leadership Award, including the one-year fellowship at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy for writing, research and teaching on a subject related to land conservation.

Every year the recipient of this prestigious award is celebrated during the Welcoming Dinner at Rally: The National Land Conservation Conference, with a short video featuring the individual's conservation impact.