Cultivating Strategic Water & Climate Partnerships

Climate change and water quality degradation are two of the most pressing problems facing our world. Land trust work provides key solutions to both, but the problems are too complex to handle alone.

Collaborative conservation partnerships enable land trusts to make outsized contributions in fighting the climate crisis and improving water quality. Partnerships also enable land trusts to engage more of their communities and attract new funding opportunities to support this work. As a result, more land trusts are initiating and leading collaborative partnerships that adopt audacious, yet imperative, climate and water goals.

But effective partnerships do not just happen. They require concerted planning, strong leadership and ongoing commitment from everyone involved.

As the land trust community seeks to form and grow more collaborative partnerships, the Land Trust Alliance is building the capacities of land trusts to be effective collaborative leaders. The Alliance funds collaborative conservation partnerships through its Land & Water grant programs. Now, we are hosting a series of online workshops that will help land trusts and their conservation allies build their collaborative leadership skills.

This series of four, 90-minute workshops will be led by the Institute for Conservation Leadership. Through this series, participating teams of land trust staff, board and volunteers will:

• Understand and apply principles of collaboration and network theory.

• Explore leadership skills for developing and sustaining successful partnerships.

• Understand tools for developing collaborative partnerships that are appropriate in scale and scope to land trusts’ climate and water goals.

• Consider how different capacities and goals of cross-sector partnerships may impact power dynamics.

• Gain perspective and new thinking from peers and their unique contexts.

• Learn from examples of partnerships that protect water resources and address climate adaptation.

This course will be held virtually from 11 a.m. — 12:30 p.m. Eastern time on Oct. 12, Oct. 17, Oct. 19 and Oct. 24.

The cost of this training is $311 per person, but thanks to the generous support of the Volgenau Foundation and Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, your cost is $95 as an Alliance member or $125 for non-members.