Determining Stewardship and Defense Costs for Properties

We all know that costs associated with long-term stewardship are inherently difficult to predict and often underestimated. In 2016, The Nature Conservancy (accredited) convened national experts to develop a calculator tool to estimate stewardship costs and the amount that should be set aside to provide a secure source of future funding. At the same time, the Land Trust Alliance developed a legal defense reserves calculator to help land trusts determine the costs to defend their conserved lands. After almost seven years, we have learned a lot and are ready to share lessons learned. We will cover the way that the accredited Central Indiana Land Trust uses these tools to address its particular needs as a smaller staffed land trust. 

Join stewardship experts Angela Sturdevant, TNC, Jamison Hutchins, Central Indiana Land Trust and Leslie Ratley-Beach, Land Trust Alliance, as they lay out what land trusts need to know when planning for the long-term cost of managing and defendingtheir properties.    

Here's a look at what we will cover: 

• How to identify and plan for costs of stewardship of fee lands. 

• Typical costs for legal defense and how the role of Terrafirma in estimating costs. 

• Tips for using the stewardship and legal defense calculators.