Unrestrict Your Mind: Fundraising for a Whole Organization

Successfully protecting and stewarding land in perpetuity requires significant financial resources. Whether contemplating a first hire or rapidly adding staff, your organization knows that investing in equitable compensation and benefits is a sound strategy to support mission fulfillment. You also know that fundraising and communication expertise are essential to organizational success, but it feels like there’s never enough money. There’s no way around it: your organization needs to raise more unrestricted funds. Your donors will respond to asks for a specific land protection project, but will they respond to asks for organizational support?

Two land trusts can answer yes to that question! Gallatin Valley Land Trust and Big Waters Land Trust have emphatically embraced unrestricted, core mission support mindsets, allowing them to enhance their organizations’ capacity to protect and steward lands through increased compensation and benefits, inspiring communication campaigns and solid relationships with partners and donors. Join Gallatin Valley Land Trust’s Katie Moyer, Director of Finance and Operations, and Justin Barth, Director of Development, along with Big Waters Land Trust’s Christine Johnson, President, and Shalla Ashworth, Director of Philanthropy, as they cover:

• How the financial concepts of core mission support and whole cost accounting allow Gallatin Valley Land Trust to increase compensation and benefits for all staff.

• How Big Waters Land Trust successfully communicates impact and prioritizes relationship building to invest in staff capacity and organizational longevity.

• Development strategies to fund the whole organization, shattering myths about what donors will and won’t fund.

• Examples of interdepartmental teamwork for successful financial planning and fundraising.

This webinar is included in the 2025 Webinar Pass.

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