Land Trust Standards and Practices

A guide to help land trusts organizations through the accreditation process.

A publication of the Land Trust Accreditation Commission.

This publication is designed to complement the 2004 Land Trust Standards and Practices. General information on Land Trust Standards and Practices and on Land Trust Alliance publications and training programs related to the standards and practices can be found at www. landtrustalliance.org. The two-volume Land Trust Standards and Practices Guidebook contains more detailed information about each practice and how land trusts can meet them. Alliance member land trusts and partners can find this informa- tion, sample documents and more online at The Learning Center (http://learningcenter.lta.org).

Fact sheet illustrating the benefits of accreditation.

How well are you meeting your commitment to protect in perpetuity the conservation values of your fee lands and easement holdings? Is your stewardship fund adequate? What should you be doing regarding enforcement funds? Download LTA’s newest report.

The 15 courses that make up the Standards and Practices Curriculum are written by top conservation experts. In addition, each course goes through a rigorous review and pilot process to ensure land trusts have an authoritative resource on private land conservation.

This presentation focuses on easement recordkeeping and, more specifically, the six accreditation indicator practices of Standard 9: Ensuring Sound Transactions from Land Trust Standards and Practices. This presentation is beneficial for land trusts that are undergoing self-assessment or reviewing their recordkeeping practices. Session 3h of 2009 PA Land Conservation Conference

Online search mechanism for accredited land trusts

The Internal Revenue Service suggests that organizations review and consider the following to help ensure that directors understand their roles and responsibilities and actively promote good governance practices.

This 2011 IRS private letter ruling illustrates a rare instance of a land trust losing its tax-exempt status. It exhibits the consequences of flagrant disregard for legal and ethical standards and the process of fact-finding that may result in an adverse IRS action. The factors supporting the IRS determination that the land trust was operating for private (as opposed to public) benefit included: • an abject failure to maintain corporate records; • failure to report compensation paid to its founder/president; • dubious business relationships between the founder/president's for-profit company and the land trust; • receipt of payment from a landowner, and payment by the land trust of "consulting fees" to the founder/president, in connection with an easement amendment that doubled the building right with no reciprocal conservation benefits to the land trust; • the making of direct political campaign contributions; • a lack of resources or staff to monitor or enforce its easements; and • the founder/president entering private consulting contracts with prospective land donors.

The Land Trust Accreditation Commission offers outside verification that a land trust conforms with a key set of practices within Land Trust Standards and Practices. Accreditation is voluntary. A land trust should weigh the advantages of rigorous, external review against the opportunity costs of obtaining and maintaining accredited status. WeConservePA guide, 7 pages.

A collection of materials and resources that are needed to apply for accreditation.

The Land Trust Accreditation Commission occasionally publishes Guidance Documents to help applicants interpret specific indicator practices drawn from Land Trust Standards and Practices. These documents may be amended from time to time. Guidance Documents are intended as just that – guidance for applicants. They complement information provided by the Land Trust Alliance on how to implement the practices that can be found at http://learningcenter.lta.org.

This student guide is part of the Land Trust Alliance's Standards & Practices Curriculum and is designed to provided guidance and tools to implement practices 2B, 3B, 3C and 3F.

Land Trust Standards and Practices are the ethical and technical guidelines for the responsible operation of a land trust. First published in 1989, they were updated in 1993, 2001, 2004, and 2017. They are a collective product of the land trust community; more than 1,600 comments were received from conservationists during preparation of the 2017 edition.

The Land Trust Standards and Practices are widely accepted ethical and technical guidelines for the responsible operation of land trusts. WeConservePA guide. 3 pages.

The title says it all.

Have you ever received a request to amend an easement and weren’t sure of the right course of action? Unsure about how to decline a request without alienating the landowner? Have you been confronted with a new landowner who is unaware of or reluctant to abide by the terms of the easement? If so, this book can help.

This book describes the legal requirements for operating a land trust and keeping good organizational and transaction records. It teaches readers how to develop and implement policies to guide how a land trust creates, collects, retains, stores, protects, and disposes of these types of records. It also covers the issue of tax exemption, including the major requirements for maintaining charitable tax-exempt status and an overview of IRS Form 990.

The board of directors of the Pennsylvania Land Trust Association, acting on the unanimous recommendation of PALTA’s 29-member policy advisory committee, directly addressed the following question in an open communication to the land trust community dated September 13, 2016: How does a board's exercise of judgment intersect with the Standards?

Early lessons from the pilot program

Lessons learned from 2007 pilot program