Conservation Finance (Multiple Topic Guides)

A review of land conservation financing options. Subjects addressed include transfer fees, voluntary surcharges, seller financing, revolving funds, and Project Related Investment programs. 387 pages. (Island Press, 2007)

The guide covers familiar strategies, including bargain sales and private philanthropy, and it explains novel approaches, such as tapping new-markets tax credits and forming partnerships with a new generation of corporations that own forest lands. Throughout, Ingerson shows how these tools can make land protection both more affordable and more effective in an era of shrinking public dollars for conservation.

A comprehensive handbook for communities seeking to raise funds for conservation via the ballot box. The PDF contains the introduction and first chapter. Topics include: Measuring Public Opinion, Designing a Winning Measure, and Running a Conservation Campaign. The 211-page book can be purchased from The Trust for Public Land.

This presentation focuses on conservation efforts in urban communities

This article is a condensed version of Chapter 5 from "From Walden to Wall Street: Frontiers of Conservation Finance", by James N. Levitt, ed. Copyright ©2005 Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Reproduced by permission of Island Press, Washington, D.C.

Can the conservation community come up with new methods for financing that will fill this gap, especially for high-priority land conservation needs? "From Walden to Wall Street" brings together the experience of more than a dozen pioneering conservation finance practitioners to address the this question, and the answer is quite possibly “yes,” according to editor James N. Levitt. Some of the groundbreaking ideas discussed in this volume include mainstreaming environmental markets; proven methods that have caused a four-fold increase in local government ballot measures for land conservation; and the powerful potential of debt markets, convertible tax-exempt financing, emerging tax benefits, and private equity markets for conservation organizations with the institutional capacity to appropriately access them.

The seller of real estate may finance the buyer’s purchase of a property. An installment agreement requires the buyer to pay the seller the purchase price in installments over time. Both the buyer and the seller may benefit from such an agreement. Payment amounts and timing can be structured in an infinite variety of ways and tailored to best meet the needs of both parties. WeConservePA guide. 7 pages.

Written by two of the nation's leading experts on land conservation, Land Conservation Financing provides a comprehensive overview of successful land conservation programs -- how they were created, how they are funded, and what they've accomplished -- along with detailed case studies from across the United States. The authors present important new information on state-of-the-art conservation financing, showcasing programs in states that have become the nation's leaders in open-space protection: California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and New Jersey. They look at key local land protection efforts by examining model programs in DeKalb County, Georgia; Douglas County, Colorado; Jacksonville, Florida; Lake County, Illinois; Lancaster County, Pennsylvania; Marin County, California; the St. Louis metro area in Missouri and Illinois, and on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Between 1996 and 2002, the Trust for Public Land’s Conservation Finance Program helped states and communities design and promote ballot measures that created more than $25 billion in new park and open space funding. Out of the program’s experience comes a handbook that explains the complex process of securing federal, state and private conservation funds, including how to research and design a local, voter-approved conservation finance measure. The first chapter is provided here (in .pdf format), the full 156 page handbook is available for purchase through The Trust for Public Land.

This is the segment of the IRS Code relating to charitable contributions.