SENO K/RLT CONSERVANCY INC

Seno K/RLT Conservancy’s primary goal for all its operations is to become recognized as a leader in conservation practices and a destination for natural resources and environmental education in Southeastern Wisconsin. We want local and regional communities to look to Seno K/RLT as a useful resource regarding their interests in natural resources and land preservation. We strive continually to raise the bar on our collaboration with local organizations and municipalities to identify sensitive lands as well as with current landowners and subdivisions with which we already hold easements. We will continue to build working relationships with local townships and municipalities to facilitate future land preservation within these communities. Seno K/RLT Conservancy also drives to better serve and reach the communities we serve in Kenosha and Racine, by offering environmental and natural resources education programming to underserved populations as well as our conservation subdivisions. We will focus on bringing programs to these communities where they are, in their local parks and facilities with the aid and partnership of local organizations. These programs will aim to engage children and adults with the natural world around them and build a connection with nature that fosters responsible stewardship. Being a growing and sustainable Land Trust requires a strong knowledge base and solid credibility. To this end, we are seeking Land Trust Alliance accreditation within the coming years to enhance our credibility in Southeast Wisconsin.

Our growth and sustainability as a land trust are worth the world to us and our supporters, motivating us to continually revise and adopt new strategies. Currently, we are aiming to achieve Land Trust Alliance accreditation by 2025 and through this process, we will be continuing to amend our policies and procedures to meet all Land Trust Standards & Practices for Accreditation. We wish to continue to grow our membership by 15% (compared to 2020) by the end of 2023 through continued outreach. More members mean more visibility and potentially more volunteers. We have begun attracting and retaining a number of knowledge-based volunteers to help with easement monitoring and with outreach to landowners by suggesting resources and solutions to solving management concerns and issues as well as help with land management tasks on fee properties. We currently have retained 5 land management volunteers, just shy of our goal of 6 by 2023. More volunteers have been recruited and retained to help with education programs for both children and adults at our facility and/or at our conservation subdivisions and will continue to be throughout 2022. We are aiming for revenue growth of 15% (compared to 2020) by the end of 2023, through fundraising events, membership base growth, and facility rentals. Supplementing all of these strategies is a drive for collaboration with: local schools, local governments, and like-minded businesses that might also offer on-going financial support.

We are working actively to achieve our strategic goals year-round and most of this relies on our wonderful volunteers. Our board is an all-volunteer board and we are thankful for their dedication to our mission. We use their volunteer time as well as others who we recruit from the surrounding community to run our programs and facilities. We also have recently taken on additional staff to help in achieving our accreditation and facilitating our outreach goals. We have an invested endowment from which we only draw 4% on an annual basis to cover operational costs. Ultimately this covers about one-third of our total costs, and so our donations, membership fees, and facility rentals make up a large part of what allows us to continue to strive to meet our ever-rising standards. We seek to expand our funding opportunities in the coming year with more grant funding and partnerships with local businesses that share our values.

We currently protect 1266 acres of land as a predominantly volunteer-run land trust. We hold 19 conservation easements, many of which consist of subdivision easements that preserve environmental corridors as well as help bring nature closer to those who live there. We plan to work with villages and towns to promote conservation subdivisions when development is imminent, while still working to preserve farmland when possible. Holding a conservation easement and monitoring it is only the beginning of land preservation. There must be guided stewardship to be sure the land derives the maximum benefit from the easement. We continue to devote more time to outreach with landowners by making suggestions and encouraging appropriate stewardship on these lands we protect. This is most important and has been the most successful within our conservation subdivisions. We also plan to continue hosting workshops and education programs at our home base of 127 acres which consists of forests, prairies, and wetlands within 5 miles of hiking trails. Seno K/RLT Conservancy successfully launched our community outreach program "Discovering Nature" in 2021 with multiple community partners. Over the summer of 2021 this program served over 200 children from underserved populations in Racine and Kenosha from 6 different schools and organizations and will be running again in the summer of 2022 with successful grant funding and fundraising. All of these facets have been integrated into a concurrent goal of Seno K/RLT Conservancy becoming an accredited Land Trust by 2025, which has progressed sufficiently to warrant a professional policy and procedure audit to assess readiness for accreditation application for 2023. Our continued growth and success will require us to pursue even more dedicated volunteers, partners, sponsors, and donors while nurturing a knowledgeable and supportive Board of Directors.