Save Mount Diablo
Preserve - Defend - Restore - Educate - Enjoy
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Save Mount Diablo is dedicated to preserving an irreplaceable natural resource of the San Francisco Bay Area and of California: the Mount Diablo region. Few realize when they look toward Mount Diablo, however, that the beautiful vistas they see are not fully preserved: over 60,000 additional acres of natural lands on and surrounding the mountain north of Altamont Pass are in private ownership and are threatened by development or other land-uses. It is increasingly important that we make sure Mount Diablo remains connected to the rest of its 200-mile Diablo Range stretching south across 12 counties, between Highway 101 and Highway 5. The Diablo Range includes more than 5,400 square miles of which only 24% is protected, the remainder threatened by increasing urbanization, fossil fuel and alternative energy development, wildfires, and climate change. For that reason, we have begun an expansion of our activities.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
BioBlitz
In short, a BioBlitz is a resource survey – a race against time to see how many species of plants, animals, microbes, fungi, and other organisms can be accounted for in a specific geographic area. BioBlitz events bring together scientists, naturalists, volunteers, and other community members to document the spectrum of wildlife present in our community, contributing to an improved understanding of local natural resources.
Hosted as a 24-hour event, the purpose of Save Mount Diablo’s BioBlitz is to provide a snapshot of biodiversity. It helps to establish important baseline information on species, which often guides stewardship and land management decisions. For example, the event has resulted in rerouting a trail away from newly discovered rare plants, targeting non-native weeds in sensitive resource areas and contributing rare wildlife occurrence records to regional databases, thereby affecting development proposals.
Cataloguing the species found will update past records and provide an ecological snapshot of each BioBlitz site for agency staff. In the time of climate change, these efforts help establish baselines by which change can be measured. Our investigation will also provide insight into species that may need continued monitoring or directed management in the future.
Land Stewardship & Restoration
At its simplest, stewardship means managing property. For Save Mount Diablo (SMD), stewardship means managing, protecting, and celebrating the land.
Each of our properties requires care. A newly-acquired property may need extensive cleanup-old deteriorating fencing is cleared away, and any debris that might have accumulated on the property is removed, returning the land to its natural state. In some cases, fencing is added to protect creeks and ponds to help restore natural habitat.
Members of our all-volunteer Stewardship Committee care for SMD acquisitions, from the smallest (a few acres) to the largest (more than one thousand acres). For some larger projects, we invite other volunteers to come out and help. In addition to basic land management, SMD stewards lead hikes through our properties for interested members of the public.
Land Use & Advocacy
Far more land is saved through advocacy than through direct acquisition. We monitor more than 50 agency agendas each week and respond to 50-60 development applications every year.
Save Mount Diablo is active in the land use planning arena, monitoring development proposals that affect open space around Mount Diablo and working with neighborhood groups and other organizations. We respond to everything from cell tower applications to large subdivision projects. We take a pragmatic approach; some projects we strive to stop, some we strive to improve, always seeking public benefit and open space preservation.
For example: Save Mount Diablo has been a key player in striking the balance between economic growth, affordable housing, and open space preservation. The Concord Naval Weapons Station Reuse Plan, for example, which Save Mount Diablo worked on as part of the Community Coalition for a Sustainable Concord, ultimately resulted in 67% of the 5,000 acre area being preserved as parks and open space.
The Sand Creek Focus Area, four square miles in the southern part of Antioch, is the largest continuous stretch of undeveloped land that remains in the city. Right now there are about 2,900 houses proposed or already approved here on about 900 acres. Save Mount Diablo is engaged in the environmental review process for these projects, defends the important Sand Creek habitat corridor, and is working to maintain important connections between protected open space.
Discover Diablo Free Public Outing Series
Discover Diablo is a free public outings program led by staff and volunteer naturalists that offers an annual schedule of various outdoor activities including guided interpretive family walks, hikes, and property tours. These events are open to any and all trailblazers looking to get out in nature. All hikes are free but in order to create the best experience and least impact on the environment, capacity is limited and advanced registration is required.
Property tours are led on Save Mount Diablo conserved sites. These are unique opportunities to explore privately-held lands that are otherwise closed to the public. Join us on these tours to learn more about the special ecological and cultural features of each conserved site.
The goal of Discover Diablo is to connect people to nature through outdoor recreation and to build awareness of both the land conservation movement and the importance of permanently protecting open spaces. Through this program, we aim to reach new audiences, grow
Conservation Buyer Program
A Conservation Easement is a voluntary legal agreement between a landowner and a qualified organization, such as a land trust like Save Mount Diablo, which restricts activities on the land to protect its conservation values forever.
Now, in addition to our traditional approach, we also sell some lands to private buyers subject to permanent Conservation Easements, which we will hold, and then utilize the revenue to advance our work. This method allows us to protect properties with important conservation values (wildlife habitat, water resources, scenic vistas, agricultural resources, etc.) that may not be well suited additions to a government park because of their size, location or other factors. We may also acquire conservation easements on properties with conservation values that are still privately owned. This approach allows individuals to continue to live on and manage their land while protecting it from development forever.
Land Acquisition
Our goal is to expand existing preserved lands and connect them with wildlife and recreational corridors.
Save Mount Diablo has developed and pursued a systematic approach to land acquisition. One of our highest acquisition priority areas includes the wildlife corridors surrounding and including the Marsh Creek-Morgan Territory region, a 60-mile circle of open space east of Diablo's peaks.
Save Mount Diablo usually completes several acquisition projects each year and works with our agency allies on others, some projects spanning multiple years. Due to the State's economic situation, state park land acquisitions are currently stalled. At the same time, the downturn in the economy a few years ago resulted in more properties being on the market at lower prices. Save Mount Diablo continues to evaluate and pursue acquisition projects for preservation and, ideally, future additions to public parks.
Mary Bowerman Science & Research Program
The Mary Bowerman Science and Research (MBSR) program provides small grants, especially to students, for research projects on Save Mount Diablo properties and the network of protected lands in the Mount Diablo region. Grants of up to $2,500 will be awarded to applicants who are conducting studies that will enhance the ecological understanding of the region and inform land management and conservation practices.
Conservation Collaboration Agreement Program
A Conservation Collaboration Agreement has three basic parts:
First, the staff of SMD provide in-class educational presentations regarding land conservation of the Mount Diablo area to the participating students and also to the employees at their office.
Second, SMD staff teach and lead the participating students and employees in an outdoor, experiential environmental service project at one of SMD’s conserved properties which also includes a mini solo on the land for each participant where they do a contemplative journal writing exercise about nature.
Finally, in an act of educational and participatory philanthropy, the business will provide SMD memberships for all of its employees while the students will raise funds so that they can become members of SMD through SMD’s youth membership program.
Where we work
External reviews

Photos
Videos
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Number of volunteers
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Adults, Children and youth
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Volunteer opportunities are growing again as pandemic restrictions have eased.
Total number of volunteer hours contributed to the organization
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Age groups
Related Program
Land Stewardship & Restoration
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Number of free hikes hosted
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Age groups
Related Program
Discover Diablo Free Public Outing Series
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
24 hikes were scheduled but, because of COVID, we were only able to lead 6 hikes when restrictions allowed.
Number of hikers on free public hikes
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Discover Diablo Free Public Outing Series
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
Save Mount Diablo's mission is to preserve Mount Diablo's peaks, surrounding foothills and watersheds through land acquisition and preservation strategies designed to protect the mountain's natural beauty, biological diversity and historic and agricultural heritage; enhance our area's quality of life; and provide recreational opportunities consistent with protection of natural resources.
Land Acquisition and Preservation Goals – Roughly 60,000 acres of land in and around Mount Diablo are at risk of being lost to development forever. Save Mount Diablo's vision is to permanently preserve land with high conservation values within our area of interest, which has been expanded to include the Diablo Range. The 200-mile Diablo Range stretches south across 12 counties, between Highway 101 and Highway 5. The Diablo Range includes more than 5,400 square miles of which only 24% is protected, the remainder threatened by increasing urbanization, fossil fuel and alternative energy development, wildfires, and climate change. For that reason, we have begun an expansion of our activities. While primarily focused on protecting the remaining important threatened open space properties north of Interstate 580, we’ve expanded our land acquisition activities south to Corral Hollow, will consider accepting land or easements as far south as the Alameda-Santa Clara County line, and will conduct related preservation and advocacy activities in the seven northern Diablo Range counties—Contra Costa, Alameda, San Joaquin, Santa Clara, Stanislaus, Merced, and San Benito.
Advocacy, Land Use Planning and Public Policy Goals – When land has high conservation value and is threatened, but cannot be preserved through acquisition, we strive to defend it using strategies for land-use planning and advocacy. We aspire to create beneficial policy at the local, regional, state and federal level that enhances land protection and climate change adaptation.
Stewardship Goals – After Save Mount Diablo acquires land in order to turn it over to a park agency or preserve it through a conservation easement, we endeavor to restore any degraded habitat and to protect natural, agricultural and cultural resources. Our objective, simply stated, is to manage the properties in our care for the benefit of wildlife and people, now and well into the future.
Public Education and Communication Goals –- Everyone benefits from being outdoors, and good stewardship of land grows when people directly connect with nature, form a relationship with it, and then want to take care of it. Save Mount Diablo seeks to build connections between people, the land and our organization in order to protect open space in the Mount Diablo area for generations to come. We also aim to inspire communities adjacent to the Mount Diablo area to preserve their surroundings.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
Land Acquisition and Preservation Strategies – Save Mount Diablo has developed and pursued a systematic approach to land acquisition. We collaborate with our partners to increase the amount of permanently preserved land with high conservation values within our area of interest. We partner with landowners to preserve their property and to ensure that they receive fair treatment in any transaction aimed at preserving open space. And, we work closely with the park agencies in the area on natural resource issues and long range planning for the entire Mount Diablo region. In the near term, we are focused on expanding the use of conservation easements, through our Conservation Buyer Program, to make a lasting difference in the amount of protected land before it is lost to development forever.
Advocacy, Land Use Planning and Public Policy Strategies – We use land- use planning, policy and advocacy strategies to defend threatened land until it can be permanently preserved. As part of this effort we monitor more than 50 planning commission agendas each week and respond to 50-60 development applications every year, ranging from cell tower applications to large subdivision projects. We also foster relationships across stakeholder groups and conservation organizations and work to build and sustain a broad coalition of supporters, often offering technical advice to community and neighborhood groups regarding preservation of natural lands.
Stewardship Strategies – Acquisition of land is just the first critical step in protecting Mount Diablo's open spaces and natural treasures. Once a property has been acquired, Save Mount Diablo ensures that the land receives the continual attention and care it needs to thrive. To meet these objectives, we train and then lead teams of volunteers to restore degraded streams and terrain, remove debris, monitor plantings, and build and maintain infrastructure and trails. We also foster relationships with partnering landowners, agencies and organizations and provide opportunities for public hikes and other outdoor discoveries on Save Mount Diablo's properties.
Public Education and Communication Goals –-Save Mount Diablo encourages recreation and public enjoyment of Mount Diablo's park lands, consistent with the protection of their natural resources. We educate the public regarding threats to the mountain's flora, fauna, and rugged beauty, and to the history and heritage of the mountain and its surrounding foothills. We deliver enjoyable educational outreach and experiences through volunteer projects, educational programs, initiatives with schools and other partners through our Conservation Collaboration Agreement program, free pubic hikes, research, and other events. We also aim to inspire communities adjacent to the Mount Diablo area to preserve their surroundings through education and outreach programs.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Save Mount Diablo's conservation work is built on public support and sound scientific principles. We base our work on the values of respecting the land, collaborating with others, empowering citizens, and balancing economic growth and livable communities.
Our Board of Directors and staff work effectively to protect and restore Mount Diablo's lands, and are supported by numerous individual donors, local businesses, corporations and foundations. In addition to our staff, our dedicated volunteers are central to our ability to accomplish our mission. Each year we engage hundreds of volunteers who contribute more than 15,000 hours of work.
Equally important is our broad network of strong partnerships. Since its founding, Save Mount Diablo has fostered community coalitions and collaborative relationships among agencies and organizations, business and corporate leaders, labor unions, and community leaders, as well as a wide cross section of local residents.
Save Mount Diablo earned distinctive recognition in 2016 when it was awarded national accreditation by the Land Trust Accreditation Commission. With this honor, Save Mount Diablo joined land trusts nationwide that meet standards for excellence, uphold the public trust, and ensure that their conservation efforts are permanent.
Save Mount Diablo was further honored when Assemblywoman Catharine Baker named us as Assembly District 16 Nonprofit of the Year in California in 2016. Among recipients statewide, Save Mount Diablo was the only land trust chosen for the award.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
As a leading force in land conservation in northern California's East Bay region for almost five decades, Save Mount Diablo and its partners have protected more than 110,000 acres on and around Mount Diablo. From a single park in 1971, today more than forty parks and preserves are found on and around Mount Diablo.
Save Mount Diablo completes several acquisition projects each year and works with our agency allies on others. Some projects span years. A good example is our Chaparral Spring acquisition -- the most critical parcel in creating a corridor of protected lands from Mount Diablo State Park to Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve. Save Mount Diablo purchased the 333-acre property in 1994 and 15 years later, with a grant from the Coastal Conservancy, transferred it to East Bay Regional Park District for long term management. Save Mount Diablo continues to evaluate and pursue acquisition projects for future addition to public lands.
Through its Land Use Planning and Advocacy work, Save Mount Diablo has been a key player in striking the balance between economic growth, affordable housing, and open space preservation. The Concord Naval Weapons Station Reuse Plan, for example, which Save Mount Diablo worked on as part of the Community Coalition, ultimately resulted in a plan of 67% of the 5,000 acre area to be preserved as parks and open space. Currently, as one of many efforts, we are championing a mix of open space, trails, housing and job centers for the Sand Creek Focus Area outside of Antioch, which is proposed for dense development, as well as protecting the beautiful Tassajara Valley and other sensitive areas.
Save Mount Diablo's stewardship work has transformed hundreds of acres into wildlife havens for rare species and created innumerable recreational opportunities for local communities. In 2016 alone, for example, Save Mount Diablo engaged 650 volunteers who worked more than 5,000 hours on projects ranging from storm damage cleanup to seeding native grasses and weeding young plantings of oak trees. As new properties and easements come under our care, stewardship will continue to be a key element in the future health of our natural areas.
Save Mount Diablo's recreation and education programs have introduced thousands of Bay Area residents and visitors to the natural wonders of Mount Diablo. Our free guided hikes program, known as Discover Diablo, gives the public an opportunity to explore the Diablo wild lands with expert leaders, and our new Conservation Collaboration Agreement Program, an experiential environmental education initiative, fosters an intimate bond between students and the natural world. Save Mount Diablo has recently joined with allies to help plan the Marsh Creek Corridor Multi-Use trail, a non-motorized, 15-mile path that will eventually extend from east Contra Costa County to the Delta.
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
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How is your organization collecting feedback from the people you serve?
Electronic surveys (by email, tablet, etc.), Community meetings/Town halls,
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How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?
To identify and remedy poor client service experiences, To identify bright spots and enhance positive service experiences, To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To identify where we are less inclusive or equitable across demographic groups, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve, To understand people's needs and how we can help them achieve their goals,
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With whom is the organization sharing feedback?
Our staff, Our board,
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Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, We take steps to get feedback from marginalized or under-represented people,
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What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Save Mount Diablo
Board of directorsas of 01/19/2023
Jim Felton
Malcolm Sproul
Scott Hein
Claudia Hein
John Gallagher
Burt Bassler
Bob Marx
Liz Harvey
Robert Phelps
Frank Martens
Margaret Kruse
Keith Alley
Achillius Tiu
Phil O'Loane
Giselle Jurkanin
Carol Lane
Garrett Girvan
Jim Felton
Jeff Stone
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? No -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? No
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
Gender identity
Sexual orientation
No data
Disability
No data