Keep It Colorado

Land trust support: Keep It Colorado fundraises and regrants financial support to Land Trusts for transaction cost assistance for perpetual conservation easements. These funds allow landowners who face financial barriers to convey a conservation easement and receive state tax incentives for their easement donation. In 2022 the grant program supported 14 projects across 8 Land Trusts, conserving more than 5,600 acres of natural and working lands and river corridors. Additionally, Keep It Colorado completed conserving Colorado: a 10-year roadmap for the future of private Land conservation with its membership. This statewide plan will bring more strategy and collaboration to conservation work across the state.

Education: Keep It Colorado serves as the central hub for information sharing, peer-to-peer learning and innovative problem solving in the conservation space. Keep It Colorado provides multiple statewide and regional convenings, conferences, and professional development opportunities annually. The coalitions newsletters, webinars and in-person presentations reach thousands of people annually through Colorado and the west. In 2022 Keep It Colorado hosted seven annual membership convenings focusing on innovating conservation tools, funding opportunities, and best practices for Land Trusts and open space agencies. Keep It Colorado also convenes monthly calls for different professional sectors across the conservation space to build a cohesive Coalition across the state.

Public policy: Keep It Colorado builds relationships with local, state and federal legislators and policy makers, serving as the unified voice for private Land conservation. Keep It colorados advocacy initiatives protect and enhance state and federal financial incentives for voluntary Land conservation, protect the legal tools for conservation and advocate for sound public policy to support landowners and communities doing conservation. In 2022 Keep It Colorado worked to protect investments in conservation by ensuring that condemned conservation properties were valued fairly.