nonprofit organization
A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
with a mission to "create parks and protect land for people, ensuring healthy, livable communities for generations to come". Since its founding in 1972, the Trust for Public Land has completed 5,000 park-creation and land conservation projects across the United States, protected over 3 million acres, and helped pass more than 500 ballot measures—creating $70 billion in voter-approved public funding for parks and open spaces. The Trust for Public Land also researches and publishes authoritative data about parks, open space, conservation finance, and urban
climate change adaptation
Climate change adaptation is the process of adjusting to current or expected effects of climate change.IPCC, 2022Annex II: Glossary öller, V., R. van Diemen, J.B.R. Matthews, C. Méndez, S. Semenov, J.S. Fuglestvedt, A. Reisinger (eds.) InClimat ...
. Headquartered in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
, the organization is among the largest U.S. conservation nonprofits, with approximately 30 field offices across the U.S., including a federal affairs function in Washington, D.C.
Focus areas
Consistent with its "Land for People" mission, the Trust for Public Land is widely known for urban conservation work, including New York City playgrounds and community gardens, Chicago's
606
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Year 606 ( DCVI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 606 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar er ...
linear park, Los Angeles green alleys, Climate-Smart Cities programs in 20 American cities, and "The 10-Minute Walk" initiative, which aims to put a high-quality park or open space within a 10-minute walk of every resident of every U.S. urban census tract.
The Trust for Public Land simultaneously focuses on public access-oriented land protection, such as additions to
Yosemite National Park
Yosemite National Park ( ) is an American national park in California, surrounded on the southeast by Sierra National Forest and on the northwest by Stanislaus National Forest. The park is managed by the National Park Service and covers an ar ...
, the
Appalachian Trail
The Appalachian Trail (also called the A.T.), is a hiking trail in the Eastern United States, extending almost between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine, and passing through 14 states.Gailey, Chris (2006)"Appalachian Tr ...
,
Cape Cod National Seashore
The Cape Cod National Seashore (CCNS), created on August 7, 1961, by President John F. Kennedy, encompasses on Cape Cod, in Massachusetts. It includes ponds, woods and beachfront of the Atlantic coastal pine barrens ecoregion. The CCNS includ ...
, and other national, state, and municipal parks across America. The organization also prioritizes projects that celebrate and advance
social equity
Social equity is concerned with justice and Social justice, fairness of social policy. Since the 1960s, the concept of social equity has been used in a variety of institutional contexts, including education and public administration.
Overview
D ...
, like helping to create
Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park
The Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park covers about 35 acres (0.14 km2) and includes several sites in Atlanta, Georgia related to the life and work of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Within the park is his boyhood h ...
, the
Stonewall National Monument
Stonewall National Monument is a U.S. national monument in the West Village neighborhood of Greenwich Village in Lower Manhattan, New York City. The designated area includes the Stonewall Inn, the Christopher Park, and nearby streets including ...
, and the Kashia Coastal Reserve.
Although the Trust for Public Land is an accredited
land trust
Land trusts are nonprofit organizations which own and manage land, and sometimes waters. There are three common types of land trust, distinguished from one another by the ways in which they are legally structured and by the purposes for which th ...
, the organization differs from conventional land trusts in that it does not generally hold or steward conservation property interests. Instead, the Trust for Public Land works with community members, public agencies, and other conservation
non-governmental organization
A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in h ...
s (NGOs) to identify park-creation and land protection projects, and then helps plan, fund, protect, and/or create those spaces, with ownership of any resulting property interests typically transferring to local, state, or federal public agencies, or to other conservation NGOs.
In addition to creating parks and protecting open spaces, the Trust for Public Land is a leading advocate for public conservation funding at the local, state, and federal levels. Through campaigns, ballot measures, and legislative advocacy, the organization works—often in concert with its affiliated
501(c)(4)
A 501(c) organization is a nonprofit organization in the Law of the United States#Federal law, federal law of the United States according to Internal Revenue Code (26 U.S.C. § 501(c)) and is one of over 29 types of nonprofit organizations exe ...
nonprofit, the Trust for Public Land Action Fund—to ensure adequate funding for many of the federal and state public funding programs relied on by public park and conservation agencies, and by conservation NGOs.
The Trust for Public Land also researches, publishes, and contributes to many authoritative national databases and platforms providing information about U.S. parks, protected open spaces, conservation finance, and urban climate risks, including ParkScore,
ParkServe
Published in spring 2017 by The Trust for Public Land
The Trust for Public Land is a U.S. nonprofit organization with a mission to "create parks and protect land for people, ensuring healthy, livable communities for generations to come". Since it ...
The Conservation Alamanac
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
, the
National Conservation Easement Database
National may refer to:
Common uses
* Nation or country
** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen
Places in the United States
* National, Maryland, c ...
,
LandVote LandVote, developed by The Trust for Public Land, is a comprehensive database of conservation ballot measures
A referendum (plural: referendums or less commonly referenda) is a direct vote by the electorate on a proposal, law, or political ...
* ''Parks for People,'' a strategy for providing close-to-home access to nature through
park
A park is an area of natural, semi-natural or planted space set aside for human enjoyment and recreation or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. Urban parks are urban green space, green spaces set aside for recreation inside t ...
s,
playground
A playground, playpark, or play area is a place designed to provide an environment for children that facilitates play, typically outdoors. While a playground is usually designed for children, some are designed for other age groups, or people ...
s,
trail
A trail, also known as a path or track, is an unpaved lane or small road usually passing through a natural area. In the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, a path or footpath is the preferred term for a pedestrian or hiking trail. Th ...
s,
community gardens
A community garden is a piece of land gardened or cultivated by a group of people individually or collectively. Normally in community gardens, the land is divided into individual plots. Each individual gardener is responsible for their own plo ...
, and other outdoor public spaces in U.S. cities, towns, and
suburb
A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area, which may include commercial and mixed-use, that is primarily a residential area. A suburb can exist either as part of a larger city/urban area or as a separate ...
s .
* ''Our Land,'' a strategy for protecting wild, working, and other open spaces, with an emphasis on enabling public access to natural areas for outdoor recreation.
* ''Climate-Smart Cities''™ program, which helps municipalities assess climate risks, develop resilience strategies, and identify sites for parks, greenways, and other multi-benefit green infrastructure, using
GIS
A geographic information system (GIS) is a type of database containing Geographic data and information, geographic data (that is, descriptions of phenomena for which location is relevant), combined with Geographic information system software, sof ...
-based, city-specific decision support tools.
* ''10-Minute Walk'' campaign—a collaboration with the
National Recreation and Park Association
The National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA) is the leading non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of public parks, recreation and conservation. Their work draws national focus to the far-reaching impact of successes generated ...
and
Urban Land Institute
The Urban Land Institute, or ULI, is a nonprofit research and education organization with regional offices in Washington, D.C., Hong Kong, and London. ULI advocates progressive development, conducting research, and education in topics such as s ...
—which seeks to ensure that everyone in urban America lives within a 10-minute walk of a high-quality park or open space. Since this initiative's 2017 launch, 200 U.S. mayors have taken the 10-Minute Walk Pledge for their cities.
* ''Center for City Park Excellence, which provides "research on parks and works to create, improve, and promote urban parks", and maintains the Trust for Public Land's ParkServe, ParkScore, and Parkology platforms, which provide, respectively, maps and data about 14,000 U.S. municipal park systems, park system rankings for America's 100 largest cities, and information about how communities can create and steward high-quality parks.
Services
* ''Plan'' – The Trust for Public Land provides
GIS
A geographic information system (GIS) is a type of database containing Geographic data and information, geographic data (that is, descriptions of phenomena for which location is relevant), combined with Geographic information system software, sof ...
-based spatial analysis services, including
greenprinting Greenprinting relates to the conservation of land. Greenprinting is the creation of conservation scenarios that help communities make informed conservation decisions.
Greenprinting can galvanize public support and encourage partners to work toward ...
, greenway and trail planning, and large landscape analysis.
* ''Fund'' – The organization advocates for public conservation funding by providing technical assistance, campaign services, research data, and conservation economics analyses.
* ''Protect'' – The Trust for Public Land works with willing sellers, public agencies, and conservation nonprofits to negotiate, structure, fund, and complete the conservation real estate transactions that result in the acquisition and protection of land for parks and open spaces.
* ''Create'' – The organization helps communities plan, site, design, construct, and restore parks, using community engagement,
participatory design
Participatory design (originally co-operative design, now often co-design) is an approach to design attempting to actively involve all stakeholders (e.g. employees, partners, customers, citizens, end users) in the design process to help ensure t ...
, and
creative placemaking
Placemaking is a multi-faceted approach to the urban planning, planning, design and management of public spaces. Placemaking capitalizes on a local community's assets, inspiration, and potential, with the intention of creating public spaces that ...
techniques.
History
The Trust for Public Land was founded in San Francisco in 1972 by
Huey Johnson
Huey Johnson (1933 – July 12, 2020) was an American environmentalist and the founder of Resource Renewal Institute (RRI), a non-profit organization that deals with environmental sustainability. He was also the founder of The Trust for P ...
, the former western regional director of
The Nature Conservancy
The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is a global environmental organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. it works via affiliates or branches in 79 countries and territories, as well as across every state in the US.
Founded in 1951, The Natu ...
, and other San Francisco Bay Area and national lawyers and conservationists. Johnson's goal was to create an organization that would use emerging real estate, legal, and financial techniques to conserve land for human use and public benefit. An additional founding goal was to extend the conservation and environmental movements to cities, where an increasingly large segment of the population lived. Early Trust for Public Land programs of the 1970s and '80s included:
* ''The Urban Land Program'', which led to the creation of parks and gardens in
Oakland, California
Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...
, San Francisco, New York City,
Newark, New Jersey
Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.
* ''The Public Land Program'', which included transactions that helped create the
Golden Gate National Recreation Area
The Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) is a U.S. National Recreation Area protecting of ecologically and historically significant landscapes surrounding the San Francisco Bay Area. Much of the park is land formerly used by the United ...
,
Cuyahoga Valley National Park
Cuyahoga Valley National Park is an American national park that preserves and reclaims the rural landscape along the Cuyahoga River between Akron and Cleveland in Northeast Ohio.
The park is administered by the National Park Service, but within ...
, and the
Sawtooth National Recreation Area
The Sawtooth National Recreation Area (SNRA) is a national recreation area in central Idaho, United States that is managed as part of Sawtooth National Forest. The recreation area, established on August 22, 1972, is managed by the U.S. Forest Ser ...
in
Idaho
Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyom ...
, among other parks and preserves.
* ''The Land Trust Program'', which helped found or train about one-third of the nation's then-existing local
land trust
Land trusts are nonprofit organizations which own and manage land, and sometimes waters. There are three common types of land trust, distinguished from one another by the ways in which they are legally structured and by the purposes for which th ...
s. In the 1980s, the Trust for Public Land joined other groups to found the
Land Trust Alliance
Land Trust Alliance is a nature conservation organization, based in Washington, D.C. The Alliance represents many land trusts across the United States.
History
Originally formed as the Land Trust Exchange in Boston on February 22, 1982, Allan Sp ...
, in order to train and support local land trusts.
The Trust for Public Land Action Fund
As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, the Trust for Public Land is legally limited in the amount it can spend on campaigning for legislative and ballot measures. In 2000, the organization launched a 501(c)(4) affiliate, The Conservation Campaign, which is not limited in such spending. This affiliate entity is now called the Trust for Public Land Action Fund and frequently works with the Trust for Public Land to help pass local and state conservation finance measures.
Appalachian Trail
The Appalachian Trail (also called the A.T.), is a hiking trail in the Eastern United States, extending almost between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine, and passing through 14 states.Gailey, Chris (2006)"Appalachian Tr ...
additions in multiple states
*
Atlanta Beltline
The Atlanta BeltLine (also Beltline or Belt Line) is a open and planned loop of multi-use trail and light rail transit system on a former railway corridor around the core of Atlanta, Georgia. The Atlanta BeltLine is designed to reconnect neig ...
*
Boston African American National Historic Site
The Boston African American National Historic Site, in the heart of Boston, Massachusetts's Beacon Hill neighborhood, interprets 15 pre-Civil War structures relating to the history of Boston's 19th-century African-American community, connected ...
*
Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness
The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW or BWCA) is a wilderness area within the Superior National Forest in the northeastern part of the US state of Minnesota
Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the Unit ...
/
Superior National Forest
Superior National Forest, part of the United States National Forest system, is located in the Arrowhead Region of the state of Minnesota between the Canada–United States border and the north shore of Lake Superior. The area is part of the grea ...
expansion, Minnesota
*
Cape Cod National Seashore
The Cape Cod National Seashore (CCNS), created on August 7, 1961, by President John F. Kennedy, encompasses on Cape Cod, in Massachusetts. It includes ponds, woods and beachfront of the Atlantic coastal pine barrens ecoregion. The CCNS includ ...
Connecticut Lakes
The Connecticut Lakes are a group of lakes in Coos County, northern New Hampshire, United States, situated along the headwaters of the Connecticut River. They are accessed via the northernmost segment of U.S. Route 3, between the village of Pitt ...
Headwaters, New Hampshire
*
East Boston Greenway
The Mary Ellen Welch Greenway (formerly the East Boston Greenway) is a rail trail and park in East Boston that is located along the path of a former Conrail line. The greenway connects several significant open space areas in East Boston, includi ...
*
Everglades National Park
Everglades National Park is an American national park that protects the southern twenty percent of the original Everglades in Florida. The park is the largest tropical wilderness in the United States and the largest wilderness of any kind east ...
expansion, Florida
* Green Alleys, Los Angeles
*
Hollywood Sign
The Hollywood Sign is an American landmark and cultural icon overlooking Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. Originally the Hollywoodland Sign, it is situated on Mount Lee, in the Beachwood Canyon area of the Santa Monica Mountains. Spelling ...
/
Cahuenga Peak
Cahuenga Peak () is the 12th-highest named peak in the Santa Monica Mountains and is located just west of the Hollywood Sign. It provides a spectacular 360-degree panorama of the Los Angeles Basin and the San Fernando Valley for those hikers willi ...
, Los Angeles
* Kashia Coastal Reserve, Sonoma County, California
*
Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park
The Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park covers about 35 acres (0.14 km2) and includes several sites in Atlanta, Georgia related to the life and work of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Within the park is his boyhood h ...
, Atlanta
*
Montana Legacy Project
The Montana Legacy Project is a three-phase purchase of more than of land owned by Plum Creek Timber in northwestern Montana for conservation protection. The land is within the counties of Missoula, Mineral, Lake and Powell.
The land is withi ...
, the largest private conservation transaction in U.S. history
*
Neponset River
The Neponset River is a river in eastern Massachusetts in the United States. Its headwaters are at the Neponset Reservoir in Foxborough, near Gillette Stadium. From there, the Neponset meanders generally northeast for about to its mouth at ...
Greenway, Boston and Milton, Massachusetts
*
Newark Riverfront Park
Newark Riverfront Park is a park and promenade being developed in phases along the Passaic River in Newark, New Jersey, United States. The park, expected to be long and encompass , is being created from brownfield sites along the river, which its ...
Pacific Crest Trail
The Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), officially designated as the Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail, is a long-distance hiking and equestrian trail closely aligned with the highest portion of the Cascade and Sierra Nevada mountain ranges, which lie ...
Runyon Canyon Park
Runyon Canyon Park is a park in Los Angeles, California, at the eastern end of the Santa Monica Mountains, managed by the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks. The southern entrance to the park is located at the north end of Fuller Av ...
expansion, Los Angeles
*
San Gabriel Mountains
The San Gabriel Mountains ( es, Sierra de San Gabriel) are a mountain range located in northern Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County and western San Bernardino County, California, United States. The mountain range is part of the Tr ...
, Los Angeles County
*
Sterling Forest State Park
Sterling Forest State Park is a state park located in the Ramapo Mountains in Orange County, New York. Established in 1998, it is among the larger additions to the New York state park system in the last 50 years.
History
Sterling Forest was ...
, Orange County, New York
*
Stonewall National Monument
Stonewall National Monument is a U.S. national monument in the West Village neighborhood of Greenwich Village in Lower Manhattan, New York City. The designated area includes the Stonewall Inn, the Christopher Park, and nearby streets including ...
, New York City
*
Yellowstone National Park
Yellowstone National Park is an American national park located in the western United States, largely in the northwest corner of Wyoming and extending into Montana and Idaho. It was established by the 42nd U.S. Congress with the Yellowston ...
ecosystem, Wyoming
*
Yosemite National Park
Yosemite National Park ( ) is an American national park in California, surrounded on the southeast by Sierra National Forest and on the northwest by Stanislaus National Forest. The park is managed by the National Park Service and covers an ar ...
expansion, California
*
Virgin Islands National Park
The Virgin Islands National Park is an American national park preserving about 60% of the land area of Saint John in the United States Virgin Islands, as well as more than of adjacent ocean, and nearly all of Hassel Island, just off the Charlo ...
Weir Farm National Historic Site
Weir Farm National Historical Park is located in Ridgefield and Wilton, Connecticut. It commemorates the life and work of American impressionist painter J. Alden Weir and other artists who stayed at the site or lived there, to include Childe Ha ...
, Wilton and Ridgefield, Connecticut
*
Zion National Park
Zion National Park is an American national park located in southwestern Utah near the town of Springdale. Located at the junction of the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin, and Mojave Desert regions, the park has a unique geography and a variety ...