The Trust for Public Land is a U.S.

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. Headquartered in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " 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 fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

, 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 __NOTOC__ 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 ...

, the Appalachian Trail, Cape Cod National Seashore, and other national, state, and municipal parks across America. The organization also prioritizes projects that celebrate and advance social equity, like helping to create Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park, the Stonewall National Monument, and the Kashia Coastal Reserve. Although the Trust for Public Land is an accredited land trust, 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 ...

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) 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, Parkology, The Conservation Alamanac, the National Conservation Easement Database, LandVote, and "Climate-Smart Cities
Decision Support Tools

Strategies, programs and initiatives

* ''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 green spaces set aside for recreation inside towns and cities. ...

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 ...

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. ...

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 separ ...

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 -based, city-specific decision support tools. * ''10-Minute Walk'' campaign—a collaboration with the National Recreation and Park Association 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-based spatial analysis services, including greenprinting, 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 techniques.

History

The Trust for Public Land was founded in San Francisco in 1972 by Huey Johnson, 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 Nat ...

, 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 port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the ...

, San Francisco, New York City,

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the List of municipalities in New Jersey, most populous City (New Jersey), city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the county seat, seat of Essex County, New Jersey, Essex County and the second largest city within the New Yo ...

, and other cities. * ''The Public Land Program'', which included transactions that helped create the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Cuyahoga Valley National Park, and the Sawtooth National Recreation Area in

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a U.S. state, 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 Monta ...

, 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 trusts. 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.

Noteworthy projects

* The 606/Bloomingdale Trail, Chicago * Appalachian Trail 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/ Superior National Forest expansion, Minnesota * Cape Cod National Seashore additions * Civic Center Playgrounds, San Francisco * Connecticut Lakes 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 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. Spelli ...

/ Cahuenga Peak, Los Angeles * Kashia Coastal Reserve, Sonoma County, California * Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park, 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 with ...

, 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 ...

* New York City Community Gardens * New York City Playgrounds * Pacific Crest Trail expansion * The Preserve, Old Saybrook, Connecticut * Queensway, New York City *

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, 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, 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 Yellowst ...

ecosystem, Wyoming *

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 Char ...

expansion *

Walden Woods The Walden Woods Project (WWP) is a nonprofit organization located in Lincoln, Massachusetts, devoted to the legacy of Henry David Thoreau and the preservation of Walden Woods, the forest around Walden Pond that spans Lincoln and Concord, Massachuse ...

, Concord, Massachusetts *

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 expansion, Utah