KLT Braveboat Headwaters Project
The Braveboat Headwaters (BBH) Conservation Project was the riskiest, most complex and costliest project in Kittery Land Trust (KLT) history.
The project, like a much desired but unplanned pregnancy, compelled the KLT acquisition team to respond quickly and creatively to make its dreams come true. This project presented many challenges to staff, board and volunteers. It required thinking ‘outside of the box’ of traditional conservation funding and timelines to protect a high-priority keystone parcel threatened by a 30-unit subdivision, aggregating multiple parcels under separate owners into a project eligible for state and federal funding, and most importantly translating its complexities into information digestible for the Board of Directors, institutions and the public.
Challenges on every front:
Act fast and secure 60-acres: Land Trusts seldom finance the purchase of land but the seller, a developer, was unwilling to wait the typical 3-5 years required to pull the funding together. We tried to partner with a conservation organization committed to working in our focus area that does finance properties and found that it just wasn’t going to work for either party. So we approached a high net-worth individual with a philanthropic interest in land conservation and pitched the project and ourselves. They were intrigued and decided to consider an impact loan. While we touted ourselves as the “little land trust that does”, this required us to make our case not only to their hearts and minds but as a business proposition to their financial advising team. With their guidance, I put together a financial prospectus for KLT and the project that included a 4-year statement of cash flows, 3 years of past financial statements and tax filings along with a project budget inclusive of staff capacity to complete the project.
Fundraise for land no longer under imminent threat of development: Conservation fundraising at the personal and local level is largely an appeal to hearts and minds with the threat of loss being a driver. Approximately 100 people attended Planning Board meetings, wrote letters and pleaded with KLT, as the developer was moving their subdivision proposal toward permitting. But would that passion subside if we borrowed money and purchased the land? To answer this, we performed a rapid feasibility study with individuals, partners and institutional funders, impressing upon them all, that should we secure the property with a loan, we would be coming back and asking them to invest in the project. We also needed to test this qualitative data with a quantitative measure, so we challenged those 100 people to raise $150k in 30 days. They met the challenge and exceeded it by $52k.
Communicate a complex project and budget to diverse audiences: Here is where the deep analysis by myself and key members of the KLT acquisition committee met communication barriers with internal and external audiences who don’t “think in spreadsheets” or grantor priorities ( ecological, social, political) that was our lexicon. The acquisition team compiled a project budget similar to past project budgets and I included it monthly in my Executive Director’s report. Very few of the Board Members could really get the contingencies, timing, decision points built into the project. Paying off the loan was the foremost priority for the organization and the path to achieve this involved a variety of aggregations of other parcels and differing objectives of governmental grantors. The Board of Directors needed to understand the financial risks for the organization and how to communicate the rewards to the community.
Underlying each of these internal documents were multiple layers of tables and maps. The flowchart was created to summarize the timing, aggregation of parcels, funder restrictions and contingencies ( or lack there of) to the Board of Directors. However crude it was, it served the purpose of explaining the project budget, internal project map and project timeline, that month’s of discussions and presentations could not achieve. This visualization was a lightbulb moment for me as the Executive Director and project manager. It my “lightbulb” moment regarding the power of data visualization communicate to diverse audiences and it sparked my interest in learning more about how people process information.