Real change depends on people, which is why the Land Trust Alliance (LTA) focuses on uniting conservationists with a shared vision and supporting them with the right resources. As a result, land trusts are stronger organizations that, together, are addressing the nation’s most pressing issues.

The LTA is a member-based organization that provides capacity-building services to land trusts. The services help make land trusts stronger and support them in protecting more acres. And protected lands in turn support issues that people care about – including biodiversity and human well being. The Sustainable Economies team was hired – in partnership with Nobel Cause Consulting – to gather more data on the Alliance’s impact.

In order to fully understand the potential impact, we first spent significant time getting to know the context through a literature review, a thorough assessment of existing data and reports, interviews and a virtual roundtable.

Collaboratively, the project team developed research questions and refined the objectives of the impact assessment. We pulled together a mix of existing data from the organization, and supplemented that with a member survey to collect new data.

Through a method called “triangulation,” we compared findings from multiple data sources to bolster the case. When one finds the same finding from more than one data source, it indicates a more robust methodology.

With some support from Maggie Greenberg of Rooted Data Design for the data analysis and with support from the Alliance project team, we completed the impact assessment.

To see the full results, check out this infographic. The full results are shown here.

A summary is listed below:

Alliance trainings, resources and services accelerate land conservation:

• Members that were engaged with LTA services are nearly 2 times more likely to increase protected areas between 2015 and 2020. 
• And the increase was substantial – Land trusts that deeply engage with Alliance services protected almost two times the acres over a five-year period as their unengaged peers. 

Collective Impact of Alliance Members Working to Conserve the Nation’s Biodiversity:

• From 2014-2024, Alliance members (surveyed) completed a total of 7,370 biodiversity projects. 
• If we apply the rate of engagement in biodiversity projects to all members and extrapolate on an annual basis, this means land trusts complete an average of 4,000 biodiversity projects each year.

Collective Impact of Alliance Members Committed to Engaging and Serving their Local Communities:

• From 2014-2024, Alliance members (surveyed) completed a total of 6,769 human well-being projects. 
• If we apply the rate of engagement in human well-being projects to all members and extrapolate on an annual basis, this means land trusts complete an average of 3,500 human well-being projects each year.
• Community Engagement Impact:
  • 91% of members surveyed meaningfully engage communities in their projects
  • Also, 91% of members surveyed offered programming designed for biodiversity or human well-being impact.

Based upon this impact assessment, we can say with confidence that land trusts are meaningfully prioritizing impacts on biodiversity and human well-being, and that those engaged deeply with Alliance services are accelerating their impact.