Protect Your Land
Why Choose Conservation?
Natural Resources Conservancy believes that land conservation is one of the most important endeavors that can be done to ensure the safety and sustainability of our planet. “Undeveloped forests and other natural areas provide a range of vital ecosystem services” (Constanza et al. 2006). These ecosystems can provide benefits such as clean air, extreme weather mitigation, pollination of crops, and animal habitat preservation. By choosing to be intentional with land conservation, we can all do our part in promoting biodiversity and protecting wildlife.
To qualify for a tax deduction, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) must consider your donation a charitable gift. To determine whether your donation meets IRS requirements, we recommend you review the proposed gift with your attorney or tax advisor.
Tax Considerations: To take a charitable deduction for a gift of a conservation easement with a value over $5,000, donors are required to report the value of the gift on IRS Form 8283 (Noncash Charitable Contributions) and submit the form with your federal income tax return.
Step 1. Contact Us
Email us at info@natrecon.org. Please tell us your basic information, including the location and size of property you’d like to discuss, current land use, and the best way to reach you. We will get back to you promptly.
Step 2. Site Visit
After our initial conversation, we will send an expert in ecological services to take a look at your property, take photos, and create a report for our committee to review. The costs of this report are required from the land owner.
Step 3. Committee Review
Our evaluation committee will review the report and make a recommendation. We will contact you with our decision; if we believe pursuing conservation is appropriate and beneficial, we encourage you to have our proposal reviewed by your personal attorney and financial advisor.
Step 4. Making a Decision, and a Plan
Once you have reached a decision about whether to move forward with conservation, we will work with you to draft a conservation easement and develop a timeline for completion of the easement. A conservation easement will remain attached to the title of your property in perpetuity, even if you sell the property. We will work with you to ensure you and your heirs can continue to live and work on your property after the easement is created.
Step 5. Stewardship Funding
As stewards of your property and the easement we help create, NRC visits the property annually. NRC asks land owners to make a one-time contribution toward that stewardship effort.
Step 6. Execute Easement
Once approval is granted, the easement is signed, notarized, and recorded at the courthouse in the appropriate county in the property’s state.
Step 7. Annual Visit
Once a year, we will contact you to schedule a monitoring visit to your conserved property, to confirm easement requirements are being followed.
How We Work
As a land trust, the Natural Resources Conservancy works with private landowners and partners to forever preserve critical natural resources such as wildlife habitat, clean air and water, and productive agricultural lands.
NRC accepts donations of conservation easements on properties as well as donations of land outright, or as some might put it, in “fee simple.” However, before accepting the donation of land or a conservation easement, NRC will conduct a “Baseline Documentation Report” (BDR) of the property to document its natural resources and features. The Baseline Data Report is essential in establishing a property’s conservation value, or significance.
If the BDR identifies important or unique natural resources, NRC will consider accepting your donation of land or a conservation easement and ensure that the property will be forever preserved as a natural area. If the BDR does not reveal unique or important natural resources, however, NRC may still accept your donation of land outright, or fee simple, but those lands will be used to generate funding for additional conservation efforts elsewhere. Unfortunately, a conservation easement is not an option if the BDR does not indicate important or unique natural resources. See 26 CFR § 1.170A-14 for further information. In either case, NRC will share the results of the BDR with the landowner to obtain landowner input prior to the donation and to help determine the best course of action.
For donations of land in fee simple to be preserved, or donations of conservation easements, NRC will request financial support to help provide for the ongoing costs of property stewardship or easement monitoring and enforcement. NRC will also request funding for the preparation of a deed of conservation easement (CE deed) and the BDR. NRC cannot guarantee that the Internal Revenue Service will not challenge any content within either the CE deed or BDR and for that reason suggests that such documents be reviewed by your tax advisor.
In many cases, donations of land or conservation easements provide significant tax benefits to the donor. Please consult your tax advisor to determine whether your donation qualifies for a deduction. In order to claim a tax deduction, a donor must also engage a “qualified appraiser” to perform a “qualified appraisal” that complies with the Treasury Regulations. See 26 CFR § 1.170A-17 for additional information. NRC does not prepare or certify such appraisals. A donor would also present NRC with a properly completed IRS Form 8283 (Noncash Charitable Contributions) on a timely basis for execution after the form is signed by the qualified appraiser. If the form appears to accurately describe the donated property, an officer of NRC will sign the form provided so that it may be furnished to the donor’s tax return preparer.