Dear Friend,

It was great to see everyone at Rally last week in Nashville! Thanks to all the wonderful faculty, sponsors and conservation leaders who made the event such a success. Mark your calendars now for next year's conference in Denver, CO from October 3-6, 2007.

To help land trusts prepare for accreditation, we piloted five courses at Rally from our new Standards and Practices Curriculum. The courses will be finalized by the end of the year and will be available free online to all LTA members at our new Internet site, The Learning Center, early in 2007. We will also be offering the curriculum through local training events and customized coaching.

With your help, we’ve made great progress in getting the word out about the expanded tax incentive. Now is a great time to thank your members of Congress and start building support for making the incentive permanent.  

Rand Wentworth President, Land Trust Alliance

Rally Highlights and Photos

After another great National Land Conservation Conference: Rally 2006 we are pleased to announce that the first ever winner of the Kingsbury Browne Conservation Leadership Award was Darby Bradley, president of the Vermont Land Trust. More Rally highlights and photos

You can view and download Rally session handouts, speeches and more on Rallynet, which is free and open to the public until January 31, 2007. Rallynet is part of our digital library, which is available to LTA members and partners all year round!

Land Trust Tax Incentive Outreach Stories

The Wyoming Stock Growers Agricultural Land Trust postcard

Land trusts around the country are getting the word out about the new, expanded federal conservation tax incentive. Great examples so far:

• a postcard from the Wyoming Stock Growers Agricultural Land Trust,
• a seminar led by the Washtenaw Land Trust (MI), and
• radio interviews with Darrell Wood, rancher and board chair of the California Rangeland Trust.

Share your tax incentive outreach and conservation success stories with LTA and your peers. Please e-mail us at policy@lta.org.

See what others are doing!

New and Old Rules for Conservation Donors and Donees

In recent audits, the IRS has asked conservation easement donors to provide them “contemporaneous written substantiation” of their donations from their donee. If you are not providing such a letter to conservation easement donors, you should! More information

There is also a new Form 8283 this year. But for conservation donors, even more important than the new form are the new instructions, which include new requirements for conservation easement donors that aren’t reflected on the form.

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Land Trust Alliance
1331 H St NW, Suite 400 Washington DC 20005
phone: (202) 638-4725, fax: (202) 638-4730
www.lta.org | eNews@lta.org

The Land Trust Alliance promotes voluntary land conservation and strengthens the land trust movement by providing the leadership, information, skills and resources land trusts need to conserve land for the benefit of communities and natural systems.