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Couple donates $1M to land trust Wayland residents Forrest Berkley and his wife, Marcie Tyre, announced a $1 million gift to the Land Trust Alliance, a national nonprofit that supports private conservation through land trusts. The money will help fund a newly created subsidiary of the alliance that is designing and implementing an accreditation program. There are more than 1,500 trusts across the country, from local volunteer-staffed groups to large national and regional trusts whose specialties include elk habitats, watershed areas, urban gardens and ranch land. But these trusts do not have access to what museums, schools, hospitals, and even zoos do -- accreditation. When people donate land or money to a trust, the decision is to some extent a matter of trust itself. The Tyres' gift is the largest from private individuals in the alliance's 24-year history. Tammara Van Ryn, director of the commission that will design and run the accreditation program, called it "storybook philanthropy." Although philanthropists typically start with lower-level giving, spending years getting to know an organization before investing heavily in its future, she said, Berkley jumped right in. "It's a once-in-a-lifetime gift. You don't often have an opportunity to have a donor new to the organization who steps up with a gift like this," she said. Berkley, a recently retired partner of the investment firm Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo & Co. in Boston, has been involved in conservation for many years, serving as a board member of the Maine Coast Heritage Trust and a sponsor of conservation initiatives throughout New England. An avid hiker in the Northeast, Berkley's love for the outdoors grew from summers spent with his family visiting national parks across the United States, according to a press release from the alliance. As adults, he and Marcie have gone sea kayaking from Maine to Alaska, and trekked and kayaked overseas. "I am making this gift because accreditation is the most important tool I've heard of that can dramatically improve how conservation is done," he said in a prepared statement. "The accreditation program will allow land conservation programs to be set up more quickly, and it will enable volunteer land trusts to become more professional in the work they do." The couple's gift will be used in two halves. One $500,000 portion will go toward the alliance's curriculum and training programs, said Jim Wyerman, the alliance's director of communications. The remaining $500,000 will go toward the establishment of a $2 million Berkley Endowment for the new Land Trust Accreditation Commission -- an independent program of the Land Trust Alliance. The alliance launched the commission in April and is raising funds to cover the commission's operating costs for the next eight years and to fill out the $2 million endowment, Wyerman said. The goal is for the commission to become a self-sustaining organization. In the short-term, the endowment will provide financial stability in case fewer trusts apply than expected or review costs exceed estimates, Van Ryn said. In the long term, the endowment will help the commission keep accreditation fees to a minimum. To Ron McAdow, executive director of the land trust Sudbury Valley Trustees, this is one of the clearest benefits of the gift. Although the Sudbury Valley Trustees is a large and established trust, he said a major concern among accreditation advocates has always been the barrier fees would pose to smaller trusts. "The accreditation process will make it pretty easy for the public to tell who really is a public interest group such as ours," he said. Van Ryn said the accreditation process will likely consist of review of land trust documents and selected files on the lands protected. The commission plans to design the accreditation program's application and review process in 2006; test the process in 2007; and start accepting applications in 2008, she said. Berkeley's gift comes on the heels of Congressional passage last week of a new tax incentive that would extend the carry-forward period for tax deductions for voluntary conservation agreements and raise the cap on those deductions. The Internal Revenue Service is also cracking down on its review of conservation easements, Wyerman said. "It's a very timely gift because it shows the private sector, the IRS and Congress are all doing their part," he said. |