"Expectations for Improvement" (EFI) may be issued by the Land Trust Accreditation Commission to an accredited land trust as part of the accreditation award letter or through the compliance confirmation process. Expectations are used to foster continuous learning and quality improvement when the Commission determines that an organization needs to do additional work to fully comply with one or more elements of an indicator practice. Read Frequently Asked Questions about EFIs. 

Each month in 2012 the Commission introduced a commonly issued EFI and discussed factors that might result in an EFI at accreditation. Since renewing land trusts need to show that they have met any EFIs they received at first-time accreditation, we also discussed documentation accredited land trusts might provide at renewal to show how the expectation was addressed.

Common Expectations for Improvement

• Practice 2C. Tax Exemption
• Practice 3F. Board Approval of Land Transactions
• Practice 4A. Dealing with Conflicts of Interest
• Practice 5A. Legal and Ethical Practices
• Practice 6B. Financial Records
• Practice 7A. Capacity
• Practice 8B. Project Selection and Criteria
• Practice 9J. Purchasing Land
• Practice 10B. Appraisals
• Practices 11A. Funding Easement Stewardship and 12A. Funding Land Stewardship

To  see trends on commonly issued EFI’s, please see the 2012 Report on Expectations for Improvement. For information on the elements the Commission evaluates for every indicator practice, please download and read the Accreditation Requirements Manual: A Land Trust’s Guide to Understanding Key Elements of Accreditation.

Note that each accredited land trust is expected to comply with all of the accreditation indicator practices and to maintain documentation of compliance throughout its accreditation term, to conduct periodic assessments against the full set of Land Trust Standards and Practices and to use them as a guide for the organization, to stay aware of and demonstrate compliance with current program requirements (as identified in the Commission’s Requirements Manual), and to abide by the terms of the Accreditation Agreement submitted at the time of pre-application.