Conservation Lands Foundation
Community Needs Assessment for National Conservation Lands
Andres Esparza
Executive Summary
A priority of the Conservation Lands Foundation is to grow a strong and inclusive
community-based public lands constituency. We have a 12+ year track record in growing
a network of 80 community-based organizations focused on stewarding and expanding
National Conservation Lands.
While the community-based people who work and volunteer for these organizations are
highly effective in advocating for public lands, we have no data to determine whether
they represent the demographics, and therefore, the perspectives, needs and interests
of the diverse communities/regions where they operate.
The future of successful public land conservation, stewardship, and leadership requires
that it equitably reflect and meet the needs of the diversity of people in the U.S. We are
advocating these values to our funders and we recognize that we need the data to
inform where our grantmaking can have the greatest impact in growing more diverse
and equitable public land conservation communities.
We are looking for a demographic and needs analysis, along with a literature review of
prior research done of the communities around either all or some of the existing and
potential National Conservation Lands in the Western U.S. This would all be compiled in
an interactive map, requiring some level of comfort and knowledge with mapping/GIS
software.