DANBURY, Conn., August 19, 2010 – The Land Trust of Danbury announced it has received a grant of $2,500 from the Meserve Fund. The grant will help The Land Trust complete a comprehensive land management plan begun last year with a grant from the Meserve Fund.

The Land Trust’s land management plan has involved conducting baseline surveys of The Land Trust’s properties; designing and developing a plan for ongoing stewardship of the properties and creating composite geographic information systems (GIS) mapping of all the properties to aid land acquisition planning, visual review, presentation and assessment of the holdings.

According to Bill Montgomery, president of The Land Trust, “Over the past 39 years, our land stewardship responsibilities have grown to 19 properties and 217 acres. Increasingly we have recognized the need for accurate cataloging and mapping of the properties in our charge. The grants from Danbury’s Meserve Fund have helped us fulfill that need.”

Creation of the database, mapping and other aspects of the project are being conducted under direction of The Land Trust by the Brawley Consulting Group.

The Meserve Fund was established in 1978, to manage and distribute $3 million left to greater Danbury by noted arborist Albert Wadsworth Meserve and his wife Helen. Since its inception, the Meserve Fund has benefited over 100 community groups with 710 grants and 290 area students with 487 scholarships.

The Brawley Consulting Group provides land conservation and management services to area land trusts and specializes in habitat restoration, trail design and construction, geographic information systems mapping, property management plans and baseline documentation.

June 2, 2009 – Recently, The Land Trust of Danbury was presented with an award in the category of “Exemplary Fundraising or Outreach Project” by the Connecticut Land Conservation Council (CLCC) at their annual conference. The award recognizes successful fundraising or outreach efforts that employ creative or unique approaches to new or expanded audiences and was one of only four awards presented to conservationists operating throughout the entire state of Connecticut.

The CLCC’s award noted that during the middle of 2008, The Land Trust of Danbury received grants from The Women’s Club of Danbury/New Fairfield, the Pepsi Bottling Group and the Peter and Carmen Lucia Buck Foundation that dramatically transformed the momentum of the organization. The largest grant, $21,000 from the PCLB Foundation, was awarded to help grow and strengthen the organization. In accordance, the Board of Directors established key objectives for the grant and hired a part-time Executive Director to help ensure they will be met. The new Director, Sharon Danosky, then led a Board retreat that charted the future direction of the Trust producing a Five Year Strategic Plan. The Plan reorganizes the Trust’s committee structure and establishes work plans for each of its five committees. In presenting the award, the CLCC noted that the process of establishing the Strategic Plan required exceptional effort and initiative on the part of The Land Trust. As a result, the organization has made substantial progress toward building capacity while moving overall governance and operational performance to much higher levels.