Oregon Land Trusts and Collaboration: Issues, Recommendations, and Tools for Improving Current Collaborative Efforts

Abstract

Oregon land trusts have long worked with other organizations and agencies in order to better fulfill its missions of protecting special lands—land for natural habitat of flora and fauna—from development. But, many barriers exist regarding the ease and understanding of the collaborative process that ultimately hinder the ability for land trusts to protect more land and fulfill its missions. This research investigates Oregon land trusts’ reasons for or against collaborating with other organizations and agencies, to what extent land trusts are collaborating, and how effective those collaborative efforts are perceived to be. This reseach is based on the hypothesis that land trusts choose to collaborate with other agencies and organizations only when it benefits the land trust organization (i.e., by increasing its funds and/or by increasing the number of acres protected). This hypothesis is supported by the results. The study led to a number of practical recommendations and tools land trusts can use in order to improve its current collaboration and partnership processes.