Sustainable Conservation

Founded in 1993, Sustainable Conservation advances the collaborative stewardship of California’s land, air, and water for the benefit of nature and people. Sustainable Conservation helps California thrive by uniting people to solve the toughest challenges facing our land, air, and water. Every day, we bring together business, landowners, communities, and government, in some of the most productive yet economically disadvantaged parts of California, to steward the resources on which we all depend in ways that are just and make economic sense. Sustainable Conservation drives collaborative solutions to meet the water needs of California’s environment, people, and economy for current and future generations by advancing sustainable groundwater management and accelerating the stewardship of natural and working lands and waterways. A sustainable water future for California that supports a thriving economy is achievable. But, a future in which nature and people have access to clean, affordable, and reliable water is possible only by working with – not against – each other. Sustainable Conservation's impact has been recognized by a variety of national and regional media, including the Today show, National Geographic, National Public Radio, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and others. Sustainable Conservation has received numerous awards for our enduring commitment to a healthy environment and thriving economy, including the Governor's Environmental and Economic Leadership Award.

Our vision is a state where everyone stewards our natural resources so that they benefit people, the

Goal One: Advancing and scaling solutions to optimize the management of both water supply and water quality for successful local implementation of sustainable groundwater management in California.

Goal Two: Accelerating restoration and stewardship of natural and working lands and waterways. All major regulatory permits needed to implement aquatic restoration have been simplified and are widely used.

Goal Three: Advancing and scaling agricultural practices that create healthy soil, by improving inherent functions within soil, including: infiltration, soil water retention, and nutrient cycling.

Investment on-going diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training for Board and all staff. We recognize the importance of continually expanding our learning to better understand who our work benefits, our blind spots, and how we can evolve to ensure solutions are co-created with those most impacted by water and climate issues. There’s always more we can do to prioritize human needs and equity issues. We're in the process of reviewing all our programs to identify who is currently at the ‘table’, missing at the table, and how we can make more room at the table. Our programmatic efforts include: Stepping up our efforts to address the lack of clean drinking water for more than 1 million Californians. Prioritizing on-farm pollution-reduction technologies to benefit impacted communities. Guiding groundwater recharge practices to protect water quality. Widening outreach to ensure all communities can access simplified pathways for habitat restoration work.

Thanks to having our communications and technical systems and staff well equipped to work remotely, the transition to remote work was fairly smooth. In fact it had very little impact on our program work and in some cases there was actually more time for program collaboration because travel time was eliminated. One of the silver linings of COVID was going 100% digital when it comes to Sustainable Conservation's special events. This dramatic pivot led to an equally dramatic amount of new ways for engaging with current and prospect donors. We developed a series of educational webinars, featuring thought leaders on timely, meaningful and pressing topics. Not only were these virtual events increasing our typical number of event guests by five- to ten-fold, it allowed us to engage with people wherever they were located. Finally these recorded events continue to provide educational value to our community and visitors. We also realized a valuable new source of revenue and brand building through a new webinar sponsorship program. If we measure adaptability to external changes by 2021 donor renewal rate, our story is quite healthy at 74%. (The national non-profit renewal rate average is in the high 50%.) There was also a concerted effort to truly connect (flexing and growing emotional intelligence) with each other during the start of staff meetings via "check in" sessions that were inclusive, sincere, warm and often fun. For these (and other) reasons, the organization has emerged even stronger, more visible, more creative, and hungrier than ever to scale our collaborative, innovative solutions that benefit California's people, environment, and economy.