We publish a financial transparency breakdown on our About page every year — 82% direct conservation programs, 11% stewardship and monitoring, 7% administration and fundraising — but a percentage breakdown can feel abstract. Here’s what that split actually paid for last year, traced through a few specific line items.
The 82% conservation programs figure covered the Two Forks Riparian Corridor acquisition’s remaining payment, the culvert replacement project, roughly 1,400 willow and alder plantings, and progress payments toward the Granite Creek Meadows purchase option. It’s the largest slice by a wide margin because land acquisition and easement payments are simply expensive relative to everything else we do — a single acre of protected land can cost anywhere from a few thousand to tens of thousands of dollars depending on location and development pressure.
The 11% stewardship and monitoring slice is smaller in dollar terms but is the reason our impact numbers are numbers rather than assertions. It funded the camera traps at Antler Gap Forest and Bramble Ridge, the joint steelhead spawning surveys at Two Forks, the amphibian monitoring program’s training sessions and data processing, and the trail maintenance across our publicly accessible preserves. Every specific figure in our impact reporting — redd counts, camera-trap crossings, volunteer hours — traces back to this line item.
The 7% administration and fundraising slice, the smallest by design, covers the finance and compliance work that keeps the other 93% accountable — audited financials, grant reporting, and the staff time spent on donor communications like this one. We keep this slice lean deliberately, but we don’t pretend it’s zero; an organization that claims 100% of every dollar goes directly to programs is usually hiding overhead in another line item rather than actually eliminating it. If you’re a Steward, Guardian, or Founder-level member, this is the actual breakdown your annual gift supports — not a marketing abstraction, the same three numbers on our About page, traced to real projects.
