Funding and Endowment Campaign
The association has begun a campaign to expand its endowment to ensure that land stewardship activities can be continued and enhanced into the future

The role of the Weston Forest and Trail Association requires a significant amount of skilled field and office support. Nearly all of this work is currently done by volunteers. Key support activities include:

Land stewardship

• Conservation Restriction and land title record keeping
  
• Baseline field surveys which document existing conservation land and land under conservation restriction
  
• Periodic field visits to identify encroachment
  
• Contacting landowners and defining remedies to encroachment
  
• Working with the town to develop the GIS system and incorporate information about conservation land and conservation restrictions into the data base

Landowner outreach and support with conservation planning

• Trail system design, development, and mapping.
• Defining opportunities for new trails which connect or integrate existing open spaces and trails
• Negotiating easements
• Clearing new trails
• Updating and publishing the trail map and Trail Guide

Defining priorities for land conservation, for approaching private landowners, and for initiating efforts to preserve or shape development of land.

Trail maintenance

• Supervise the work of Land’s Sake, which WFTA supports financially to provide most trail maintenance work
• Identify and address specific maintenance issues.

Organizing education, social, and hiking programs

Association administration

• Membership recruiting
• Meetings and Newsletters
• Financial management
  

Currently Weston Forest and Trail is primarily dependent on annual membership dues to fund operating expenses. A larger endowment, in combination with continued growth in membership and annual gifts, will provide a more stable base of funding to support current commitments including conservation monitoring and trail maintenance. The Association also plans to hire a part-time paid staff to support the volunteers, in order create a more sustainable organization, which is less dependent on a small group of long-serving volunteers.

As you consider large gifts and bequests, we would ask you to consider supporting our initiatives to maintain Weston’s rural character for the next 50 years.