Forever - It’s Our Responsibility

July 22, 2025 I By Katie Cox, Executive Director

Hello friend,

I think the many cloud layers this morning, reflecting a deep blue on our great lake, is causing me to think more deeply than usual. 

Perpetuity is something I think about often. Almost daily in fact. It was honestly not a word in my monthly lexicon before I started this journey at KLT. But now, I feel the greatest responsibility in my day-to-day job is to think about perpetuity.

Unless you personally have a conservation agreement with us, you may not know that when we work with a landowner to put their land in conservation, we are agreeing to be stewards of that land in perpetuity, or in other words FOREVER! It is a huge responsibility to ensure that we can and will live up to our part of that agreement.

So maybe now you can see why I think about perpetuity a lot.

Regan, our Conservation Director, thinks about that simple but complex word as much as I do.  For her it equates to her workload and her committed responsibility both to the land and the landowner.  

Once we enter into an agreement with a landowner, Regan adds that land to her list of monitoring visits that occur every summer and early fall. We currently have 42 properties with a conservation agreement in place. So, Regan is driving across three counties visiting landowners, walking properties, answering questions, and filling out reports. It’s a big job and one that grows each year with each new agreement. 

When I think about perpetuity, I think about my responsibility as Executive Director to make sure that our organization exists FOREVER so that we can fulfill the responsibility we committed to in regards to the conservation agreements that we hold, as well as our commitment to the other fundamental parts of our programs like getting kids outside in meaningful ways and stewarding the resilience of our communities. That’s a BIG responsibility.

I continually think about how I can help create security for the next leaders and visionaries to continue to do this work without as big of a burden of financial responsibility year after year. Yes, I do think about an endowment but I also think about diversification of our funding streams and creative ways, given our skills and talents as an organization to think outside the typical nonprofit box. 

Big ideas are brewing; they may be a home run, they may fizzle with time, but we will continue to work hard to ensure that Kaniksu Land Trust is forever woven into the fabric of our landscape and our communities. Committing to you and to future generations and most especially to our rich and vibrant landscape is so important to us. 

In deep thought,

Katie