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Standard 2: Compliance with Laws
The land trust fulfills its legal requirements
as a nonprofit tax-exempt organization and complies with all
laws.
Standard 2 reaches broadly across many
activities of a non-profit land trust. Any officially adopted
policy about safeguarding tax-exempt status (conflicts of interest,
lobbying, donor-relations, etc.) relate to this standard. Compliance
with Standard 2 overlaps a good deal with compliance with other
Standards.
The single organizational policy LTA associates
with Standard 2 is Records Keeping, which LTA describes as “a
written records policy that governs how organization and transaction
records are created, collected, retained, stored and disposed.”
There is no formula for a strong land trust “record keeping” policy,
since “record keeping” can refer to so many organizational
activities. Some land trusts do have one comprehensive policy
informing all their records retention and storage. Others
adopt separate policies guiding how they keep information about
their land protection work, fundraising, administration, etc.
Three samples are included here: one comprehensive record keeping
policy from a large, staffed land trust, one from an all-volunteer
organization, and one very thorough description of how the Minnesota
Land Trust keeps land protection project files organized.
Sample Record Keeping Policies & Procedures
Record
Keeping Policy Considerations
All-volunteer
Group Sample Policy
Minnesota
Land Trust Sample Policy
Teton
Land Trust Sample Policy
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