Communities of Color working together to close the nature gap
About the CLC
We are the Community Land Conservancy (CLC) — a people of color-led representative, convener, and policy liaison that amplifies community voices, reclaims our connection to land in an environmental sector that has largely excluded us, and reshapes the systems that determine who benefits from environmental investment.
We partner with frontline communities to create thriving, affordable, and green neighborhoods where residents claim the social, health, and economic benefits of adequate access to nature.
Why the Community Land Conservancy is needed
The land use decisions being made right now will shape our environment for generations — and the people most affected by them, communities of color, continue to be left out of the rooms where they are made.
We created the Community Land Conservancy to close the nature gap — and the power gap that perpetuates it.
Environmental efforts that exclude communities of color don’t just fail those communities — they fail everyone.
Our model
We build change from the inside — as an organization of, by, and for people of color, we bring the lived experience, trust, and community relationships that outside organizations cannot replicate. We act as social resource brokers, accessing the resources concentrated in mainstream environmental organizations without the “baggage” that usually comes with it.
We are able to guide our professional network to leverage their expertise in environmental, conservation, climate, and land use policy, real estate development, and finance to navigate the complexities of land use decision-making — keeping communities firmly in the driver’s seat.
Our Role as Social Resource Brokers
We operate in two lanes simultaneously: direct on-the-ground project work with communities of color, and systems-change work that redirects the power and resources of historically white-led organizations toward community needs. Both lanes are driven by the same core principles:
- Communities of color should have the power, resources, and access to determine their own future, and
- POC-led projects will also improve environmental outcomes by grounding policy and practice in the realities faced by, not only communities of color, but lower income groups across the region.
Support us by investing in our work
Your investment in the Community Land Conservancy makes a different outcome possible. With philanthropic support, we can:
- Continue and expand our site-level project work, acquiring and stewarding open space that directly benefits communities of color in King County
- Sustain the infrastructure of our Social Resource Broker model — including the Community Review Committee, Green Equity Alliance coordination, and the capacity-building tools that make the coalition work
- Build our long-term organizational capacity as a people of color-led institution in the environmental sector
- Amplify the voices of frontline communities in the policy and advocacy spaces that determine the future of Puget Sound