Conserving Carolina’s Vision and Mission
Vision: A community inspired, land and water saved, for nature and people, forever.
Mission: To protect, restore, and inspire appreciation of the natural world.
What We Do
Your support is powering some amazing conservation projects. With your help, Conserving Carolina is creating new parks, trails, and greenways. We’re protecting mountains, foothills, rivers, and farms—over 49,000 acres so far. We’re restoring woods, meadows, and wetlands. We’re engaging people in volunteer work, hikes, outings, field trips, speaker series, native plant gardening, and more. You can find the latest on our work in our News section. Or, jump to our Top 5 Stories.
You can also learn about how we carry out the three branches of our mission here:
2020-2024 Strategic Plan
In 2019, we updated our five-year Strategic Plan to clarify our vision, mission, and values and establish our strategic directions for the coming years. You can see an overview of our Strategic Plan here.
SEE THE STRATEGIC PLAN SUMMARY
Guiding Principles
We value community
Understanding and addressing community needs is central to our mission.
We value environmental stewardship
We work to sustain the beauty, vitality, and diversity of the natural world.
We value integrity
Honesty and credibility form the foundation on which relationships are built.
We value innovation
Working creatively empowers us to address new opportunities and challenges.
We value collaboration
Working together results in greater benefits for nature and people.
We value equity
We will include, benefit, and empower people of differing views, experiences, and identities.
Five Strategic Directions
In our 2020-2024 Strategic Plan, we clarified our vision, mission, and guiding principles (above), and we established five strategic directions to guide our work:
1. Protect Land and Water
Our core work is always to protect the natural world that sustains us. The places we protect provide clean air and water, nourishing food, scenic beauty, wildlife habitat, and so much more.
2. Engage Communities
We can succeed only if people feel connected to nature and act to protect it. From school field trips to volunteer crews, we are cultivating a powerful conservation ethic.
3. Advance Climate Crisis Solutions
The places we protect are threatened by climate change, so we need to defend them. Natural areas are also part of the solution. They capture carbon, help animals adapt, and make communities more resilient.
4. Promote Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
Conservation needs diverse perspectives and a broad base of support. To earn those, we need to ensure that our work fairly includes, benefits, and empowers people of all backgrounds.
5. Increase Financial Resiliency
We’ve promised to protect land forever. We’re committed to serving our communities through thick or thin. To achieve our goals, we need a strong financial foundation.