West Creek Conservancy

“The form 990 is presented to finance staff, executive director and finance committee to review and is then revised as needed, following which a recommendation of approval is made to the board. The board then has final review of the 990 and approves it for filing.”

“Each year, all board and staff members are required to review and pledge compliance to the organization's conflict of interest policy. Among other things, the policy makes it clear that all decisions of the board members and employees are made solely on the basis of a desire to promote the best interest of the organization and the public good. The conflict of interest statement requires board members and staff to identify to the best of their knowledge affiliations with organizations that may be potentially related to the financial or other substantive operations of the organization. They are also asked to identify circumstances involving either themselves, or a member of their extended family, that may be construed as a conflict of interest. The organization's employees also ensure that there are no conflicts of interest when considering the engagement of a vendor. If a potential or actual conflict is identified, appropriate steps are taken to both assess the nature of the conflict and, subsequently, to ensure that the issue is mitigated. The board and organization takes the appropriate steps to manage the mitigation of the conflict of interest and upholds the letter and spirit of the policy.”

“The executive committee of the board annually evaluates the performance of the executive director. Compensation is based on performance and comparison to other area mission-comparable organizations of similar size. This compensation is a component of the budget, which is reviewed and approved by the board as a whole.”

“The organization's current governing documents, form 990, conflicts of interest policy, and financial statements are made available to the public upon request. The public inspection version of the form 990 can also be found on several publicly accessible websites.”

“Our mission is to enrich the lives of all people in northeast ohio by conserving natural habitats, restoring the ecological value of our region's lands and waters, and expanding opportunities to connect people from all cultures to experience nature and discover our great outdoors.”

“Volunteer hours donated for landscaping, property upkeep, and other services totalled 261 in 2022.”

“West creek conservancy's role in the community and region is unique, as it takes a watershed approach with respect to land conservation, stream/wetland restoration, and trail/greenway development. Northeast ohio has a storied past of development and has often been a poster -child of environmental change. Where a river once caught fire and pollution was national front-page news, we now have one of the most visited national parks in the country, a vast network of local park districts a 100-mile water trail, a handful of nationally significant 'scenic rivers', a regionally collaborative network of watershed and conservation groups, and story after story of habitat recovery. Thoughwe still have much work to do west creek is a hybrid land conservation and watershed restoration organization - acquiring land (including high quality and completely degraded areas); restoring ecological functionality (streams, wetlands, open meadows, forest lands, as well as brownfields); retrofitting the built environment (often removing unsustainable development, reclaiming natural areas or installing green infrastructure or other stormwater control mechanisms); building trail/greenway networks in order to connect people to these special places; and engaging municipalities, stakeholders, policy makers, or other partners in order to implement sustainable practice and policy. This is what we refer to as a 'headwaters-to-confluence approach'. West creek is regularly filling a specific role: helping partners acquire land, possibly on an interim basis, and sometimes pre-acquiring before the opportunity is lost. We pride ourselves on partnership. One of the largest, and most recent, examples of such is a project referred to as irishtown bend - a 23+ acre reclamation initiative in the heart of downtown cleveland along a half mile of the cuyahoga river. This organization was able to orchestrate a series of complex transactions to gain ownership of the area so that its partners could accelerate/implement a truly transformative and necessary project. Our role helped catalyze a nearly 100m project that will change the face of the river and bring green space to one of the fastest growing neighborhoods in cleveland. With a small staff, our watershed and conservation services stretch beyond 12 counties in northeast ohio. Employing our partnership approach we are assisting mill creek metroparks in mahoning county with a nearly 200-acre acquisition, now known as hawkins marigold marsh; assisting medina county park district to expand bluebell preserve and mud lake preserve, among others initiatives; assisting summit metro parks to expand hampton hills metro park; assisting portage county park district to create the new bird family bog preserve, just to name a few. In 2023 alone, we have over 6m in stream/wetland restoration projects on the ground in 5 counties - assisting park districts and a plethora of other stakeholders. They may seem random at first glance, but by applying a strategic watershed approach, these corridors in many circumstances become connected or otherwise part of a larger initiative. With respect to our conservation initiatives, the organization does not pursue projects based merely on a threshold of acreage or other hard and fast measurables, but rather a myriad of factors that create the mission-centric focus of our work. For example, whereas 300+ acres of high-quality wetland is extremely important for the ecosystem or watershed, a 5-acre parcel in an urban area will engage thousands of people daily. It is for this reason, that the organization takes a headwaters-to-confluence approach in carrying out its mission. West creek's entering its 26th year of protecting-restoring these amazing places and we're proud that we've been able to maintain the vision of our founders of 'making nature your neighbor' - and where capacity once limited us to the west creek valley, we are humbled that we can now serve constituents in over a dozen counties in northe”