Western Sustainability Exchange

“The form 990 is reviewed by the executive director and by members of the board of directors.”

“The board of directors annually reviews compliance with the policy.”

“The board of directors reviews the compensation of the executive director every year. The last review was in 2021. The next review scheduled will be in 2022.”

“The executive director evaluates all the staff and uses comparable data to establish compensation levels”

“Governing documents, conflicts of interest policy, tax returns and financial statements are available in the organization's office.”

“Upon request. Wse also posts a copy of the form 990 each year on guidestar.”

“Advancing sustainability in the western area of the united states through a series of programs and activities designed to promote better ranching and farming and farming practices. A strong focus is to provide ranchers with the information, tools, technical assistance, and peer support they need to transition to regenerative agricultural practices. Additionally, wse incentivizes the conversion to these practices by connecting ranchers to natural foods and culinary outlets and opportunities in the voluntary carbon market.”

“Regenerative rancher network: wse promoted regenerative ranching practices through webinars, workshops, and field tours highlighting specific practices and working one-on-one with ranchers to implement changes on their land.we organized and co-sponsored eight workshops and field days. We also created two webinars: a healthy soil webinar featuring internationally renowned soil experts. In 2022, 936 landowners participated in our workshops and field days. To help ranchers maintain progress, we organized monthly "bull sessions" as a peer-to-peer zoom-based meeting space for them to share how regenerative practices work in montana. Over 138 ranchers are participating in this peer network. To increase understanding of the comprehensive nature of regenerative management and how to measure their progress, wse is creating two tools for landownersto use to assess the current state of their operation and track progress over time: a regenerative ranch guide and a land health dashboard. The regenerative ranch guide is an online assessment tool that outlines the eight focus areas of regenerative management (soil, water, land, livestock, grazing, economics, biodiversity, and people). The guide helps the user better understand regenerative principles and provides a baseline valuation for their operation in each area. Ranchers receive a report at the end with recommendations for improvement. The land health dashboard is being designed to display information on various ecological conditions ranchers can use to inform their management decisions, such as weather conditions, changes to the percent of bare ground, snowpack levels, soil moisture and other relevant data. Montana grassland carbon program: to economically incentivize ranchers to switch to regenerative methods, wse organizes rancher participation in the growing voluntary carbon market through our montana grasslands carbon initiative. The program protects montana's remarkable natural resource heritage, captures dangerous carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, bolsters the profitability of family ranches by reducing operating costs and increasing land productivity, and provides additional income through carbon offset payments. In 2022, wse recruited eight ranches (totaling 110,000 acres) to contractually commit to using regenerative grazing practices for the next 30 years. According to the programs predictive model, these ranches capture between 88,000 to 130,000 tons of carbon annually. This translates to 2.6 to 3.5 million tons of carbon over the 30 year life of the carbon contracts. Ranchers receive annual carbon offset payments based on the amount of carbon they capture. This economic incentive encourages greater adoption of regenerative methods. To determine sequestration levels, wse takes baseline carbon soil samples on all ranches applying to the program. The predictive model uses this soil carbon data to assess the potential increase in carbon capture if regenerative grazing practices are implemented. To ensure the model and our program will result in significant carbon capture, the program was scrutinized by the verra standards registry adn received validation status in 2022. We are the first grassland carbon capture program to receive this independent validation. The resulting carbon assets are now registered on the verra carbon exchange, and tradable carbon credits are beign sold on the voluntary carbon market. This program in the largest grassland catpure project in the u.s. And the second largest worldwide. Livingston farmers market: in addition to the many activities within these primary work areas, wse operates the livingston farmers market. Our farmers market provides an outlet for farmers and ranchers to provide local sources of food for their neighbors and low income senior citizens and families. In 2022, we offered 189 vendors with this marketing opportunity for sixteen weeks during the summer. Our "special days" programming featured many of the services park county age”