Wildearth Guardians

“Approximately a week prior to filing the form 990, a draft in pdf format is sent to all board members along with an email calling their attention to portions of the forms. Comments and corrections are strongly encouraged. In addition, the associate director and accountant discuss the entire draft form with the preparer in advance of filing.”

“In addition to requiring board members, staff and regular contractors to proactively notify the full board of any conflicts, all board members, staff, and regular contractors must sign a annual form which a) affirms that they have received a copy of the policy; b) read and understood it; c) agreed to comply with the policy; d) understood that wildearth guardians is a charitable organization and must engage in activities which accomplish one or more of its tax-exempt purposes; and e) list all relationships with wildearth guardians' vendors, service recipients, funders, employees and contractors. All potential conflicts are reviewed by the board of directors without the presence of the interested party.”

“The board of directors reviews and approves the executive director's annual salary, with no participation by the executive director or other interested persons. The executive director's salary is established using comparable data for similarly qualified persons in functionally comparable positions at similar nonprofits; consideration of roles and responsibilities of the executive director; and cost of living data. Comparable market data is obtained from salary surveys and form 990s filed by comparable not-for- profit organizations. Discussions and decisions regarding the compensation are documented in executive committee meeting minutes. The executive director also receives reimbursements for routine, reasonable, and documented expenses incurred during the year under an accountable plan. The executive director travels throughout our service area. The organization has a travel policy that caps reimbursement levels and requires low-budget travel.”

“A line item budget is approved by the board of directors annually. The board approves the overall salaries and benefits expenses. Discussions and decisions regarding the budget are documented in board meeting minutes. The executive director reviews and approves the salaries of other officers or key employees, with no participation by the interested persons, in accordance with the annual budget approved by the board of directors. The executive director establishes salaries using comparable data for similarly qualified persons in functionally comparable positions at similar nonprofits; consideration of roles and responsibilities of the officer or key employee; and cost of living data. Comparable market data is obtained from salary surveys and form 990s filed by comparable not-for-profit organizations. Carol norton is listed as an officer due to form 990 definitions as the senior financial staff person; she is not an officer under state law.”

“We consider requests on a case-by-case basis.”

“Volunteers assisted in stream team, an annual river restoration event held at different riparian locations, by helping to plant native trees and shrubs. Volunteers also assisted during fundraising events by checking attendees in, setting up and cleaning up after events, and general office help such as copying, mailing, etc. Members of the board of directors also serve in a volunteer capacity.”

“Planted 50,000 willows, 600 cottonwoods, 600 alders, and 600 aspens. Per year, the project took 12,000 hours of work along with 2,200 hours from volunteers. O we helped beat back legislation that would have sold up to 3.3 million acres of public lands. O we moved 20,000 guardians to speak out against shrinking or revoking our national monuments, and 14,000 guardians to help convince the forest service to rewild old roads. O we persuaded the king county (washington state) council, representing 2.1 million people, to pass a resolution opposing public lands sell-offs. O we convinced the forest service to decommission over 300 miles of roads around the west for the protection of wildlands, wildlife, and clean water. O we bought out the 8,454-acre alamocita cattle allotment on the gila national forest, n.m., and came to terms on the 37,151-acre govina allotment, also on the gila, protecting these areas for mexican wolves, elk, and a host of other wildlife. O we protected lynx habitat across 200,000 acres of national forest along the western slope of colorado. O we moved to protect dwindling winter steelhead and spring chinook populations in the willamette river, ore., by filing notice to sue the army corps of engineers on their management of four willamette river dams.”

“Coyote hunter, can again be punished for their crimes. O we continue our fight to reform the u.s. 59 attempts in the current congress department of agriculture wildlife-killing program, misnamed wildlife services, by going to court in idaho, oregon, colorado, and california. The settlement in our california suit requires wildlife services to implement numerous protections for wildlife in northern california, including a ban on traps and aerial gunning in designated wilderness. Wildlife services also must thoroughly analyze the environmental impacts of its killing of coyotes, bobcats, and other wildlife in 16 counties. O our petition led wildlife services to abandon its use of m-44 cyanide bombs across idaho. We also petitioned the environmental protection agency to outlaw the devices, which cause agonizing deaths for thousands of animals every year. O we are defending the endangered species act against unprecedented attacks, including to repeal or cripple the act. O we sued the u.s. Fish and wildlife service over its deeply flawed decision to strip beloved grizzly bears in the greater yellowstone ecosystem of endangered species act protections. O we won our appeal of new mexico's anti-wolf refusal to allow releases of critically imperiled mexican wolves into the wild. O we sued the colorado parks and wildlife department, colorado parks and wildlife commission, and wildlife services over their cruel plans to kill cougars and black bears in a misguided attempt to boost mule deer populations.”

“Ground and further weakening the fossil fuel industry. O we rallied a coalition of more than a dozen organizations in support of shutting down new mexico's san juan generating station and san juan coal mine and transitioning away from fossil fuels. O we thwarted an attempt by trump and his interior secretary, ryan zinke, to auction o 30,000 acres of public lands next to rocky mountain national park for fracking. O we played a pivotal role in confronting attempts by trump and zinke to auction more than one million acres of public lands across the american west to the oil and gas industries. O we launched a clean air act enforcement lawsuit against the martin drake coal-fired power plant in colorado springs, colo., in hopes that we can finally put an end to this plant's toxic air pollution. O we led a lawsuit to halt new oil and gas pipeline approvals on public lands in the american west, challenging the trump administration's failure to inspect pipelines on more than 250,000 acres of public lands as required by federal law.”

“Wild rivers in this time when our values are being shaken to the core and our rivers are exploited without regard for natural limitations, guardians is envisioning how to chart a new course for our western rivers. Here are our major wins of 2017: o we reached out to stakeholders across the rio grande basin to discuss our vision to rethink water management in the rio grande (www.rethinkingtherio.org). O we led five water transfer protests with the new mexico state engineer to ensure that the city of rio rancho's plan to move water from farming to municipal uses upstream does not impact flows on 50 to 100 miles of the rio grande and harm the public welfare. O we joined with new allies-the middle rio grande conservancy district, the bureau of reclamation, and several middle rio grande pueblos-to challenge the application by the city of rio rancho to ensure scrutiny of this transfer. O we pursued protection of a newly discovered population of the imperiled rio grande chub as local ditch companies continue to push re-engineering five dams that threaten the survival and passage of the chub and other native fish in the rio grande. O we are pressing to ensure that aquatic and riparian habitat of the river is improved, not compromised, and continue to push for listing of the chub under the endangered species act pursuant to our 2013 petition. O we joined a coalition of environmental groups to file a lawsuit in federal court challenging the windy gap firming project-a plan to divert 9 billion gallons of water annually from the colorado river to use to fuel urban growth?on the front range. Other programs include: --publications and outreach --legal --events --lobbying”

“Change in assets held by others -842 a prior period adjustment was recorded during the year to remove assets held by a community foundation. The determination was made that although wildearth guardians is the beneficiary of the fund assets, the community foundation has variance power over the fund, and therefore, the fund is not an asset of wildearth guardians. The prior period adjustment resulted in a reduction of 87,855 in permanently restricted net assets.”