The creation of the Land Stewardship Action Fund
In February 2018, the Land Stewardship Project (LSP) board created the Land Stewardship Action Fund (LSAF), a 501 c4 partner organization, as they recognized the power that comes with being able to drive the same mission and goals as LSP, but with an expanded set of tools in the political/electoral context.
Among several strong and strategic reasons to create LSAF, a central analysis largely drove the decision: The decision by our members and our leaders that we could no longer sit on the sidelines in the current political environment. That we need to make a bigger difference to advance our values of stewardship, justice, democracy, community, and health for people and the land. And that part of doing so would require identifying and supporting candidates for office who can help move us forward.
Every election we need to cast our votes, up and down the ballot, to elect leaders who are ready and willing to take responsibility for the shared future of our state. We need leaders who will act as our advocates and take our crises seriously – from healthcare to the decimation of family farms and local rural economies. We need them to listen to people like us for the solutions to these crises because they know we hold the key to long-term, transformational change. That’s why we need you to get involved, commit to voting, and organizing the people in your network to do the same so we can have strong leaders in office who share our vision and values at all levels of government.
Land Stewardship: Democracy in Action
We need you to check-in with your people to ensure they’re registered to vote, have a plan to vote in both the primary and general elections, and have the support they need to vote-by-mail if possible. Luckily, we’ve created a program – Land Stewardship: Democracy in Action – to help you have these conversations with your networks. We’ve built an organizing plan around the simple act of having these types of conversations with one another – and we will win if you do just that, especially with people you know who are new or less likely voters. We are sure you know a few people like this and together we need to make sure we’re connecting with them, offering a positive alternative to our current reality, and organizing them to vote in the direction of change. We are currently engaging people like you to do just that, putting democracy into action.