Virginia's United Land Trusts

Legal name: Virginias United Land Trusts

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
814763271
IRS 990 coverage
2022–2024
Official website data refreshed
Sep 2026
Forms available
Form 990 2024, Form 990-EZ 2020, Form 990-N 2017
Location
Richmond, VA, USA
Rating
84
Verdict
STRONG
Rating confidence
Moderate
Sector
Land Resources Conservation

Official website

Reported finances

Revenue
$259,231
Expenses
$364,230
Assets
$303,207
Liabilities
$4,591

Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.

Leadership & pay

13 people listed

Highest reported compensation

  • ELLEN SHEPARD (Executive Dir.): $98,537 total reported compensation

Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.

Overview

Mission

Virginias United Land Trusts was founded to promote conservation statewide and to coordinate conservation planning and green infrastructure. The Organization offers training and educational programs, like our annual Virginia Land Conservation & Greenways Conference.The Organization supports Virginias diverse conservation community to magnify and amplify land conservation efforts and achieve widespread protection of the Commonwealth of Virginia's natural, cultural, and scenic resources, ensuring their long term benefits for all Virginians.

What it reported doing in 2024

Virginia's united land trust (vault) regularly convenes land conservation professionals and volunteers. Our work focuses on policy workgroups, the impact of emerging and contemporary topics, and skills and knowledge development. We work closely with our 27 land trust member organizations as well as local, state, and federal easement holding agencies and authorities. During the 2024-2025 fiscal year, vault sponsored the Virginia land conservation & greenways conference with more than 200 participants representing more than 100 organizations and agencies in attendance. The conference is the primary annual gathering of the Virginia land conservation community with more than 20 educational and best practices sessions. In recognition of the critical importance of accelerating land conservation in Virginia, Virginia outdoors foundation (vof) and vault launched a capacity building grant for the nonprofit land trust community, specifically for vault members. The grant is funded by vof and administered by vault.

Operating model

Revenue model
Mixed. Its operating money came from several sources; no one source provided a clear majority.
Distribution model
Hybrid. The nonprofit split its reported program spending across 51% for direct work, and 49% for grants.

The verdict

STRONG - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. Some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered and expenses are high relative to revenue.

Rating breakdown

  • Financial Efficiency: 95
  • Transparency & Controls: 85
  • Accountability: 84
  • Sustainability: 20
  • Growth: 60

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
  • Program expense ratio: 95.1%; rating input score 95
  • Fundraising efficiency: $29.09 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 66; 66th percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

  • Consistency checks: 91.7%; rating input score 92; 19th percentile among comparable filings
  • Pay-setting controls: Limited
  • Foreign activity oversight: Limited
  • Grant itemization coverage: 83.2%; rating input score 83; 49th percentile among comparable filings
  • Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
  • Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

  • Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Governance controls: 5 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 62
    • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
    • Whistleblower policy: Pass
    • Document-retention policy: Pass
    • CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
    • Other executive compensation review process: Fail
    • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
    • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
    • Audit committee oversight: Missing
    • Independent financial-statement audit: Fail

Sustainability

  • Operating margin: -40.5%; rating input score 7; 7th percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.83; rating input score 36; 36th percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.02; rating input score 42; 42nd percentile among comparable filings
  • Officer compensation ratio: 27.1%; rating input score 13; 13th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: -7.5% per year; rating input score 0; 13th percentile among comparable filings
  • Revenue growth: 17.8% per year; rating input score 100; 86th percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: 17.3% per year; rating input score 100; 81st percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • What they do: 3 programs and campaigns described on the official site · 1 operating location identified
  • Where the money goes: 100% of revenue deployed · 95.1% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: 12 of 12 board members independent · 5 of 8 filing controls reported
  • Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $346K in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $99K · 13 people listed
  • Consistency: 20 of 21 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
  • Schedules: 4 filed schedules · includes major donors and grants
  • Filing history: 3 filing years from 2022 to 2024
  • Contacts: How to reach this organization
  • Money network: 15 filed money-flow records
  • Related organizations: 13 filed related-organization links
  • Grant readiness: Federal tax and exclusion status, award history, and grant-maker relationships.
  • People: Everyone the filings name, and which of them the filings identify by more than a name.

Key Signals

Signals prioritize questions for review. They are not findings of misconduct.

  • Review — Accountability: Governance controls: 2 of 7 not reported.
  • High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 7/100.
  • High — Growth: Program expense growth scored 0/100.
  • Moderate — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 36/100.
  • Review — Transparency & Controls: Domestic grant itemization did not reconcile in the filed values.
  • High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 13/100.
  • Moderate — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 42/100.