The Conservation Fund

To make Charity Navigator’s list of 10 of the best large, well-known charities, an organization must rank highly for financial performance, transparency, and accountability. The Conservation Fund earned its place on this list through efficiencies that allow 98 percent of the money it takes in to go directly toward its mission—creating partnerships with people, government, business, and colleague organizations to protect natural resources and deliver economic vitality.

American conservationist Patrick Noonan founded the fund in 1985 as a nimble, entrepreneurial, nonprofit organization. Over the last decade, it has placed more than 500,000 acres under conservation management through a program whose goal is to purchase and permanently protect five million acres of working forests.

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Most recently, this program acquired 32,598 acres of sustainable timberland surrounding Johnsonburg, Pennsylvania. Under the fund’s temporary ownership, this land will continue to be sustainably managed as a working forest, maintaining its role as a steady source of timber for local mills and jobs for timber crews. This purchase will maintain clean water and productive fishing streams, securing 100 miles of high-quality cold-water fisheries.     

BJT readers—who represent one of the highest-net-worth magazine audiences anywhere—clearly have the means to contribute to a better world. To help you do that, we spotlight deserving organizations in every issue. All of them have received a four-star overall rating from Charity Navigator (charitynavigator.org), which evaluates philanthropic institutions based on their finances, accountability, and transparency.