Everything the coalition does today happens on generously loaned ground. Several island families have opened their acreage, their equipment, and their labor to achieve our initiatives together, and we are grateful beyond words for their faith in our shared vision. But loaned land is both a gift and a vulnerability, since nothing truly lasting can be built on ground that will one day be needed back.
Land the coalition owns will change to scope of our ability to enact change. It will mean barns, fencing, and infrastructure built to stand for fifty or a hundred years rather than five. It will mean a permanent home for the animals, the coops, and a headquarters for our work.
And it will mean something rarer still: Homes for young farming families as resident caretakers. These are the people who will milk the cows, move the coops, and raise the next generation of island children on the land they steward.
How the Land Fund is Built
Pledges & Gifts
of Funds
Cash gifts and multi-year pledges of any size, held and accumulated until the right acres can be purchased on the island. A fund like this is built steadily and by many hands.
A Gift of Land Itself
For island landowners, often the most powerful gift available: a direct gift of appreciated property generally spares the donor capital gains tax on decades of appreciation, and allows a tax deduction of fair market value. Land held for generations can do more good given than sold.
Bargain Sales & Bequests
Selling land to the coalition below market value, with the difference intended as a charitable gift, or remembering the Coalition in a will. Each builds the fund in ways that honor both family and island.
Stay on your land while settling its future.
A Retained Life Estate lets a landowner:
Deed property to the Coalition now,
Receive a charitable tax deduction now,
While continuing to live on and enjoy the land for the rest of their life.
Nothing about daily life changes, and the home and land stay exactly as they are.
What changes is the land's future: Settled in writing, in service of the island.
For longtime Marrowstone landowners,
this is often the most powerful instrument of all, and the least known.
If you own land on Marrowstone and any of this stirs you, we would welcome a conversation, a walk of the property, a cup of coffee, with no expectation and no pressure.
Gifts of real property are reviewed and accepted under the coalition’s gift acceptance policy, including title review, environmental review, and board approval, which is designed to protect donor and Coalition alike. And please involve your own financial and legal advisors from the start: nothing on this page is tax or legal advice, and a gift this meaningful deserves proper counsel.
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