This is my last update on the progress of the Land Stewardship Project Long Range Plan Committee’s work.

We have completed our task and presented the 2025-2030 Long Range Plan to the Land Stewardship Project’s board of directors. I’m pleased to report that they approved the final draft at the end of September!

The approved draft concentrated on getting the goals and direction, words, and style chosen. The graphics and layout are in progress and we anticipate that the final copy will be ready to share in January 2025.

This plan will guide LSP’s direction while providing the flexibility to carry out our work as our mission statement directs. One of the lessons learned from the past was that we need a strategic plan that provides the right level of guidance to effectively respond to changing circumstances, like a global pandemic for example. This committee intentionally left enough room to respond to the unknowns of the world and to allow staff to be nimble in the way we realize our vision of getting more farmers on the land and developing healthy communities.

I, and the committee members — Josephine Trople, Claudia Lenz, Dan McGrath, Nick Olson, Laurie Driessen, Megan Smith, Beth Slocum, Terry VanDerPol, Brian DeVore and Josh Bryceson — worked to be transparent in our process while offering various ways of gathering feedback for us to work with and incorporate into the plan. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and ideas with us along the way!

We had many good discussions and I want to briefly highlight a few of them for you:

• One of the sentiments I heard at the listening sessions was the concern that our staff was being spread too thin. It was heart-warming to hear members express concern for our staff. The plan reflects this concern with a specific outcome related to investing in the organization’s infrastructure and culture.
• Also, members and this committee acknowledged that healthcare reform was no longer a specific work area for LSP. We know healthcare is a very basic and important issue for our farmers and rural communities, and often a barrier for getting farmers started. Even though organizing for affordable, quality, and accessible healthcare isn’t currently a programmatic priority, the healthcare issue is not forgotten. As reflected in the plan, LSP will continue to work in a different way on this issue by supporting the efforts of our partners.
• And lastly, what came through loud and clear through our community listening sessions was LSP is needed now more than ever to grow, challenge, build, and steward our farm and food system so it works for everyone, no exceptions. You can see this reflected in our infographic that summarizes what we heard from you all this past spring.

I also want to highlight that this plan demonstrates how LSP’s program areas are separate yet interconnected. As our world is a menagerie of connections, so is this organization. The efforts of one area can greatly influence another. We believe that interconnectedness is a strength in our work and our hope is that this comes through in both the language and visuals of this new plan.

Thanks to the leadership of members and dedicated staff, and with the direction of this Long Range Plan, I am confident LSP can achieve progress toward our mission and overcome any challenges that lie ahead. I am pleased with the integrity, passion, dedication, and perseverance of so many of our members and staff.

If I can leave a parting thought it is this: I am grateful for the people who work to help farmers in rural and urban communities. Further, I encourage us to keep open, honest, respectful (and sometimes difficult) civil communication with each other. Now, let’s continue our work and fun for another five years!

Thank you for your time.
Thank you for your involvement.
Thank you for your support.

Bonnie Haugen, LSP Long Range Plan Committee Chair

In my first report (Feb. 19, 2024), our role, members, and responsibilities were laid out. We regularly remind ourselves that “Land Stewardship Project’s mission is to foster an ethic of stewardship for farmland, to promote sustainable agriculture and to develop healthy communities.”

I am pleased with our committee members and the way they learn, listen, and work together. We have spent time on topics such as our values, goals, history, previous long-range plans, membership demographics, three faces of power, equity, climate, our nine program areas, and contracting with a consulting partner.

I am also pleased with our actions.  We contracted with Seiche, a social impact strategy and communications firm. They have been very helpful in survey question wording, type of questions asked, and now, compiling the responses. Seiche has also been very helpful with the listening session logistics, facilitation guides, and compiling the notes and takeaways.

We have developed a survey which was sent out via e-mail and postal service. Our goal of getting 500 responses has been exceeded. We have received 539 so far!

We invited members to listening sessions with the intent of getting member reflections on what the long-range committee should include or consider putting in this next plan.  Six venues were identified, and four have taken place. So far, 57 people have participated in a listening session. These have been small groups and good conversations!

Next Steps

• We are identifying the partners that we want to visit with in the next weeks.

• We have started talking about the basics of the draft for this plan. At this point in time, we like the idea of a brief plan with links to further information related to that topic. We think this could be a nice balance with wanting to make a plan easy and quick to read, while also having a way of satisfying our “wordiness” when we want to explain and define topics and issues. We just met with Brian DeVore this morning and will be further refining what we want this document to look and sound like in the coming weeks.

• Our goal is to have a draft of this plan to present to LSP’s board of directors by the end of June. Assuming they approve the draft, this committee celebrates and sunsets. Then the details and finishing needs will be worked on for completion. Hopefully, we can celebrate that we did the best we could in making member and staff contributions an integral part of the process of guiding the next five years for this awesome organization.

May your spring be safe and fulfilling.  Thank you.

Respectfully,
Bonnie Haugen, Long Range Plan Committee Chair

I am happy to share with you the Long Range Plan Committee’s progress so far and a ballpark timeline of what’s to come. 

We held our first meeting by Zoom on January 12, and since then, we have met weekly (most often). We met in person once at the end of January. Our committee members are a nice mix of age, members, staff, board, and geographic areas. Our members are Josh Bryceson, Laurie Driessen, Claudia Lenz, Dan McGrath, Nick Olson, Beth Slocum, Megan Smith, Josie Trople, Terry VanDerPol, and Bonnie Haugen.  

I accepted chairing this committee not because I know what should be in this plan, but because I am very interested in listening to people on what they think should be in our plan. I am energized by the committee. My goal is to keep a calm urgency in this process, be transparent, and keep us on task. At each meeting, we remind ourselves that “Land Stewardship Project’s mission is to foster an ethic of stewardship for farmland, to promote sustainable agriculture and to develop healthy communities.”     

To understand where we are now, we spent time in January as a committee grounding ourselves on the history of LSP, program areas, current and emerging work, theories of change related to our work and broader movement and brainstormed on what questions this plan needs to answer and what big buckets of our work need to be included.  

Happening Now

We recently divided ourselves into sub-committees for survey development and the member meetings. The survey sub-committee is working on the survey questions, form and delivery choices right now with a goal to send the survey out the first days/week of March. The listening sessions sub-committee will soon be figuring out our facilitation guidelines for the gatherings to take place in mid to later March.  

In February, we began contracting with Seiche, a social impact strategy and communications firm, who have already been a tremendous help in this process. Seiche is the same firm that worked with LSP on the communications audit and recommendations and have built an understanding of LSP. Seiche will: 

• Assist with survey questions, survey distribution strategy, survey implementation, and survey analysis. 
• Help with logistics and facilitation for in-person gatherings. Further they will help capture and report themes from the listening sessions.   
• Help us to develop our ally and partner outreach strategy. 
• After all of the data is collected, Seiche will draft a report of the findings, and be available for engagement to ask questions or offer feedback as we develop the Long Range Plan. 

Coming Up Next

The ally and partner visits may take place in April. April and May, information will be examined, with a goal to have our new long-range plan drafted by end of June. Brian DeVore will be helping with the writing of the plan. 

I aim to submit an update on our work with you all again in mid-March. 

Respectfully,
Bonnie Haugen, Long Range Plan Committee Chair