If you’ve been following LRLT’s work for even a little while, you may have noticed that we’re a little secretive sometimes & that we sometimes go for a year or more without making any big announcements about completed projects. Our most recent big new was the completion of our O’Neal Ranch conservation easement, but what happens after the excitement has died down? There are lots of different things, but the one that happens right off is possibly the most boring things ever: Filing. I know, I know, you’re wondering how someone could actually write a blog about filing of all things, but one of the goals of our blog is to give you an insiders look at LRLT & sometimes the nitty gritty of a land trust isn’t all that glamorous. Yesterday it looked a lot like this:
Exciting, huh? I’d been procrastinating on this fun little project fearing our formerly trusty Brother printer that is nearing retirement couldn’t handle making all the necessary copies, but when our brand spanking new copy machine got delivered, my procrastination came to an end. So why so many piles? We’re governed by a set of policies & procedures that dictate exactly how many copies of each document we need to keep & exactly what we have to keep copies of, PAPER copies. The land trust world is still in the dark ages to a certain degree & paper originals & copies are the gold standard, so great care is taken to maintain permanent copies of critical documents, since these are legally binding, perpetual agreements. So that’s what you see above, hard copies of all the critical documents, one original & one or two copies, depending on the document.
Once all the copies are made, the color coding starts. Yep, that’s right, color coding. Our policies & procedures are nothing if not thorough. Red, purple & blue folders denote the technical aspects of the project: deeds, surveys, baseline documentation reports & more. The red folders are always the original with the purple & blue folders being the backup copies. Green & yellow folders are the financial records: appraisals, closing documents & purchase & sale agreements. For every single project. Is it fun & exciting? No, but it’s critical that we maintain the integrity of these records to enforce our conservation easements in perpetuity. That’s why we have file cabinets with drawers that all look like this:
