Message From the Executive Director

Our First Capital Campaign

     In the spring of last year, we received a $100,000 challenge grant from an anonymous donor – if we could raise that amount in new or increased support by the end of 2005, the donor would match it. Thanks to our members, we succeeded!

This wonderful gift inspired us to start thinking seriously about our first-ever capital campaign. Upstate Forever was six years old and had made remarkable progress – with over 1,600 members, 22 conservation easements preserving nearly 5,000 acres, a new office in Spartanburg, success in stopping several harmful projects, and a terrific board and staff.

Had the time come for us to launch a campaign? We decided to do a feasibility study to see if this was just wishful thinking or if it could really be done. Our consultant came back with a report last summer that lifted our hearts. They found substantial support across the region for Upstate Forever and concluded that a capital campaign with a goal of $1.2 million was definitely achievable.

In August, our board decided to go for it. The principal goal of the campaign is to strengthen and expand our land protection program – hence we have named it The Campaign for Upstate Lands. The single most distressing fact about our region is the voracious rate at which land is being developed – over 40 acres per day, the equivalent of a brand new Haywood Mall every two days! Certainly some land needs to be developed, but the land development rate is way out of proportion to our population growth. While our Land Trust program has done very well, we want to and must do more – to contact more landowners, to make more presentations, to apply for more grants, and to preserve more land, and that can’t happen without funding.

Please rest assured that we are not curtailing our advocacy for more effective land use planning and development standards in the Upstate. In fact, a secondary purpose of the campaign is to exercise the option to purchase our new main office in Greenville. This will enable us to eliminate our rent payments and provide more support for all our programs. We also want to renovate the main office to serve as a demonstration project for “green remodeling,” much the same way that the Upstate House is now a model for new construction.

Through the fall of last year and the first three months of this year, we were in the “quiet phase” of the campaign where major gifts were sought. On March 30, at a terrific event at Village Studios in West Greenville, we made a public announcement of the campaign and reported that we had already raised $750,000. As this newsletter went to press, we were over $850,000. We are now asking all of our members – and businesses and citizens across the Upstate – to help us achieve our goal.

I know we will succeed because there are so many people who care so deeply about this wonderful region.

Best wishes,

Brad Wyche