Updated Information for Working with the Conservancy

Dear Friends of the Coastal Conservancy,

The last few weeks have presented all of us with unprecedented challenges both at home and at work. I hope that you, your family and friends, and your co-workers are all safe and well during this stressful and frightening time.

In compliance with directives from the Governor and the cities and counties where we live, Conservancy staff are all working from home. We are quickly adapting our policies and practices to allow paperless processing of invoices and other critical documents. Thanks to our colleagues at the Resources Agency, the State Controller has agreed to accept electronic signatures, which means we will be able to get your invoices paid. Please remain in close contact with your Project Manager to work through any hiccups.

If you need time extensions, adjustments to your work program(s), or augmentations for your grant(s), please talk to your Project Manager. More than ever, we are aiming to be flexible and accommodating right now.

I am happy to report that two acquisitions we funded were able to close in the last week in two different coastal counties in California, so our work with you can definitely keep moving under these circumstances.

Further to my message of March 17, we have updated our guidance for submitting invoices. We are now only processing electronic invoices. Here are the instructions.

We have rescheduled the Coastal Conservancy’s April 2, 2020 Board meeting for May 5, 2020. It will be a virtual meeting and I invite you to join us. More information will be posted here when available. The agenda will be the same as the planned April meeting.

And finally, we recognize the financial strain the economic freeze is putting on our partners. We are doing everything we can to keep our grant funds flowing and to run new grant rounds as planned. There are additional resources available to non-profits that you may wish to investigate further, including:

• Small Business Administration (SBA) Coronavirus (COVID-19): Small Business Guidance & Loan Resources, which is making low-or-no-interest loans available to non-profits.
• SBA information on applying for disaster relief 
• Briefing on Emergency COVID funding for 501(c)(3) Nonprofitsfrom the US Chamber of Commerce foundation (30 minutes)
• Federal Coronavirus Relief Bills: What do they mean for nonprofits?From the National Council of Nonprofits
• (From NAAEE) Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act: The National Council for Nonprofits has an initial analysis of the legislationand is a good source of overall information to learn more about available state funding programs to support your organization at this time
• COVID-19 Resources for Land Trusts from the Land Trust Alliance

Please reach out to your Project Manager, Regional Manager and to me if we can be of assistance.  We are here to work with you.

Take care,

Sam

Sam Schuchat

Executive Officer

CA State Coastal Conservancy

e:Sam.Schuchat@scc.ca.gov