The Virginia Land Conservation Foundation (Foundation or VLCF) plays a vital role in land conservation across the Commonwealth. It uses state funds along with matching grants and partnerships to protect working farms and forests, historic lands, cultural resources, open spaces, parks, and natural areas. The Foundation’s unique features include a comprehensive grant review process designed to maximize the conservation value of funded projects, an inter-agency staff review team that brings together expertise from multiple state agencies, and a final review conducted by a diverse Board of Trustees. The membership of the board includes appointees from the Governor, the Speaker of the House of Delegates, and the Senate of Virginia.

Virginia Land Conservation Foundation

In fiscal year 2025, the state budget allocated $16,000,000 for VLCF, with $4,000,000 of that amount designated for the Virginia Outdoors Foundation’s Open Space Lands Preservation Trust Fund, pursuant to § 10.1-1020(C) of the Code of Virginia. Unused and withdrawn funds from previous grant rounds totaled $1,419,724 and were carried over into the FY25 round. Additionally, $1,020,910 in interest earned from the Virginia Land Conservation Fund was added, increasing the total available VLCF grant funds to $14,440,634. The Foundation received 40 proposals requesting approximately $24.5 million for land conservation projects. The Board met on November 21, 2024, to award funding to 28 projects aiming to protect 11,220 acres. Details of these projects are provided starting on page 2.

Information regarding projects from past grant rounds and their funding amounts can be found in Appendix A of this report. Additional data reflecting the geographic distribution of these recent grant awards and all prior projects can be found in Appendix B.

Since FY2000, $102.4 million has been allocated to VLCF’s matching grant program (Table 1). Additionally, more than $32.1 million has been allocated to the Virginia Outdoors Foundation (VOF) for the Open-Space Lands Preservation Trust Fund in accordance with Virginia Code § 10.1-1020(C)(1). Moneys from this Fund are used to help localities acquire open-space easements or assist landowners in conveying open-space easements, including the costs associated with the conveyance of these easements. To date, total funds allocated to the Foundation amount to $134.6 million and have resulted in the protection of 280,527 acres (Table 2 plus VOF’s Preservation Trust Fund acreage, page 19).

Since receiving its first funding in FY2000, the VLCF has conducted 20 grant rounds. During these rounds, VLCF received 580 applications requesting over $235 million in state funding, nearly double the available funds (see Table 2). Notably, many projects' total costs greatly exceed the requested amounts. As of June 30, 2025, VLCF has awarded funding to 384 of the 580 applications and allocated nearly $116.6 million to land conservation efforts, protecting 159,688 acres at an average cost of $730 per acre.

The Foundation fulfilled its obligation to create a strategic plan for managing the funds received from the Fund. This strategic plan for fiscal spending has been included in successive VLCF grant manuals starting in 1999 and is regularly updated. The Board approved the FY2025 grant manual at the June 5, 2024, meeting to set the schedule for the FY2025 grant round. The grant scoring criteria are detailed in Appendix C. The most recent grant manual is available at: www.dcr.virginia.gov/vlcf.

The Virginia Land Conservation Foundation acts as a coordinating body that brings together various state agencies’ land conservation efforts and priorities. The Foundation is a key tool used by Virginia to achieve its land conservation goals. A multi-agency task force, including the Director of the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), the Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services, the State Forester, the Director of the Department of Historic Resources, the Director of the Department of Wildlife Resources, and the Executive Director of the Virginia Outdoors Foundation, or their representatives, advises the VLCF Board on matters such as grant criteria, priorities, and selection. The Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation provides the lead staff support for the Foundation.

The Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation’s Office of Land Conservation acts as a statewide central contact, repository, and clearinghouse for land conservation in Virginia. During VLCF grant rounds, this office functions as a key source of information for potential grant applicants and manages the grants for funded projects.

The Office’s website ( https://www.dcr.virginia.gov/land-conservation/) and the Foundation’s website ( https://www.dcr.virginia.gov/vlcf) offer a wide range of land conservation materials and contact details to help landowners, conservation groups, and managers with their conservation planning. Additionally, the state’s comprehensive conserved lands resource mapping tool, Natural Heritage Data Explorer (NHDE), developed by DCR’s Division of Natural Heritage, is available here: https://www.dcr.virginia.gov/natural-heritage/nhdeinfo. This valuable land conservation planning tool is updated regularly.