MLTN Infoline – January 9, 2026
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Call for Espy Land Heritage Award Nominations
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Maine Coast Heritage Trust (MCHT) is pleased to issue the call for nominations for the 2026 Espy Land Heritage Award. Help us recognize Maine’s outstanding conservationists! Each year, MCHT presents the Espy Land Heritage Award to an individual, organization, agency, or coalition for innovative and inspiring contributions to land conservation in Maine. The award celebrates forward-thinking strategies, creative problem-solving, and bold leadership in addressing emerging challenges. Recipients often cultivate new partnerships and spark meaningful community engagement. The award recognizes new approaches, bold initiatives, and inspiring “of-the-moment” accomplishments that set fresh standards for conservation. Recipients often demonstrate creative problem-solving and innovative partnerships, and their work is frequently tied to a specific project, initiative, or recent or career-long set of achievements that reflect forward-thinking strategies and community engagement.
The recipient is honored at the Maine Land Conservation Conference, held in 2026 on April 28–29 at the Augusta Civic Center, and is entitled to direct $5,000 to a nonprofit organization of their choosing.
Learn more on our website and submit your nomination by midnight on February 27,
Angela, Jeff, Megan, Katia, and Donna
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| Tree Planting to Enrich, Restore, and Adapt Northern Forests | |
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Click here to access PDF download.
The aim of this new guide, authored by Dr. Pete Clark, Dr. Tony D’Amato, and Paul Catanzaro, is to serve as a resource for foresters, landowners, and natural resource managers to help make informed decisions when using tree planting as a strategy to meet and sustain forest regeneration goals. The objective is to provide guidance in terms of opportunities, considerations, and best practices for reforestation. The guide was written with the northern forest region of the United States in mind (New England, New York, the northern Lake States), although the lessons and best practices are broadly applicable throughout many regions and forest types. While not an exhaustive resource, this guide tries to provide breadth and depth of information on key topics to better position the reader to take the next steps on their tree planting voyage.
This guide is primarily intended for stewards of rural forest ecosystems and working lands considering larger-scale planting operations (typically defined as hundreds to thousands or even millions of seedlings) rather than those planting fewer larger trees (e.g., ball and burlap) in urban environments or for landscaping purposes, even though many of the lessons may still apply. The guide emphasizes how tree planting may be used as a tool for restoration, adaption, and mitigation in an era of global change.
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Insurance 101
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Thursday, January 8, 2026 via Zoom 3:00-4:00pm
Cost: FREE
Insurance is complicated. Reading fine print to make sure you have the right coverage for your land trust’s risks can be difficult. Join Meghan Mullee, first vice president of Alliant Insurance Services, for a crash course on the basics of insurance coverage. You’ll learn practical pointers on how to get the most out of your insurance coverage.
Learn more and register at the Land Trust Alliance website.
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How To Thrive Amid Uncertainty
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Wednesday, January 14, 2026 via Zoom
2:00-2:30pm
Cost: FREE for MANP members*
This webinar is offered in partnership with Nonprofit Risk Management Center.
Nonprofits operating in 2026 face a high level of uncertainty. That can make it hard to understand the risks you face and know what to do about them. In this webinar, NRMC shares tools to help you understand and act on risks even when information is limited and the outcome is unknown. Register on Maine Association of Nonprofits website.
*Most MLTN members are MANP members. Contact us to check your organization’s MLTN membership status.
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Info Session on MANP Employee Assistance Program: Caring for Maine’s Nonprofit Workforce
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Thursday, January 15, 2026 via Zoom 1:00-2:00pm
Cost: FREE
Looking for a meaningful way to support your employees who are struggling with stress, burnout, or financial and family concerns? MANP and Maine Community Foundation are partnering to invest in the health of Maine’s nonprofit workforce by providing small nonprofit employers with access to an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) provided by KGA. This pilot program will be available to Maine nonprofit members with fewer than 10 employees who do not already have access to an EAP.
The EAP program will offer 24/7 confidential access to a wide range of expert resources and self-directed tools to support your staff and their families with: Emotional and Mental Health Support, Childcare and Parenting, Eldercare Assistance, Legal and Financial Guidance, Health and Wellness, and Career and Workplace Stress.
Sign up for this webinar to:
Visit MANP’s website to learn more and register.
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Preview the 2026 State Legislative Session
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Tuesday, January 20, 2026 via Zoom 12:00-1:00pm
Cost: FREE
Join MLTN in a discussion led by Maine Coast Heritage Trust Public Policy Director Jeff Romano and The Nature Conservancy’s Director of Government Affairs in Maine, Kaitlyn Nuzzo, as they preview the 2026 state legislative session. They will highlight the policy proposals land trusts should expect in the upcoming legislature, including efforts to fund the Land for Maine’s Future program. Learn how your land trust can track policy development in Augusta and engage in advocacy to help ensure positive results this year.
Participation is free, but registration is required. To register, click here.
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Decision Quality – How Bias Shapes What We See and Choose
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Wednesday, January 21, 2026 via Zoom 1:00-2:30pm
Cost: Pay what you can tiers available for MANP members –
$25-$45 Members / $65 Nonmembers
Scholarships available for MANP members! Prior to registering, email your scholarship request to and be sure to include your name and organization.
Every leadership decision blends insight, experience, and assumption. Even skilled leaders rely on mental shortcuts (patterns shaped by culture, comfort, and habit) that quietly influence who gets heard and what gets prioritized. This session explores how those hidden dynamics affect decision quality and organizational effectiveness. Participants will learn to recognize bias not as a moral flaw, but as a predictable factor that can be managed through awareness and intentional process design.
Drawing on real-world examples from nonprofit strategy, hiring, and governance, we’ll examine how to identify when perception narrows perspective and how to broaden it. Attendees will leave with practical reflection tools and discussion prompts to strengthen decision-making across leadership, hiring, and strategy conversations, improving both equity and organizational performance.
Learn more and register at MANP’s website.
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Staying Accredited: A Renewal of Accreditation Primer for 2026
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Wednesday, January 21, 2026 via Zoom 2:00-3:30pm
Cost: FREE
Brought to you by the Land Trust Alliance
Getting accredited is both rewarding and a lot of work. And the day you get your accreditation certificate in the mail, you need to start thinking about renewal. As an executive director recently said, “Five years goes by really fast!”
Will you be ready for renewal of your land trust accreditation? Do you know what changes were made to the requirements in the past five years? Have you accomplished your Expectations for Improvement? Do you know where your records are? Do you have a checklist of what to do each year to make this process flow smoothly?
Join other land trusts for this session with consultant Sarah Naperala. After guiding her land trust through applying for both first time and renewal of accreditation, Sarah now helps others succeed in this rewarding work. She’ll offer advice for you on systems to put in place to ensure you will be prepared when the time comes and make your organization hum in the meanwhile.
Also, if you’re preparing a renewal application in 2026 or 2027, check out Land Trust Alliance’s support group.
Learn more and register at LTA’s website.
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Caught Holding the Bucket — Navigating a Complex Encroachment Issue
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Thursday, January 22, 2026 via Zoom 3:00-4:00pm
Cost: FREE
Third-party encroachments can put land trusts in complicated and expensive enforcement situations. This is especially true when state laws and conservation easement restrictions are violated on land owned by the land trust. Alex Metzger, stewardship director of the Monadnock Conservancy in southwest New Hampshire, discusses the steps taken and lessons learned from successfully resolving a seemingly minor third-party encroachment that evolved into a complicated, multi-year remediation project and a lawsuit.
Learn more and register at the Land Trust Alliance website.
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Jobs in the Conservation Sector
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Here come some great new opportunities for 2026! View the full list of open positions in Maine at our website. Stewardship Manager – Friends of Acadia
Conservation Lands Manager – Greater Lovell Land Trust
Seasonal Farm Steward, Erickson Fields Preserve – Maine Coast Heritage Trust
Seasonal Farm Steward, Aldermere Farm – Maine Coast Heritage Trust
Fundraising Officers (2 openings) – Maine Coast Heritage Trust
Erickson Fields Preserve Apprenticeship – Maine Coast Heritage Trust
Summer Preserve Steward (Seasonal) – Kennebec Estuary Land Trust
Recreation Technician (May-Nov) – Friends of Acadia
Conservation Summer Internship – Maine Coast Heritage Trust
Seasonal Coastal Birds positions (3) – Maine Audubon
Seasonal Land Steward – Blue Hill Heritage Trust
2026 James W. Dow Summer Intern – Blue Hill Heritage Trust
Seasonal Early Childhood Environmental Educator – Maine Audubon
Stewardship Crew Member – Friends of Acadia
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Maine Community Foundation’s Community Building Program
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Application Deadline: 11:59pm February 17, 2026
The Maine Community Foundation invites applications for its 2026 Community Building Program. Through the program, grants of up to $10,000 will be awarded in support of projects and organizations focused on making communities stronger. To that end, the program awards general support and project grants for projects and organizations that invest in people by increasing skills/abilities, knowledge, and/or well-being; engage the people served in the design, delivery, and/or evaluation of the work; and strengthen community resources including organizations, partnerships, and built and natural environments.
General Support: Flexible funding of any type such as new/expanding/ongoing programs and operational needs including capital expenses. The applicant organization must be located in Maine, have most recent completed fiscal or financial year expenses less than $500,000, and not be a municipality, government agency, public school, or faith-based organization.
Project Grants: New projects within the first two years including capital expenses. Applicant organizations must be located in Maine, and have most recent completed fiscal or financial year expenses at or above $500,000; municipalities, government agencies, public schools, or faith-based organizations may apply regardless of expenses. The total project budget may not exceed $100,000, and project expenses do not include endowments, annual appeals, or scholarships.
Learn more at Maine Community Foundation’s website.
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