In-Kind Support
Donation of in-kind hours and expenses, such as a donation of goods, services, and time. Our farm volunteers, board members, and XX all work. Ask us about other ways you can donate time or materials to support our mission.
About Our Fiscal Sponsor [Ask RCD if they want to update or add to this]
Cultivating Connections is officially a non-profit project sponsored by the Bitter Root Resource Conservation & Development Area. Bitter Root RC&D was established here in Hamilton in 1965 as an arm of the NRCS (Natural Resource Conservation Service) under the Farm Bill to solicit local ideas and turn them into successful nonprofits. While they still operate under the USDA, they are not funded at all by the government (since 2011) and are a fully standalone tax-exempt public charity. Fiscal sponsorship by RC&D allows people with a good idea to have the benefit of sound management as well as to be able to solicit and accept tax-exempt donations.
In 2011, Bitter Root RC&D was awarded the Outstanding Council in the US out of 375 Councils in existence at that time. They have handled about 2200 projects, large and small since 1965, spinning off such groups as the Bitter Root Land Trust, Bitter Root Water Forum, Selway-Bitterroot Frank Church Foundation, several local farmer’s markets, and helped get the Bitterroot College up and running. One of their largest ongoing projects is the Hazardous Fuels Reduction Program which cost-shares efforts by private landowners to reduce the wildfire risk on their properties.