2023-2024 Impact Report: Protecting and Defending Mount Diablo and the Diablo Range

IMPACT REPORT

Protecting and Defending Mount Diablo and the Diablo Range

Dear

Supporters,

Mountains move me—physically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. I have had a special relationship with mountains since my childhood in Vermont.

In my 20s, I started making a number of trips into the Nepalese and Indian Himalayas. Those mountains elevated me and helped me grow on multiple levels. This past year, after a near 28-year absence, I returned to the Himalayas with one of my sons.

We spent a month climbing in Nepal (finally using a good chunk of my over-accumulated vacation time), overcoming challenges, and growing together. It was a deeply beautiful thing watching the mountains move my son physically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually.

I feel immense gratitude for mountains, especially for Mount Diablo and its associated mountains in the

Diablo Range because they help nourish my family and me.

Of course, a healthy loving relationship requires reciprocity. That is a major reason I am thankful for my work with Save Mount Diablo because I get to work with our terrific team to help care for and give back to Mount Diablo and its sustaining Diablo Range. This is especially gratifying because thankfully we are successful with our work.

As we reflect on our recently completed April 1, 2023 to March 31, 2024 fiscal year, we feel immense gratitude for you, our supporters, because you helped us complete another highly successful year from a programmatic, financial, and overall organizational perspective.

Together, this past fiscal year we advanced Save Mount Diablo’s land conservation mission and impact in many ways, for example:

Leveraged our resources and assisted East Bay Regional Park District in their acquisition of the 768-acre Finley Road Ranch next to Mount Diablo.

Acquired the 10-acre Balcerzak inholding within Mount Diablo State Park under time pressure and competition from others.

Raised the necessary monies in a community fundraising campaign, which included over 240 new donors, to acquire the Krane Pond property, which has one of the largest ponds on the north side of Mount Diablo and is contiguous with Mount Diablo State Park.

Paid our eighth annual payment toward the purchase of the 88-acre North Peak Ranch, next to Mount Diablo State Park, which we will acquire in 2026 after a few more payments.

Purchased an option agreement on the 98-acre Ginochio Schwendel Ranch, next to Marsh Creek and other Save Mount Diablo conserved land, which gives us until December 2024 to raise $1.455 million to cover all project costs.

Completed the fiscal year deep in the black with great fundraising and a substantial increase in our active number of donors.

Increased the number of volunteers helping us advance important conservation projects like our 10,000 Trees and Plants project to grow the native species and carbon sink capacity of our lands.

Moved into a better office, in Walnut Creek, which lowered our rent, reduced our carbon footprint, and provided other improvements.

Opened a new public trail at our Curry Canyon Ranch connecting

Mount Diablo State Park’s Knobcone Point Road to Riggs Canyon Road.

Remained actively strategic with our rolling three-year Strategic Plan process, which included expanding our geographic scope to cover all of Mount Diablo’s Diablo Range.

Thankfully, because of our great team, including you, we know we will continue to successfully advance our land conservation mission to protect Mount Diablo and its Diablo Range so that these mountains can continue to move us to higher ground.

With Gratitude,

Edward Sortwell Clement, Jr. Executive Director

Save Mount Diablo

Through focused strategy, perseverance, and partnership, Save Mount Diablo successfully met the diverse demands of five distinct acquisition projects this fiscal year.

This year’s acquisitions have shielded the mountain’s high peaks from development, enabled trail connections, defended vital wildlife corridors, and preserved critical habitat. With every acquisition (at right), the collective impact of our locally protected natural landscape grows.

View of Morgan Territory

Regional Preserve and Highland Ridge that can be seen from Finley Road Ranch

Acquisition

Finley Road Ranch. One of our top-five acquisition priorities! We helped facilitate the project’s success by providing the option payment to the East Bay Regional Park District in 2022. This year, we celebrated the power of partnership, the closing of this landmark conservation deal, and its plans for a future staging area on Mount Diablo’s south side.

Krane Pond. Our devoted Save Mount Diablo community mobilized to raise $500,000, successfully protecting one of the largest ponds on Mount Diablo’s north side.

North Peak Ranch. We made the eighth of 10 payments toward the purchase of North Peak Ranch. The final balloon payment to permanently protect these highly visible acres will be due in 2026.

Balcerzak Inholding. Save Mount Diablo successfully purchased and protected one of the last remaining inholdings with Mount Diablo State Park in just 21 days.

Ginochio Schwendel Ranch. This strategic acquisition project is our first from the Ginochio family, owners of significant lands on and around Mount Diablo. It will help further protect the Marsh Creek watershed and wildlife corridor from development. We must exercise the option to purchase the property by December 2024.

Smart

land use decisions that protect natural land, connect recreational trails, and link wildlife corridors are a critical piece of Save Mount Diablo’s conservation strategy. The undeveloped land that remains in the Diablo region is a precious, and dwindling, natural resource.

Amid constant development pressure, communities also have extraordinary opportunities to advocate for sound land-use planning decisions that can enhance the quality of life for their residents, and neighbors, for generations. This work requires continuous advocacy and a watchful eye—it’s easier to create a good plan from the outset than to undo a bad one.

Los Medanos Ridge between Pittsburg and Concord, which is threatened by Seeno/Discovery Builders’ Faria project

4

Advocating for communities

Supported Concord residents and organized a bus tour of the Concord Reuse project area at the former Concord Naval Weapons Station, a site which is otherwise closed to the public. We’ve continued to participate in the massive 2,300-acre, 12,000-or-more housing-unit project’s planning process and to advocate for a livable, sustainable, and climate-smart community development.

Praised the updated General Plan in San Ramon, which unquestionably incorporated the urban limit line and protections for the Tassajara Valley, which we have been advocating for since the 1990s.

Celebrated the decision to affirm the creek buffer in The Ranch project, planned for the Sand Creek area of south Antioch.

Advocated to Save the Ridge between Concord and Pittsburg that is threatened by Seeno/Discovery Builders’ Faria project. The development was approved, but an informed and engaged community can still improve the project’s outcome, reduce negative impacts to scenic views and Thurgood Marshall Regional Park, and protect Pittsburg’s access to the new park.

As a land trust, our long-term stewardship responsibilities are paramount. By conducting scientific research on our conserved properties, and by opening those protected acres to partners for their research, we’re constantly learning and adding to the scientific community’s body of knowledge.

Save Mount Diablo’s Marsh Creek 7 property

Together, with help from hearty volunteers and community members, we made extraordinary progress this year.

128 square yards of metal collected for recycling

60 square yards of trash collected

801 native trees and plants planted (1,256 native trees and plants protected or planted)

460 stewardship volunteers

3,625 stewardship volunteer hours

This year, we worked with grazing partners to assess impacts of livestock on the land; restored sensitive habitat for the benefit of native plants and wildlife; studied the impacts of fire of varying intensity in different landscapes; and created abundant opportunities for people to connect with nature and actively address climate change through restoration projects.

Our outdoor education programs are encouraging curiosity, inspiring investment, and deepening our connection to nature.

This year, we successfully piloted a new third- to fifth-grade field trip program and expanded stewardship opportunities for middle and high school students. Through field trips to Mangini Ranch

Educational Preserve, we’re providing outdoor learning experiences to students, sometimes for their first time. Our education programs are also advancing technical research, encouraging citizen science, and quenching the curiosity of lifetime learners.

Our Mary Bowerman Science and Research grants program supported graduate student work and provided experience to this next generation of experts. These small grants also support our partners, such as the GPS tags provided to the Condor Recovery Team, and facilitate revelations that drive our collective work forward.

Building partnerships with educators

Connected 376 students to nature

Introduced 264 high school and about 20 college students to conservation as a career

Provided programming to students from 13 public and private schools

ENJOY

This year, we created inviting opportunities for hundreds of people to enjoy Diablo’s wild spaces. These experiences connect people to nature, inspire action, and build our resolve to vigorously defend our exquisite environment.

Our Discover Diablo series offered 36 guided outings—hiking, mountain biking, yoga, plein air painting, birdwatching, meditation, and more— attracting people from all over the Bay Area.

Our Mangini Ranch Educational Preserve welcomed 12 community groups, and provided an outdoor classroom for many students on school field trips. The preserve is quickly becoming a vital community asset. It is publicly available for reservation, free of charge, for group use.

At Moonlight on the Mountain, a joyful crowd of more than 500 guests raised more than $545,000 to advance our shared conservation mission.

Mangini Reservation Groups

American Heritage Girls

Concord Bahá’í Junior

Youth Hike

Contra Costa County

Sustainability

DIABLO RANGE

In this time of climate and biodiversity crises, longterm vision and bold action are vitally needed.

To meet the moment, in addition to our work to develop good climate policies, Save Mount Diablo has formally expanded our advocacy work to all 12 counties in the Diablo Range. We’re putting our more than 50 years of training to use forging new collaborative partnerships, strategically planning for the long term, thinking holistically and ambitiously, and working with urgency to protect more land faster.

Our land acquisition focus will remain on the northern section of the Diablo Range (Mount Diablo, through Interstate 580, to Corral Hollow).

Panoche Valley, Diablo Range

The kickoff of our expanding Diablo Range outreach is an informative and inspiring featurelength film by Joan Hamilton—Fire, Drought, Flood and Hope: Three Wild Years in The Diablo Range—a spectacular introduction to the Diablo Range and the conservation opportunities present there.

We’ve also created a map of protected lands within the Diablo Range that provides a level of detail that was previously unavailable. This map is an essential tool that will help focus and define strategy for the coalition of agency partners, grassroots advocates, landowners, and land managers that we’re assembling.

We’re spending more time in the Diablo Range, via guided land tours, Discover Diablo outings, and BioBlitz forays, and refining our sense of place.

We are immensely grateful to all of our supporters for making our work possible. We’ve seen a 13 percent rise in our number of donors compared to the previous year.

We’re also deeply grateful to all of the new donors who have begun supporting our work in recent years. It shows us that our work matters enough that thousands of community members are actively supporting what we do. For a list of donors, please visit bit.ly/smdgifts.

Our number of volunteers has also grown. In fiscal year 2021, we had 278 volunteers. In fiscal year 2022, we had 361. In fiscal year 2023, we had 604. Those 604 volunteers donated 5,075 hours of work to Save Mount Diablo. And this year, 737 volunteers donated 8,211 hours to Save Mount Diablo. We truly could not do this work without you.

Thank you!

Curry Point

This fiscal year (April 1, 2023 to March 31, 2024), Save Mount Diablo successfully raised more operating revenue than operating funds expended, thereby achieving a large surplus with its general operating budget. Save Mount Diablo’s total revenue for this fiscal year was just over $6.2 million. Eighty-nine percent of our funding comes from donors like you!

Operating and non-operating expenditures for this fiscal year totaled approximately $5.32 million (including

Krane and Balcerzak inholding property purchases, option payment of $30,000 for Ginochio Schwendel acquisition, and eighth option payment of $100,000 for North Peak Ranch). Program expenses other than land acquisition include stewardship projects on 22 properties and conservation easements we own, education and outreach programs, and advocacy to counter land conservation threats.

Numbers are based on unaudited financials for April 1, 2023 to March 31, 2024. Please go to savemountdiablo.org/about/financials/ to see our most recent 990 tax returns.

Total Revenue

Approximately

$6.21

Total Expenditures

Approximately

$5.32 million 4/1/2023–3/31/2024

201 N. Civic Drive, Suite 190 Walnut Creek, CA 94596

Editor: Laura Kindsvater

Contributing Writers: Ted Clement, Samantha Kading, Mary Nagle

Photographers: Sean Burke, Scott Hein, Frenchy Hendryx, Stephen Joseph, Cooper Ogden, Haley Sutton

Maps: Samantha Kading, Laura Kindsvater, and Seth Adams; Evan McWreath/ Ventana Wildlife Society

Design: Andrea Hopkins Design