“I can’t speak highly enough of The Conservation Fund’s willingness to accommodate and make changes and extend repayment times so that we can deal with budget challenges linked to state government funding,” says Carl Silverstein, the land trust’s executive director. “They understand how our business works and what our needs and challenges are.”

The Conservation Fund repeatedly has stepped in to provide the Asheville, North Carolina-based Conservancy loans to protect the world’s oldest mountains for all of us. Together, we’re ensuring that this treasured landscape retains its raw and complete beauty, never whittled away by inappropriate development.

“When properties come on the market, we need to protect them, or we fail in our mission. In the real estate boom of a few years ago, we were competing with developers trying to outbid us. Our good working relationship with The Conservation Fund enabled us to arrange loans so that we could close on a property, take it out of the hands of the seller and then have the time to raise funds after we’d obtained the land.”

— Carl Silverstein, Executive Director (pictured here with his son, Will)