Every day, we strive to remain accountable to one another and to the communities we serve. In the spirit of transparency and trust building, we pledge to share our values, commitments, financial health, strategic goals, and organizational progress with you.
At Washington Farmland Trust, our values guide everything we do.
This land is not our own. We respect the sovereignty of the Indigenous communities throughout Washington who are the first peoples of this place. We offer our deepest respect and gratitude to them — past, present, and future — for their enduring care of their shared lands and waterways.
Equity is essential. Everyday, we work to address and confront the racism and bias that exist within ourselves, our workplace, our programs, and our field — striving to create a culture that is welcoming to all. We believe different voices, opinions, and lived experiences are central to achieving our mission, and that all people deserve equal access to land and farming.
Farmland benefits us all. Healthy farmland rebuilds soil, keeps water clean, supports habitat and biodiversity, and promotes climate resilience. Productive farms grow our food, bolster our economy, and connect us to the natural world.
Community-centered. We believe the communities we aim to serve are the experts when it comes to their unique challenges and needs. In everything we do, we promote a culture of feedback and learning that is responsive to individual’s perspectives and lived experiences.
Relationships > transactions. We invest in partnerships and the people behind them, leveraging our collective expertise, communities, and resources toward a shared vision. We research, ask for advice, consider roadblocks, and build trust before launching any effort. When we act, we do so with intention and humility. We are incremental and relentless in our pursuits.
Curiosity fuels connection. We explore new ways of working, thinking, and problem-solving and invest in education and training for our staff, skilling up to have difficult conversations. Though we work hard, we deeply value work-life balance, personal connection, and showing up for one another.
Equity Commitments
Equity requires an active rebalancing of access and opportunity for those who have historically been underserved*. We believe equity is something we all benefit from, as it is essential to achieving a healthy, resilient, and just future.
At Washington Farmland Trust, we know that to realize this future we must start with a deep examination of the unconscious bias that exists within ourselves, our organization, and our field. Since 2019, we have committed to understanding the ways in which we have benefited from and perpetuated the harmful systems that our food system was built upon. As a land-based and historically white-led organization, it is critical that we confront the history of slavery, genocide, internment, erasure of traditional knowledge, and other discriminatory harms committed against Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC), and other marginalized groups across the United States and in our local communities. This history has shaped who grows the food we eat, who owns the land around us, and who has the power to direct policy and enact change — and it continues to persist today.
Anti-racism work is a daily practice that is often uncomfortable and complex. We are proud to have this deeply personal work embraced at all levels of our organization, and while change may feel incremental, we are relentless in our pursuits. To achieve true organizational transformation, we aim to:
- Create an inclusive workplace culture.
- Deliver our mission to more communities across Washington.
- Work everyday to dismantle the racism and white supremacy that has shaped our movement.
In our 2021 Impact Report, we have listed the actions we have pursued to achieve these goals.
Though our work to protect farmland and support farmers operates within a deeply flawed system, we aim to leverage and ultimately relinquish our power to advance the needs and priorities of those who have been left out of the conversation for so long. Not only is becoming an inclusive, multicultural, anti-racist organization a moral imperative, but it is a key to innovation and relevancy as we aim to create access to land and farming for all communities.
*In speaking about equity work, Washington Farmland Trust uses a variety of terms to describe groups experiencing oppression at the hands of white supremacy. We acknowledge that these terms are imperfect and can often oversimplify or exclude certain individuals or cultures. We are committed to emphasizing the individual barriers and challenges that certain groups face, and continuing to learn how various groups and people choose to self-identify.
Washington Farmland Trust is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Our Federal EIN number/Tax ID is 91-2021165.
