Equity Trust, Inc.

Equity Trust is a small, national nonprofit organization that promotes socially equitable property ownership and economics based on principles of social justice and environmental sustainability. Our work emphasizes creative approaches to land tenure that advance public interests while supporting secure access and autonomy for individuals and groups using the land. We aim to shift the dialogue concerning ownership and to broaden awareness of tools and strategies for removing property from the speculative market and building deeper connections to land and community.

Equity Trust explores, teaches, and implements these principles and practices by:

1) Providing technical assistance, training, and model documents to support on-the-ground projects using alternative forms of property ownership.

• Our Farms for Farmers program helps farmers, land trusts, and community groups understand and use ground leases and easements to provide secure tenure for farmers, ensure farms' perpetual affordability, and enhance the viability of working farms.
• We assist and advise community land trusts, cooperatives, and other organizations with a mission to hold and steward land and property for permanently affordable housing, food production, local enterprises, and/or community spaces.

2) Offering financing for mission-aligned community development and conservation through the Equity Trust Fund, a revolving loan fund capitalized by socially and environmentally concerned investors and donors.

3) Producing educational materials; facilitating the exchange of ideas and experiences among grassroots practitioners, scholars, professionals, policymakers, and others; and advocating for new ways to think about Property and Values.  

Since its founding in 1991, Equity Trust has remained flexible, evolving in response to changing needs and social conditions. In this spirit, we are currently engaged in a multi-year internal assessment and reevaluation, organizational as well as programmatic, aimed at identifying and removing barriers to access in all our programs and explicitly addressing the racial component of unequal access to property.