Wow, $5 million donated in nine months! The word cloud above tells the story. We entered every comment from the 1,400 donors to the campaign into the word cloud generator (here, free and fun). The result shows you the most frequently used words: wildlife and thank. They were thanking the Land Trust for saving wildlife – and now we are thanking you.

A quarter of these gifts were from new Land Trust members. We met the goal at the last minute when a Land Trust Board member, who had already made a major gift at the beginning of the campaign, contributed the final funds, so we could get the full match. She was one of four donors who contributed three-quarters of the $5 million. She expressed concern that these large gifts might make the smaller donors feel unnecessary.

I thought of the old Marxist line: from each according to their ability. I’m a smaller 4-figure donor and I’m grateful that we have generous conservation-minded people with the ability to turn wild ideas like a wildlife tunnel into reality – if us smaller donors join in by the hundreds!

The bottom line is that it took every single one of those 1,400 donors to reach this goal and get the Highway 17 tunnel built. Next up: securing the Gabilan Wildlife Corridor! We will keep on keeping Santa Cruz Wild – thanks to you!