Ranchlands Collective has morphed many times. Ever since 2000, I’ve wanted to create a forum to gather a community to support and perpetuate ranching as a catalyst for conservation. The initial idea was to create a regional group from the Colorado front range to engage with the Chico Basin Ranch, then, as we have grown, it has changed to include the large group coming from beyond our immediate region. Sometimes I feel that the words I am using to describe the Collective are redundant and tired because I've been thinking about it for so long and so often. So when I hear a member of the Collective describe what it means to her, the words come alive. The Collective becomes a reality, a breathing entity of its own, no longer needing any of my words. 

Recently, we interviewed dozens of members of The Collective, to find out why they joined, what they want out of their membership, and how it has impacted their life and understanding of what Ranchlands does. A goal we have always had for The Collective is to invite people into our work, and have them be a part of what we do, and we wanted to understand how we could improve upon this goal. How could we make The Collective more impactful? How can members be more directly tied to us on and off the ranch? How can we curate a more connected community?  In a conversation with one member, Julie, she told us, “The Collective isn’t just about the ins and outs of ranching and cows. It’s so much more than that. It’s about grass, soil health, weather, climate change, artists, food, and the company you share your meals with. It’s a space where all walks of life can find commonality. When I went home from the ranch, I was confident that these are my people, these are the values I’ve been trying to figure out and connect with more; this is the info I want to be getting in my inbox.” 

Since we’ve launched the Collective last year, we’ve attracted a great number of people who’ve been curious to learn more about Ranchlands and want to support our mission. But even with this success, we have realized that the concept of the Collective is somewhat confusing and distracts from the real purpose of trying to accomplish our mission. For this reason, and after a great deal of thought and feedback from Collective members like Julie, we have decided to relocate the Collective to our nonprofit, formerly known as the Ranchlands Foundation. We formed this 501(c)(3) in 2017 for the purpose of raising support for educational initiatives, such as the bird banding station and field trips that we hosted at the Chico Basin Ranch every year. But we have come to realize that many more Ranchlands projects fall under this umbrella. Furthermore, there is a group of people who want to support this work more directly, but we haven’t given them a clear way to do so. 

Julie goes on to say, “the real value that Ranchlands has – its mission – is what the Collective is all about. Those who contribute the most do it not for the financial return, but because it is something that they believe in, something much deeper that has life-changing prospects.”

By repurposing our nonprofit, we can expand the scope of the educational work we are doing by providing funding to more ranch apprentices, hosting events to help bridge the urban-rural divide, and creating videos and essays that share the story of ranching and conservation with a wider audience. You can learn more about the programs that the Collective nonprofit will fund here. Additionally, this change will allow your Collective membership to be tax-deductible.

With this shift in our structure comes a few changes to the benefits that our Collective members will receive. You will still enjoy first access to Ranchlands events, including a summit event we are planning to launch next year, hospitality opportunities, new Ranchlands Mercantile products, and free shipping on all Ranchlands Mercantile orders within the United States. 

While these opportunities will continue to be available only to Collective members, we believe it is important to extend the content that we have been producing for Collective members to our wider audience, in order to fulfill our mission of educating the greater public about the conservation value of ranching. Content that you’ve been used to receiving exclusively as a Collective member, such as these monthly letters, will be published to our general audience, but your support as a member will help to make the production of these stories possible.

As Ted put it, “The Collective is a means for our constituency to capitalize on the deeply American Ranchlands brand, by helping us scale a forward looking model that has been developed over the last twenty five years to achieve large scale conservation and as an emblem of American culture.”

Our goal with the Collective is to go beyond providing special opportunities for our members; we want you, as a member, to help us guide the Collective into the future. Details about how to adjust your membership in light of the changes to the structure can be found below. 

The Collective has emerged into what it is today as an organic outgrowth of a large number of people coming to Ranchlands virtually and in person. The growing group of our people who make up the Collective humble us with their desire to support our mission: to perpetuate ranching into the future as a model of working, landscape-scale conservation. 

I cannot express how much your support means to our family and to all of us in Ranchlands. I hope that the news in this letter is positive in your view. I’m excited. I think we are on the cusp of doing something that has big ramifications.

Duke Phillips