Colorado Charity Conservation Easements with Acreage and Enforcement Expenses

Conservation easement data from IRS Form 990 filings reported by charitable organizations to the Colorado Department of State since 2011. The dataset includes counts, acreage, and enforcement expenses for easements categorized by purpose, such as natural habitat or historic structure preservation. Information is sourced from data.colorado.gov and was last updated on 2026-05-29.

Use Cases

• Analyze trends in conservation acreage (totalacreagecnt) and the number of easements (totaleasementscnt) over tax years (taxyr).
• Model enforcement expenses (expensesincurredenforcementamt) based on staff hours spent (staffhoursspentenforcementcnt) and the number of modified easements (modifiedeasementscnt).
• Classify easement types using indicator columns (e.g., protectionnaturalhabitatind, historicstructureind) to profile organizational conservation priorities.
• Assess geographic spread by examining the count of states where easements are held (stateseasementsheldcnt) for each reporting organization (businessname1).

Strengths

• Data is reported to the IRS via Form 990, suggesting a standardized reporting framework.
• Includes 22 distinct columns covering financial, categorical, and operational aspects of conservation easements.
• Temporal coverage extends from at least 2011, as indicated by the description.

Limitations

• Row count and total dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.

Provenance

Source

Colorado Department of State (CDOS), via data.colorado.gov.

Collection Method

Extracted from annual IRS Form 990 filings submitted by charitable organizations.

Time Range

Since 2011.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-29 11:05:21; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Focus on charitable organizations operating in Colorado, though easements may be held in other states (stateseasementsheldcnt).