Brookline has greatly benefited from the foresight of citizens such as Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles Sprague Sargent, and many others who helped develop an open space ethic that characterizes Brookline today. As residents of this urban community, we enjoy and utilize the historic landscape of Olmsted Park; a network of parks, and conservation areas; and the shade and relative calm that trees and greenways bring to our many streets and roads. Yet Brookline's open space resources are in no way assured of continued protection and stewardship over the long-term. Since 1994 we have lost over 30 acres of what was once considered open space in our community, with only 9 acres given permanent protection during this same time period. While a large 26.6% of land in Brookline is considered open space, only 11.6% of it is legally protected, leaving 56% of our open space subject to possible development. Rapid growth in the real-estate market has put intense pressure on Brookline's remaining open spaces, which is continuously impacting the overall sense of open space in town. In addition, many of Brookline's parks are currently suffering from over-use and decreased maintenance due to insufficient funding for restoration and maintenance. Competing interests for town funding, and the likelihood of budget cuts during this fiscal year and beyond, are creating real obstacles to the preservation and maintenance of Brookline's environmental character over the long-term. Goals and Objectives: In order to address these problems, the Brookline GreenSpace Alliance needs to build the capacity of the organization so that it can better serve the community. Our specific goals are to: * Encourage more citizen participation in open space protection and stewardship by keeping voters informed of critical meetings, decision-making forums and elections; * Obtain a 'seat at the table' for the Brookline GreenSpace Alliance on all Town committees where decisions affecting open space will be made; * Improve services to member organizations so that they can play a larger role in caring for the parks and open spaces in their neighborhoods; and encourage the formation of new park groups throughout Brookline * Develop educational forums and design new programs to help keep the public informed about the value, health and condition of public open spaces. Strategy: In order to achieve these goals, it is crucial that the BGSA expand its operational capacity and implement a fundraising plan to support additional staff time and programs. To do this, the following specific steps must be taken: 1) Expand the Executive Director position to a 50% professional position form a 25% administrative position. 2) Develop an effective and achievable strategic plan to help guide our actions over the next 3-5 years. 3) Expand and improve our outreach activities including re-designing our (now dysfunctional) website; improving the quality and circulation of our newsletter; and developing a periodic email action alert system. 4) Encourage our member organizations to expand their individual activities in the community by improving our financial services (acting as fiscal agent, and raising money for small grants); and providing them with web-based resources such as links to their websites, contact information for individuals who want to form or join a current Friends group, information on free or low-cost resources available to these groups, and ideas on activities and events they could host. 5) Develop new programs such as 'quests' (educational treasure hunts) on local conservation properties and educational forums on the value of open space in an urban community. 6) Implement an effective fundraising strategy that can be maintained over time. Our ability to implement the programs, services and organizational development activities outlined in this proposal is dependent on launching a fundraising strategy aimed at providing a relatively predictable source of annual operating income over the long-term. Our goal is to increase our membership base through carefully targeted mailings, and encourage larger gifts from our members by working with our board contacts. Building our base will take time. Over the next two years, we need to obtain support from private foundations to help us develop this improved capacity.