Peninsula Open Space Trust

Peninsula Open Space Trust

Founded in 1977, the Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) emerged from a Palo Alto-based mission to protect the rapidly developing landscapes of the San Francisco Peninsula. Gordon Clark, the current President, leads an effort shaped by deep regional partnerships and funders including the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the Sand Hill Foundation. The trust's work converts private capital and philanthropic donations into permanently conserved open space, farmland, and parkland across San Mateo, Santa Clara, and Santa Cruz counties. POST's strategy marries traditional land acquisition with institutional investment operations. The organization directly acquires, holds, and later transfers properties to public agencies including the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District and the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority. Holdings include the San Vicente Redwoods in the Santa Cruz Mountains, co-managed with the Sempervirens Fund, and a portfolio of agricultural assets such as Cloverdale Ranch, San Gregorio Ranch, and the Upper Pajaro River Valley. The endowment deploys capital across multiple structures, including direct acquisitions, co-investments with public partners, and venture-stage commitments. With its endowment serving as the operational engine, POST partners with an accomplished board that includes Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth and Canaan Partners General Partner Wende Hutton. The trust holds accreditation from the Land Trust Alliance and participates in the California Council of Land Trusts and the Together Bay Area coalition. As of January 2025, Gordon Clark assumed the presidency, bringing decades of institutional knowledge from his previous role as Vice President of Development. POST operates as a hybrid entity: a nonprofit land trust with an investment portfolio that functions like a patient, mission-driven family office for the land. Its structural differentiator lies in the sequence — acquire first, steward permanently, then transfer at cost to public partners — making private capital the catalyst for creating public conservation infrastructure on a regional scale.