The Monmouth Conservation Foundation at 49: Nearly 50 Years of Keeping Monmouth Green

Why Middletown's oldest land trust still matters here

Drive north on Kings Highway toward Middletown and you cross land that would look very different without the Monmouth Conservation Foundation. Founded in 1977, MCF is the county's original land trust — the neighbors who quietly assembled easements, negotiated with farmers, and moved paperwork through Trenton so that the meadows behind your kids' school did not become another subdivision. Forty-nine years later, MCF has helped protect roughly 20,000 acres of open space and working farmland across Monmouth County — and for the first time in its history, it now owns a preserve of its own.

The Scudder Preserve moment

In 2024, MCF became the direct steward of the Scudder Preserve in Middletown — the first property MCF has held in its portfolio in nearly five decades. A $500,000 grant from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation followed in September 2025, funding site improvements and community programming. For a land trust that has almost always worked behind the scenes, holding the deed changes the conversation with donors. There is now a place to walk, to volunteer, and to bring a family on a Saturday morning.

Leadership in transition

MCF's fiftieth-anniversary year opens under new leadership. In January 2026, executive director William D. Kastning announced his transition after 14 years leading the foundation. During the search — being run by DSG | Koya — MCF is led by acting co-directors Jena Cosimo (Director of Acquisitions) and Karen Keene (Director of Development and Communications). Matthew Cohen serves as board president through the transition. Earlier in January, MCF also completed its Land Trust Accreditation Commission renewal — a national quality mark held by roughly a third of the country's land trusts.

What "20,000 acres" actually means for a Monmouth family

• Working farms in Colts Neck, Holmdel, and Upper Freehold whose easements MCF helped negotiate — the horse pastures and cornfields you drive past on Sundays are here because of documents MCF wrote.
• Public preserves and township open space where MCF was the quiet third party at the closing table. Recent examples include a 255-acre preservation bordering NWS Earle and a North Middletown public open-space partnership.
• The Scudder Preserve trails in Middletown — now MCF's own front porch, and the place where the family-visit experience is being built.

How Monmouth families can engage

MCF's donor and volunteer paths are unusually approachable for a land trust of this scale:

• Membership — annual giving from small household levels up through named leadership tiers. Details on the MCF homepage under Give.
• Planned giving — bequests, charitable remainder trusts, and gift annuities directed to preserved-acre stewardship. Legal name for planning documents: Monmouth Conservation Foundation, PO Box 4150, Middletown, NJ 07748.
• Family volunteer days at Scudder Preserve — trail work and native-plant plantings, appropriate for kids ten and up.
• Conservation easement conversations for families who own developable acreage themselves and want to preserve it in the next generation.

For patrons and board leaders

MCF is nearing its fiftieth year with three board-level opportunities worth knowing:

• A preserved-acre naming right at Scudder or at future MCF-held properties — a durable legacy gift for a Monmouth family whose name already appears on a deed elsewhere in the county.
• The 50th-anniversary campaign, expected to launch alongside the new executive director's arrival, will offer major-gift naming positions on programs and campaign leadership seats.
• Board and committee openings for younger Monmouth leaders — MCF's succession planning explicitly aims to bring the next generation of Rumson, Fair Haven, Colts Neck, and Holmdel families into stewardship.

Contact for board and major-gift conversations: Karen Keene, kkeene@monmouthconservation.org, 908-839-0324.

For deeper civic involvement

• Land Trust Accreditation Commission — public list of accredited land trusts and standards MCF is measured against.
• Community Foundation of New Jersey — donor-advised funds through which many Monmouth families quietly grant to MCF.
• MCF's 990 on ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer — public IRS filings for donor due diligence.
• NJ Historic Trust — companion resource for families whose land also carries a historic structure.

How Love of Humanity partners with institutions like MCF

Love of Humanity is a Monmouth-based 501(c)(3) publishing free family education for donor-adjacent readers across Rumson, Fair Haven, Colts Neck, Middletown, Holmdel, Deal, Sea Girt, and Spring Lake. We work as a peer nonprofit: we build co-branded ebooks, podcasts, and short reports at no cost to the partnering institution, and we send every deliverable to your development office for review before it goes live. If MCF's board, development office, or a family with strong MCF ties is reading this and would like to co-produce a family-stewardship guide to Monmouth's protected lands, we would welcome that conversation. Our lane is warm, informed, respectful — the tone of a Two River Times feature, not a policy PDF.