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Greater Boston Community Land Trust Network Resource Library
Greater Boston Community Land Trust Network Resource Library
This site is designed to provide information, tools and templates to support community land trusts. The resources are split up into six categories which cover different aspects of establishing, operating, and sustaining a CLT in Massachusetts and beyond.
Below, you'll find an overview of each resource category available on this site, the new network map, and the full resource library database.
CLTs as a model and a movement
History & Roots
How do CLTs work?
What CLTs are and why they matter
What do you need to get started?
Organizing
Why a CLT for my community?
Foundations of the CLT as an organization: structure, governance, funding, partnerships
Governance
Basic structures
Board & Membership
Bylaws
Decision-making
Business planning
Policies & procedures
Ground Leases
Equity Formulas
Legal & taxes
Funding your organization
Partnerships
Running a CLT
Staff & capacity building
Fundraising & budgeting
Services and resources for CLT residents and community
Mortgages
Leases & rents
Supporting homeowners and community members
Transactional parts of a CLT: Land acquisition, real estate transactions, financing, and housing development
Land ownership and acquisition
Financing development projects
Property management
MA Policy and Programs
Local housing justice ecosystem
Local policies — exisiting and potential
Funding sources
National policies
Explore our interactive map of the Greater Boston CLT Network and learn about our members
Resource Library FAQs
Resource Library FAQs
How do I use the Resource Library database?
How to navigate NocoDB and search within the database:
To search the entire database, use this table on the main homepage.
Each “umbrella” category, or major topic landing page's database will be pre-filtered to contain only resources relevant to that page.
To filter resources in the database, click the “Filter” button and the “Add filter.”
We recommend filtering by Category, Content Tag (more specific), and/or Resource Type, and selecting “contains any of” to search for multiple tags at once.
Here, you can select any field and the corresponding topic or tag that you want to see. You can further filter the resources by adding another filter field. Resources can be sorted by content tags as well as by resource type.
To search for a specific term or topic, click the magnifying glass in the upper right corner of the table. This will open a search bar. Note that with this tool you can only search for exact matches, rather than general matches like if you google something.
To access the resource link or file, click on the card/image on the table. This will open more information about each resource.
View the resource library's organization & tags list here: CLT Resource Library Structure
How were resources selected for the library?
This site was first created by a team of Masters students at the Tufts Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning program in concert with the Greater Boston Community Land Trust Network (GBCLTN) in spring 2025. They used a collaborative and iterative cycle of research, analysis, and feedback to decide what resources to include on this site. Through interviews and conversations with CLT practitioners (experienced and new) and the Director of the GBCLTN, they determined what topics and questions are likely to be the most important to new and established CLTs. Resources and documents were then narrowed down, and chosen how useful and digestible they were likely to be to CLT organizers. The database is continually evolving based on user feedback. Please get in touch if you have issues or suggestions.
Accessibility Note on Screen Readers
To download the data as a CSV:
Open the data at this link.
On the left-hand side of the top menu bar, click the last option, which shows three small dots.
On the secondary menu, click “Download CSV”
Once downloaded, import this file into Google Docs or Excel.
See the entire Resource Library Database below
See the entire Resource Library Database below
Scroll down for a list/spreadsheet version
Other resources and guides to check out:
On CLTs and shared-equity housing:
Startup Community Land Trust Hub — Grounded Solutions Network
Starting a CLT: Organizational and Operational Choices —John E. Davis, 2007
This guidebook is somewhat dry but has a lot of important questions and specifics to be considered as you start your journey. Several relevant chapters are linked throughout this website.
Resource Library — The International Center for CLTs
CLT Resources — Burlington Associates
Very helpful mini resource library about many stages of the process
Community Land Trust Technical Manual — Grounded Solutions Network, 2011
This incredibly comprehensive guide may be somewhat overwhelming, but has extremely helpful in-depth information about all the technical aspects of the CLT process. Specific relevant chapters are linked throughout this website.
Resources - The California Community Land Trust Network
This resource library is also available in Spanish
NYCCLI Resources — New York City Community Land Initiative
CLT Toolkit — Schumacher Center for a New Economics
On the Solidarity Economy more broadly:
Note: The GBCLTN Resource Library draws from these and other sources
Contribute to this Resource Library
Contribute to this Resource Library
This library is continuously being updated. Let us know if we should include a resource or if a link is broken.
Get in touch
Get in touch
We want this resource to be useful. Let us know if you have suggestions, edits, questions, or just want to connect.
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