Croatan Institute is pleased to announce that the newly launched Resilient Southern Legacy and Nature Defense (LAND) Fund has been selected as one of the 2026 Transformative 25 Funds (T25) – a list curated by Collective Action for Just Finance to recognize 25 leading high-integrity impact investment funds.

A joint venture of Croatan Institute and Rural Beacon Initiative (RBI), the Resilient Southern LAND Fund seeks to bridge capital and community by strengthening soil wealth through regenerative investment. The Fund raises debt and philanthropic capital in order to acquire undervalued, off-the-radar, and at-risk farmland and forests across the South and transition those properties to regenerative practices in close collaboration with land stewards who will eventually take ownership of those farms and forests.

The Fund is designed as an evergreen integrated capital vehicle with a nonprofit asset management company and a distinctive community governance model that brings together Croatan Institute’s nonprofit mission of leveraging finance for social equity and ecological resilience, RBI’s social entrepreneurial vision of redesigning access to and ownership of renewable energy and regenerative agricultural value chains by and for rural communities, and a Council of Stewards representing farmers, land stewards, and place-based partners.

The LAND Fund consequently places land stewards at the center of our strategy of rebuilding rural resilience through nature-based solutions and clean energy generation. They participate in the strategy, governance, and economics of the Fund – rooted in relationships of trust and wealth creation, not in extractive leasing models without clear pathways to ownership.

The Fund is targeting a first-round capital raise of $25 million over five years, from both mission-aligned investors and philanthropic sources. The Fund aims to acquire over 3,000 acres of land in consultation with more than 25 land stewards in its initial phase. Our first acquisitions target North Carolina, rooted in our collaboration with RBI and other place-based partners in N.C. Soil Wealth Areas, which give us direct visibility into a robust pipeline of hotspots where land stewards are ready to expand their operations through more equitable land access.

The Fund will radiate its acquisition strategy out to neighboring states of South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and Virginia, and then across the South, from west Texas to the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay – one of the nation’s most undercapitalized regions where climate change and Sunbelt development pressures are combining to intensify the land stewardship crisis we face.

The LAND Fund was selected for T25 based on positive scoring on five core criteria: social, relational, and ecological returns; participatory ownership and governance; integrated capital; creative finance for community needs; and a diverse team.

The Fund was co-founded by Croatan Institute president Joshua Humphreys, Ph.D., Director of the Institute’s Soil Wealth program and a land steward of Pont Reading Farm in Oaks, N.C., and RBI CEO William J. Barber, III, J.D., a land steward of Free Union Farm in Piney Woods, N.C.

In addition to the T25, the Resilient Southern LAND Fund has won early support from the Boston Impact Initiative’s Advancing Regenerative Capital (ARC) Fellowship and the Soil Health Opportunities and Tools Fund (SHOT Fund) of the Regenerative Agriculture Foundation and Rural Climate Partnership.

For more information about the Resilient Southern LAND Fund, please visit rslandfund.com or contact info@rslandfund.com.

To learn more about the T25 and Collective Action for Just Finance, please visit https://www.transformative25.org/the-t25/.