St. Lucie River, Indian River Lagoon nonprofits seek Christmas donations

When you’re tasked with protecting and restoring the waters of North America’s most biodiverse estuary, there’s just not enough hours in the day for calculating finances and crunching numbers for daily bookkeeping. 

So Mike Conner, the Indian Riverkeeper, has a “12 Days of Christmas” wish for the Treasure Coast: Donations to pay for accounting services for 2022. 

The bookkeeping services will help Conner and his team focus on a jam-packed checklist: Regularly patrolling the Indian River Lagoon by boat, advocating for public policy that improves its water quality and investigating complaints of pollution, algal blooms and fish kills. 

“Without proper, accurate accounting and tax reporting, we cannot exist as a nonprofit or legally solicit donations,” Conner said. “In general, it’ll definitely help free up time for us.” 

According to Conner, the nonprofit needs the accounting services to: 

• Prepare the Internal Revenue Service’s quarterly reports 
• Produce IRS annual reports
• Reconcile bank accounts. 

Conner is the lagoon’s fourth “keeper” since the nonprofit was founded on the Treasure Coast in 2002. He replaced Marty Baum in 2019, who was at the helm for roughly seven years. 

The mission of the Indian Riverkeeper is to protect and restore the “Indian River Lagoon, its tributaries, fisheries and habitats through advocacy, enforcement and citizen action,” according to the nonprofit.