4. What did I actually do?
4
⪢ Visited Trees for Houston’s Tree Farm
⪢ Visited several schools in the Trees for
Schools Program
⪢ Discussed of Trees For Houston’s
operations
⪢ Helped with Toshiba park planting
6. You Gotta Make Green to
Go Green
⪢ Need to have resources to scale up
⪢ Resources can come from unexpected
sources, you just have to know where to
look and who to ask
⪢ Be transparent, but don’t undervalue
your work
7. Seeing the Forest AND the
Trees
⪢ Dream big, but plan even bigger
⪢ Make it easy to say yes
⪢ Know when to say no
7
8. Better Together
⪢ No need to reinvent the wheel
⪢ You never walk alone
⪢ Community within a community
8
9. Takeaways
⪢ It takes a village (and time) to raise a non-
profit
⪢ As much as we’ve received, we’d love to
give as well!
⪢ We are truly better together
TM was originally a permaculture organization, we recently switched to being a tree non-profit in 2016
Aimee, Brittney, Me, Ariel
Fun fact: I was once an intern of Trees Matter a few years ago, and am now staff!
Programs: Edible Food Forest, SRP Shade Tree Program, Trees for Schools
Reason for mentorship: Trees for Schools program is in its infancy, and we are looking for ways to scale up, improve operations, and find sustainable funding; would also like to look at Trees for Houston as a model of growth, since we are still relatively new
Main objective: Learn about T4H’s Trees For Schools program, specifically with the intention of scaling up the program, providing more resources to the school (maintenance), and finding sustainable sources of funding
Other objective: To take a look at the structure of T4H, which was similar to Trees Matter as it is now to see if we can learn about how to scale up our organization, in general
Take about various partnerships (Centerpoint w/ office, land for tree farm, resource grant for trucks, etc.)
Talk about price out sheet per tree costs with breakdowns (about $300 per trees, including staff time, cost of tree and supplies, watering, and maintenance for 2 years)
Barry = visionary. Was able to see where T4H could/should be 12 or so years ago, and hired on event staff to manage logistics, funding, and planning to make the vision a reality
Have great partnerships because T4H focuses on making sure the partner’s experience is professional, fun, and meaningful. Also incorporating long-term maintenance so that the site/property managers don’t feel like they have more of a burden
At the same time, important to know the limit of your organization and staff – T4H at the beginning were yes people (a lot like us!), but sometimes, saying yes too much can lead to inefficient use of materials/time and burnout
“Feel free to plagiarize any of this, by the way.” Barry told me this while I was on the phone with him, and while I was in Houston. Being able to share resources without the feeling of competition or ownership is so important. Made me think of our network at home, and how we’ve gotten to where we are AZ Forestry helped us with tree inventory, etc.
Relationships are so important, especially in our field we have and continue to receive support from Trees for Houston (thinking of flying Barry out for board retreat). Similar to this, I realized that Trees for Houston came so far because of the support of their wonderful community. It takes a lot of moving parts to complete a planting, a project, even a presentation! It took so many people planning and executing for months just for me to be standing here giving this talk. Just like how I realized that relationships are important, I realized that maintaining and nourishing those relationships is a continuous process. We need them, but we need to take care of them too.
The planting also made me reflect on how the different parts of society came together to achieve one good thing that day. A corporation funded and provided volunteers for the project, a non-profit provided the coordination and trees, and a park (the government) provided assistance and continual maintenance. The planting couldn’t have been done without any of the pieces!
Reflecting back on the mentorship program, I realize everything is nested and connected. Our community in Phoenix is connected to ACT, which connected us to Trees for Houston, which eventually connected me to Houston’s local community as I helped with plantings, site visits, and just interacted with the staff and volunteers of Trees for Houston. I wouldn’t have had this wonderful opportunity if not for our connection with one another.
Trees Matter is a lot like how Trees for Houston was like in the past, and shadowing them is a lot like seeing into the future (or what could be). It makes me excited to see such an organization thrive and grow gives me hope for the future, but also makes me realize that we’ve still got a lot of groundwork to lay as we evolve and grow as an organization. Connections and relationships are the main way thing that a non-profit grows and eventually prospers
We’d love to partner or provide you with any resources whether it be about Trees for Schools, any of our other programs, or anything else (joint projects?)
