Community
29
2026
Tacoma Tree Foundation: 2025 Network Funding Spotlight
Guiding Focus of Network
Tacoma Tree Foundation (TTF) is focused on growing community stewardship of the urban forest across Greater Tacoma by reducing barriers to planting, education, and supporting our region through advocacy. Our planting efforts are focused on the neighborhoods where trees will have the most impact, neighborhoods which have low tree equity due to redlining practices and rapid urban development. Our tree shares and planting programs serve homes across the region, including the Parkland- Spanaway region.
To ensure that our tree equity efforts are successful, we support our planting by providing free tree care education in person and online, technical workshops, tree walks, nature mindfulness education, and creative workshops. Through this robust multigenerational education program, we not only ensure that trees survive their first most critical years, but also provide access to trees and ways to connect with trees that will appeal to renters and property owners, to the scientifically minded as well as the artistically inclined.
We believe trees are a point of connection where people gather to share their different interests, cultures, and goals for our city through their shared love for our region’s environment.
How Network Was Formed
Tacoma Tree Foundation was founded in 2018 by a small group of residents who knew Tacoma’s tree canopy coverage was low. Aware of the detrimental effects of living and growing up in a city with low tree canopy coverage, and inspired to build a movement that would center Tacoma’s communities in the project to plant and care for young trees, they decided to found this organization.
In its first few years, the organization had one full-time employee, and outreach, planting, and administration was developed with the help of paid volunteers and part-time staff. In 2021, the foundation hired its second full-time staff member. Since then, it has grown to a five full-time staff team who collaborates with a team of 5 part-time members, and a Board of 13 local employed and retired professionals who are active in urban forestry, ecology, the nonprofit sector, business, law, and the arts.
TTF’s current network of partners includes the City of Tacoma, Pierce County, the Puyallup Tribe, Pierce Conservation District, Puget Sound Partnership, the University of Washington, the University of Washington – Tacoma, The Nature Conservancy, American Forests, the WA State Department of Natural Resources, the Tacoma Public Library, Hilltop Urban Gardens, among many other organizations, and we consistently partner with and provide mutual support to local businesses and organizations who share our values.
Shared Successes That Have Emerged From This Network
Together, we have supported the City of Tacoma’s goal to increase the City of Tacoma’s tree canopy coverage goal of reaching 30% tree canopy coverage by 2030. This is the recommended percentage of coverage for cities wanting to provide residents with healthy environments, a sense of belonging, and to create climate resilient urban spaces. Last year, a new LiDAR report showed that our shared efforts have increased City of Tacoma’s tree canopy by 1%. It seems small, but this is a huge success, especially given the changing climate and the many odds that trees must face growing in an urban environment.
In 2024, building on all the knowledge we have received from our longstanding partners, we successfully applied for WA – State Department of Natural Resources grant as a single organization to support three years of planting in Tacoma’s Hilltop neighborhood. This neighborhood’s low tree equity is second only to South Tacoma, and it has been most deeply impacted by Tacoma’s 20th-century redlining policies. In our first year of planting on the Hilltop, we served 68 households, which also received free watering assistance in the summer, and tree care resources throughout the year through our ongoing Tree Stewards program.
As we have grown and strengthened partnerships, we have been able to deepen the level of services that we provide with trees. This year, in addition to providing planting assistance, which includes everything from supporting residents with utility location calls to putting the trees in the ground in the right place, we were able to distribute water bags, in some cases provide watering, and enhances the tree care and technical workshops we provide. Along with this support, our Branch Out program has now offered language assistance in Korean, Russian, Spanish, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese for three consecutive years. With the help of language ambassadors who support outreach efforts in each of these languages, we are breaking through language barriers and reducing barriers to trees all at once.
This year, the Tacoma – Pierce Climate Leadership Cohort celebrated its fourth year. This unique program is the result of the City of Tacoma’s and Pierce County’s climate commitments, and it brings together frontline community members from across the City and County for a multi-day training designed to support them and their communities in becoming climate resilient and addressing the climate change issues that are impacting them the most. The program invites local leaders, elected officials, activists, organizers, and nonprofits to share their work on food justice, sustainable housing, sustainable transit, ecological restoration, and civic engagement. Program participants develop one-on-one relationships with government and local leaders and develop capstone projects with their support. Cohort participant feedback for the most recent iteration affirmed that we are helping to connect neighbors, strengthening networks of support and civic leaders, who are supporting their communities in this important work.
1-2 Big Goals Your Network is Hoping to Achieve in 2026
This year is the second year of our Green Blocks: Hilltop program. Our overall goal for this three-year project is to plant in 600 streets, and this year we hope to continue our successful and carefully implemented outreach in the neighborhood, so that we can continue reforesting the Hilltop. We have assessed sites across the entire planting project to determine the plantable space, and we have opened tree requests for the 2026 planting event, when we will continue to deepen the services we provide post-planting with support that includes watering and tree care education.
As part of our education program, we are increasing the level of education we provide by piloting our first advanced Tree Stewards training, where we will complement the tree care and planting education our basic training provides with education on technical tree care, climate change, and tree policies. In addition, we are piloting a teacher training to support Tacoma Public School teachers in their STEM teaching. Our training will provide them with knowledge about local tree species and local tree issues that they can take back to their K-2nd grade students to help them connect with the nature that grows where they live, play, and learn.
Advice For Others Looking to Leverage Networks to Help Build a Thriving Community
Challenges to Anticipate
One of the first challenges we learn about when we begin talking with neighbors about trees , whether in the role of volunteers or staff, is that, for many lovers of trees, these plants also represent an expense, oftentimes people are concerned about planting nonnative trees, and, sometimes, they see trees as a a risk or hazard. We see why in the newspaper every time there’s a windstorm: trees, in some dire and rare circumstances, can represent a serious risk. Our first impulse might be to start singing tree praises, reminding people about the myriad benefits trees provide. But that impulse is rarely fruitful. What we’ve learned to do is to listen. Only by listening carefully can we really understand the diverse ways people relate to trees, and the realities of trees in urban spaces. We’d love it if every time we talked to people about trees their immediate response was unfiltered excitement. But that’s not the reality of the urban forest. The lives of urban trees are as complex as the lives of the humans who share the city with them, and we have to start our work by listening to these complexities. These conversations have helped us identify how our education program can support residents through tree pruning workshops, which help mitigate the risk of falling trees and tree disease, both of which can lead to expenses. We’ve also learned about concerns regarding the species we plant and misconceptions about native and non-native plants.
When the challenge involves navigating the legitimate concerns and even fears that people have about the specific work your network is passionate about, listening goes a long way!
Tips for Navigating Challenges
TTF was founded in 2018, which means it was barely a year old when the pandemic hit. Suddenly, our entire reason of being–to grow community by planting together– was completely undermined! However, this time allowed us to develop our Nature Explorers youth curriculum, an online and zine based free resource for parents and teachers, and our lunch and learn webinar series. Both have continued to be core parts of our education program to this day. In addition, we learned how to plant safely under challenging circumstances once restrictions were lifted. People wanted to be together, and this less-than-ideal situation nevertheless helped us affirm the importance of community and serve our City through our programs.
Our advice here is to remain open to flexibility and change when it is needed. Oftentimes, these difficult circumstances open up creative ways to do our work that enhances what we do and helps us value the most essential aspects of our work.
How to Build Shared Goals
Every single project we host or co-lead is the result of shared goals. This work requires meeting, ideally in person, sometimes many times, to make sure we understand each other’s needs, strengths, and values, and establish trust.
Shared goals require being willing to let go of some things that might seem essential to us. But knowing when and what to let go of is easier if the value and impact of the shared goal is clear. Once needs, strengths, and values are clear and aligned, then building the shared goal requires understanding who the work is for, how to get them involved and make them a part of the work, and what this collaboration requires of each partner/member of the network.
Any Additional Advice
Everything we are doing is urgent and necessary. But moving at the pace of this urgency is not necessarily the best way to reach the desired outcome.
At TTF, we look to trees as teachers who remind us that they take a very long time to reach maturity on purpose. The tree’s slow growth, allows its roots to expand outward to absolve the most rainwater. Each season, as the trunk sways in the wind, the tree’s bark grows stronger and thicker to stand tall and steady. By slowing down to grow intentionally, we hope to grow strong and healthy as an organization. And just as the tree needs our help with careful pruning so that its branches don’t fall due to their weight or an imbalance in the tree’s structure, we need our teams and networks to help us correct course when necessary and let go when needed. Slow, intentional, and collaborative growth will help us reach maturity successfully!