Center for Art + Environment at the Nevada Museum of Art

Center for Art + Environment at the Nevada Museum of Art 2014 - $8,000 Art + Environment Conference  The Center for Art + Environment (CA+E) at the Nevada Museum of Art supports the practice, study, and awareness of creative interactions between people and their environments. The CA+E collects and exhibits archives and artworks from national and international artists and designers who are re-defining what it means to interact with the world around us. The flagship program of the Center for Art + Environment, the triennial Art + Environment Conference, will convene more than 250 international artists, scientists, scholars, designers, and writers for a dialogue that fosters new knowledge in the visual arts and environmental practice at the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno, Nevada. The 2014 conference will focus on themes of posthumanism, geoasthetics and fieldworks, with the goal of inspiring new artworks and scholarship that promote a culture of sustainability manifested through art, architecture, and design. centerforartenvironment.org

Congress for the New Urbanism

Congress for the New Urbanism
2014 - $10,000 Freeway-Free San Francisco Report and Case Study

Founded in 1993, the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) is the leading organization promoting walkable, mixed-use neighborhood development, sustainable communities and healthier living conditions. Through their initiatives and annual Congress gathering, CNU has created tools that make it easier to put New Urbanism into practice around the world.

CNU's “Freeways Without Futures” list recognizes the top-ten locations in North America where the opportunity is greatest to stimulate valuable revitalization by replacing aging urban highways with boulevards and other cost-saving urban alternatives.  CNU is planning to add San Francisco's 280 to the list.

1. Alaskan Way Viaduct, Seattle, WA
2. Sheridan Expressway, Bronx, NY
3. The Skyway and Route 5, Buffalo, NY
4. Route 34, New Haven, CT
5. Claiborne Expressway, New Orleans, LA
6. Interstate 81, Syracuse, NY
7. Interstate 64, Louisville, KY
8. Route 29, Trenton, NJ
9. Gardiner Expressway, Toronto, ON
10. 11th Street Bridges and the Southeast Freeway, Washington D.C.

CNU's Freeway-Free San Francisco report will address both community and City-level impact of highway removal. Relevant statistics from CNU's City of Vancouver case study, which is freeway-free but lacking traffic congestion, will also be included. CNU's partnership with Walk San Francisco, a local non-profit who speaks up for safer, more pleasant streets for everyone to walk on, will bring depth to the Freeway-Free San Francisco dialogue.

cnu.org

Education Outside (formerly San Francisco Green Schoolyard Alliance)

Education Outside (formerly San Francisco Green Schoolyard Alliance)
2014 - $8,000 Corps for Education Outside Program
2011 - $5,000 Conference Support
2009 - $12,000 Matching Grant for Gardening Educators
2008 - $5,000 Conference Support
2007 - $10,000 General Support

Corps for Education Outside program
Corps for Education Outside program is an innovative new program which is transforming San Francisco’s public schools into centers of hands-on environmental science learning and biodiversity.  Corps members transform school gardens into lush, living laboratories, teaching engaging, hands-on lessons that encompass not only science but also sustainability, healthy living, gardening, and cooking. The curriculum used focuses primarily on science as well as English language arts and math.

San Francisco Green Schoolyard Alliance
The San Francisco Green Schoolyard Alliance (SFGSA) is a coalition of Bay Area civic organizations whose work supports schoolyard transformations from ordinary asphalt yards into ecologically rich green spaces for learning and play. SFGSA works to ensure that these emerging vibrant landscapes reflect a school’s local ecology and meet the school’s curricular goals. SFGSA members offer a wide variety of resources that can help school communities create and sustain green schoolyards. They advocate for school yard greening at district, city, and state levels; provide professional development for teachers and parents; secure horticultural supplies and other resources for schools; and maintain a website and hotline for advice and troubleshooting needs.

Exploratorium

The Exploratorium is a LEED-Platinum rated building and the institution is working toward energy neutrality through systems like the solar panels on Pier 15. © Exploratorium, www.exploratorium.edu

The Exploratorium’s Pier 15 and 17 is centrally situated on San Francisco’s Embarcadero Waterfront, with access to public transit, and a working dock for visiting ships of all types.© Exploratorium, www.exploratorium.edu

The Exploratorium welcomes over 800,000 visitors every year, from field trip students to adult After Dark audiences to curious individuals from every walk of life. © Exploratorium, www.exploratorium.edu

The Fisher Bay Observatory is home to many of the incredible environmental programs of the Exploratorium. Among its many incredible exhibits and programs, it houses the Wired Pier—an array of sensitive instruments around the Exploratorium campus that measure and record conditions in the environment—the weather, Bay water, pollution, and more © Exploratorium, www.exploratorium.edu

The entire Exploratorium is a hub of environmental programming—our working dock welcomes NOAA research ships and other vessels, our buoy gathers information year-round, and the Fisher Bay Observatory convenes the leading minds in urban resilience and sustainability. © Exploratorium, www.exploratorium.edu

The Exploratorium’s Gallery 4 is dedicated to Living Systems and is one of the only informal learning institutions in the country with a working wet lab on site. © Exploratorium, www.exploratorium.edu

Exploratorium
2022 - $15,000 Urban Fellows Program
2021 - $15,000 Urban Fellows Program
2019 - $10,000 Coastal Resiliency Collaboration
2019 - $10,000 General Support
2018 - $10,000 Urban Fellowship
2017 - $10,000 Urban Fellowship
2017 - $10,000 Habitat: Bay As It Is Symposium
2016 - $5,000 Habitat: Bay As It Is Symposium
2016 - $10,000 Urban Fellowship
2015 - $10,000 Urban Fellowship
2015 - $10,000 Center for Art and Inquiry
2014 - $10,000 Urban Fellowship
2013 - $10,000 Jane Wolf, Bay Lexicon
2013 - $1,000 Living Innovation Zone
2011 - $10,000 Capital Campaign

Since 1969, the Exploratorium’s museum in San Francisco has been home to a renowned collection of 650+ exhibits that draw together science, art, and human perception, and that have changed the way science is taught. Our award-winning programs inspire visitors, empower teachers through our cutting-edge teacher development program, and influence a global movement where 80% of science centers across the globe contain Exploratorium exhibits. The exhibits on the floor are designed to enable experimentation with physical phenomena while simultaneously strengthening thinking and inquiry skills. This is true not only for our audiences of over 850,000 people a year in San Francisco, but for an estimated 250 million people who experience our exhibits at science centers around the world. As founder Frank Oppenheimer saw it: “A lot of people have given up trying to comprehend things, and when they give up with the physical world they give up with the social and political world as well. If we stop trying to understand things, I think we’re all sunk.” The Exploratorium continues to build on his foundational belief that citizens who are curious and empowered to learn about the world are more likely to take action and tackle problems in their communities.

The Exploratorium’s location on Piers 15 and 17, and in particular our investment in the Fisher Bay Observatory, has provided an unprecedented opportunity to engage the public with a wealth of data about the area’s natural and built environments and dynamic access to the researchers collecting it. Since our relocation from the Palace of Fine Arts in 2013, we have been continually evolving exhibits, programs, and partnerships to engage diverse audiences in understanding the complex ecologies that emerge through the interaction between social, cultural, and natural forces and systems. The facility serves as a new model for a combined research and learning space—an open laboratory for researchers, policy makers, and the public. We are educators who have learned that as we face global climate crises, our strategy must be expansive including the contributions of scientists, educators, artists, designers, historians and cultural workers, as well as practitioners in the realms of policy and advocacy. 

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Exploratorium closed its doors on March 12, 2020. Our museum has always been a playground of discovery and hands-on learning, but as we remain closed, our educators, exhibit developers, scientists and other staff have gotten creative in sparking curiosity online. From helping teachers make science come alive in virtual classrooms, to engaging families all over the globe in tinkering projects, to illuminating timely science through online events like Covid Conversations and After Dark, the Exploratorium’s online content highlights what the Exploratorium does best: creating learning experiences that are engaging, interactive, inspiring, and trustworthy.

The digital programming and resources reach audiences from young kids to adults, and present a full range of topics from nearly all Exploratorium departments, from biology, to the environment, to Cinema Arts. In all, our digital resources are being used more than ever: traffic to our website, which serves 2M people annually, is up by nearly 300%. The Exploratorium is proud to continue sparking curiosity wherever people are, whether the kitchen table laboratory, the virtual classroom, the outdoors, or—eventually—back at Pier 15

Urban Fellowship
The Exploratorium's new Urban Fellow program will address issues related to climate change and rising sea levels.  This program situates an artist or urban practitioner in a residency within the Bay Observatory to explore the human relationship to the urban environment.  Fellows could explore concrete forms: such as architecture and infrastructure: as well as human forms: such as approaches to planning or individual practices within the city.  This investigation is both important and timely as urban areas globally explore the issue of climate change and coastal resiliency.

Jane Wolf, Bay Lexicon
Bay Lexicon is an illustrated field guide to San Francisco’s shoreline. Using methods and tools from landscape scholarship, design, and science education, Bay Lexicon aims to encourage observation and enquiry about the natural world and its relation to culture.

exploratorium.edu

Hidden Nature SF

Hidden Nature SF
2014 - $10,000 SFB4
2013 - $15,000 SFB4

Hidden Nature SF  investigates and describes the extraordinary landscape ecology of San Francisco at the time that Gasper de Portolá’s expedition laid their eyes on the bay in 1769. Through a block-by-block understanding of past landscape conditions, one will see the "ecological fundamentals" still shaping the urban landscape.  It's goal is to suffuse the imaginations of San Franciscans with a vision of ecology so rich and compelling that it shifts perspectives for centuries to come and creates a template for sustainability suited to the particular geographic circumstances of San Francisco—using history to reveal, discover, and re-imagine.

On the project is Robin Grossinger, Senior Scientist at the San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI). He was named an Environmental Hero by Bay Nature Magazine and received the 2014 Carla Bard Bay Education Award from the Bay Institute. He has been featured nationally on NPR for his work on the historical ecology of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and is the author of the Napa Valley Historical Ecology Atlas (University of California Press 2012).

Robin is joined by Eric Sanderson, Ph.D., a Senior Conservation Ecologist at WCS and the author of the bestselling book, Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York City (Abrams, 2009). He is internationally known for his work in wildlife and landscape conservation and imagining cities in the past, present, and future. His work has been featured in National Geographic Magazine, The New Yorker, the New York Times, and elsewhere.

Hidden Nature SF

ioby

ioby
2014 - $10,000 Crowdfunding Workshop

ioby is a community of donors, volunteers and leaders working together to make their neighborhoods stronger and more sustainable. ioby is a crowd-resourcing digital platform that supports citizen-led, neighbor-funded projects related to food, transit, sharing, public health, public art, environment, schools, tactical urbanism and creative placemaking. For this project, ioby will host an intensive training on grassroots fundraising and crowdfunding for Seed Fund grantees in San Francisco.

www.ioby.org

Island Press

Rep. Jose Serrano reads from an Island Press op-ed in The Washington Post calling for a return to science-based decisionmaking at the Environmental Protection Agency

Solutions that Inspire Change: Recent Titles from Island Press

Carey Gillam, author of Whitewash: The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer, and the Corruption of Science (Island Press, 2017) testifies to the European Parliament about the dangers of glyphosate 

Steven Higashide, author of Better Buses, Better Cities: How to Plan, Run, and Win the Fight for Effective Transit (Island Press, 2019)

Book launch party for Transit Street Design Guide (Island Press, 2016)

Island Press
2023 - $10,000 Founders’ Pot
2022 - $10,000 Founders’ Pot
2021 - $15,000 Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Work 
2021 - $10,000 Founders’ Pot
2020 - $15,000 Online Programming During COVID-19 Pandemic
2020 - $25,000 Founders’ Pot
2019 - $25,000 General Support
2018 - $5,000 Founders’ Pot for General Operating Support
2017 - $5,000 Founders’ Pot for General Operating Support
2017 - $5,000 General Support
2016 - $5,000 General Support
2015 - $5,000 General Support
2014 - $5,000 General Support
2013 - $10,000 Sustainability Knowledge Network
2011 - $5,000 General Support

Island Press supports the environmental community in advancing their knowledge and practice which, ultimately, improves the natural systems on which humankind depends. A non-profit organization, its mission is to provide the best ideas and information to those seeking to understand and protect the environment and create solutions to its complex problems. 

From its growing network, Island Press identifies promising thinkers, inspiring stories, and game-changing ideas to publish some 30 books each year. Island Press’ publishing expertise delivers critical information that enhances the work of thousands of professionals striving to create healthier, more sustainable, and more just communities. Today, Island Press is one of the nation's leading providers of environmental ideas and solutions. 

Island Press’ goal is to spark lasting solutions to environmental problems. Its approach is two-fold: 

Identifying and Developing Ideas 

Island Press identifies and shapes the best ideas, methods, and approaches into accessible content. The most valuable lessons come from those who are doing the work—the scientists, activists, and professionals who are leading change every day. But these problem-solvers often need guidance on how to share their experience with others. Without the editorial and communications support Island Press provides, important new voices would be left unheard, and effective approaches unknown.

Promoting and Distributing Content

The field needs cutting-edge information and practical solutions to a wide range of problems. Island Press taps into a distribution network of environmental movement leaders, researchers, policymakers, professionals, and the public. The organization’s reach extends into many areas, ranging from transportation planning and food systems to affordable housing and green space.

Setting this work apart from for-profit publishers, Island Press is committed to providing reliable, science-based knowledge in digital formats—webinars, articles, opinion pieces, and online courses—most of them free. 

Island Press has developed a body of environmental literature that is considered by many to be the most comprehensive, rigorous, and innovative available. This work is shaping policies, establishing thought leaders, and advancing influential concepts that have had important real-world impacts.

Notable Accomplishments 

Creating Safer Streets for All: Publishing the Urban Street Design Guide guided billions of dollars in infrastructure spending for energy-saving, carbon-reducing public transit and pedestrian-friendly streets across the country. 

Reducing Toxic Chemicals: The award-winning Whitewash: The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer, and the Corruption of Science led to limits on the cancer-causing chemical glyphosate (the main ingredient in Roundup) in several countries, as well as on college campuses and public lands across the U.S. 

Regulating Overfishing: The Most Important Fish in the Sea led to the first-ever limits on menhaden fishing, which had reached unsustainable levels. The quota resulted in a 26% reduction in the menhaden catch—a huge victory for fishing communities and conservationists.

Response to COVID-19 Pandemic

As workplaces closed and events were canceled, Island Press moved quickly to create more online offerings for professionals and students who were now working from home. Island Press released a dozen e-books for free and nearly tripled its schedule of free webinars for professionals. As a result, attendance to online trainings more than doubled. This evolving approach helped the organization grow the number of people it serves, and has widened its geographic reach.

islandpress.org

Mission Creek Conservancy

Mission Creek Conservancy 2014 - $5,000 Interpretive Signage Mission Creek Conservancy (MCC) preserves and enhances the tidal community at Mission Creek, a 24 acre area of land and tidal water within historic Mission Bay. It is home to a rich ecology of mudflats, rock, piling and float marine invertebrate forests, fish, bird and marine mammal populations. MCC will create and install two signs. One for the Mission Creek Tidal Wetlands, showing interdependent groups of wildlife nurtured by tidal waters, mudflats and invertebrate habitats. A second for the bird and butterfly habitat in Huffaker Park showing crucial relationships with larval food plants, nectar and food source plants.

Nature in the City

Nature in the City
2021 - $15,000 Climate Resilience Work
2017 - $5,000 Backyard Natives Nursery Program
2017 – $10,000 General Support
2014 - $5,000 General Support
2011 - $5,000 Green Hairstreak Butterfly Project
2010 - $5,000 Green Hairstreak Butterfly Project

As the only non-profit organization dedicated to restoration & stewardship of San Francisco’s natural heritage, Nature in the City plays a critical role in securing the city’s wild lands for future generations. Nature in the City connects with the city at large through the sponsorship of nature walks, events for children and families, eco-literacy training, volunteer opportunities, and resources for community groups wishing to start their own citizen science projects.

Green Hairstreak Butterfly project
Discovered by modern science in the late 1800s from “the hills of San Francisco” the Green Hairstreak (Callophrys dumetorum) is a small, nickel-sized butterfly isolated in three remaining remnant habitats within the city: Hawk Hill and Rocky Outcrop overlooking the Sunset District and the coastal bluffs of the Presidio. The primary goal of the Green Hairstreak Project is to connect two disjunctive butterfly populations in the Sunset District with street level plantings of host and nectar sources. If the two populations can interbreed, their genetic viability and diversity will be more secure.

natureinthecity.org

Outdoors Empowered Network

Youth taking a moment of rest and reflection on an overnight backpacking trip with an OEN member organization.

Youth enjoying an overnight backpacking trip with an OEN member organization.

OEN helps member organizations secure outdoor gear to ensure that youth are safe, warm, and dry on all their trips.

Youth at a river crossing on a day hike with an OEN member organization.

An example of an OEN member organization’s gear library. Each library is set up differently depending on the needs of their community.

An outdoor leadership training at one of OEN’s member’s campsite-based programs.

Keynote speaker, Autumn Saxon-Ross at OEN’s 5th annual National Summit in 2019. 

Outdoors Empowered Network
2018 - $10,000 Grant for Capacity Building
2017 - $10,000 General Support
2016 - $5,000 General Support
2015 - $7,500 General Support
2014 - $10,000 General Support

Outdoors Empowered Network is a national network of community-led, youth-centered outdoor education groups that are dedicated to increasing access and diversity in the outdoors through gear libraries and outdoor leadership training.

OEN’s member organizations support access to outdoor adventures for tens of thousands of youth each year. Members partner with youth service agencies, schools, and other youth-centered groups to make transformative outdoor experiences through these core programs:  

• Gear Libraries - Members reduce one of the biggest barriers to getting outside—cost of gear—by curating and providing access to outdoor equipment libraries that cater to schools, youth service organizations, and families. Gear libraries can look different in different communities, using a wide array of partnerships.

• Outdoor Leadership Training - Members provide experiential, skills-based trainings for teachers and youth workers in their regions so they are empowered to take youth outdoors on their own. For every adult trained, 20+ youth get a chance to experience the power of nature and the outdoors. For many young people, this is the first time they’ll see the Milky Way, hear a rushing waterfall, or experience an environment free of the urban cacophony of horns, sirens, and cell phones. Nature-based experiences change lives.
• Community Support - Members often provide mini-grants, transportation subsidies, and connections through social media and listservs. Some also provide campgrounds, simplifying the preparations required for teachers and youth mentors as they plan their trips.

Being part of OEN gives members the opportunity to build networks, share best practices, fundraise for gear, and see the national impact of collective work. The core “train and support” program model brings together a wide variety of members, all working together to bring equity and access to the outdoors. 

Outdoors Empowered Network supports members in the following ways:

• Outdoor Gear Acquisition - Our members are responsible for twenty gear libraries throughout the United States, reducing one of the biggest barriers to access for hundreds of thousands of young people. Outdoors Empowered Network supports these gear libraries through fundraising for in-kind and monetary donations, bulk purchases, and programmatic design.
• Member Support - From designing new programming to applying for grants, running an outdoor education organization can involve a lot of hard and lonely work. OEN staff works hard to create connections, problem-solve, and support new program design.
• Professional Community - From monthly calls to ad hoc virtual meet-ups to our annual  Summit, OEN cultivates a professional community for outdoor educators and administrators. Our network model gives members a community to work with as they explore new ideas, develop programming and best practices, and face inevitable challenges.
• Thought Leadership - We support conversations about issues like diversity, equity, and inclusion in the outdoors by bringing in external thought leaders and facilitating conversations among our members. Our annual Summit is a highlight of these ongoing opportunities for growth and leadership.

Member programs are at the heart of the work of Outdoors Empowered Network. Together, the network is working to increase our collective impact on the world, and create equitable access to nature. 

outdoorsempowered.org

Pelican Dreams

Pelican Dreams
2014 - $5,000 Postproduction

Judy Irving, filmmaker of The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill,  focuses on large water birds in Pelican Dreams, a feature documentary starring “Gigi,” a starving young bird who stopped traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge, and “Morro,” an injured pelican who makes friends with a duck. The film is about wildness: How close can we get to a wild creature without taming or harming it? Why do we need wildness in our lives, and how can we protect it? Irving aims to connect urban dwellers with urban wildlife in our own backyard.

www.pelicanmedia.org

San Francisco Art Institute

San Francisco Art Institute
2014 - $5,000 Urban Studies Fellow, to Be Announced in the Fall
2013 - $5,000 Urban Studies Fellow, Pablo Helguera
2012 - $5,000 Urban Studies Fellow, Radhika Subramaniam
2011 - $5,000 Urban Studies Fellow, Geoff Manaugh

Founded in 1871 the San Francisco Art Insitute (SFAI) is one of the nations oldest and most prestigious schools of higher education in contemporary art. Poised at the forefront of socially conscious art movements, SFAI’s Urban Studies program is designed specifically to address the contributions of art, artists, and researchers to the urban domain.The changing dynamics of cities—most notably the problem of rapid worldwide urbanization—have demanded new ways of thinking about geography, citizenship, and community.  Through the two-year MA program, students strive to positively engage, critique, and transform contemporary urban life in multiple ways. The Urban Studies program integrates courses and resources from both the School of Studio Practice and the School of Interdisciplinary Studies, allowing students to chart an individualized path of study. Faculty contribute expertise in such diverse—yet inextricably linked—fields as curatorial studies, visual studies, art history, anthropology, sociology, geography, comparative literature, philosophy, media/technology studies, ethnic studies and American studies. In addition, the Seed Fund Teaching Fellowship in Urban Studies brings distinguished artists, designers, architects, and planners to campus for discussions of urban practices.

Established in 2011, the Seed Fund Teaching Fellowship in Urban Studies was created as a co-curricular research and development initiative in support of SFAI’s Urban Studies program. Emphasizing art and design practices as forms of urban problem-solving, the fellowship program includes public lectures and colloquia by distinguished artists, designers, architects, planners, and artist collectives, and is meant to facilitate sustained on-campus residencies that enable discussions of process, aesthetics, and exemplary urban practices.

sfai.edu

San Francisco Estuary Institute

San Francisco Estuary Institute
2021 - $15,000 Urban Nature Lab Website
2019 - $10,000 Operational Landscape Units Project (with SPUR)
2018 - $10,000 General Support
2018 - $10,000 Biodiversity Integration into the SPUR Regional Plan
2017 - $10,000 Catalyzing Urban Biodiversity Book Project by Robin Grossinger
2017 - $10,000 Operational Landscape Units Project (with SPUR)
2017 - $10,000 Framework for Sea-Level Rise Adaptation
2016 - $15,000 Framework for Sea-Level Rise Adaptation
2014 - $10,000 Center for Resilient Landscapes

The San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI) delivers visionary science that empowers people to revitalize nature in their communities. Created by the region for the region, we are a unique local science think-tank supporting diverse organizations to improve the environmental health of the Bay Area and beyond. We provide independent science on water quality, urban sustainability, and ecological resilience to public agencies, NGOs, communities, and business leaders. These organizations collaborate with our team of 70 dedicated scientists and technologists for the innovative solutions needed to make our region, and the people who live here, healthy and resilient.

For more than a quarter century, SFEI has served as a trusted science advisor to local and state agencies charged with implementing natural resource mandates. Our pioneering historical ecology research has established an ecological foundation for large landscape restoration efforts in watersheds throughout California, prompting paradigm shifts in management. In the Bay, SFEI staff have provided science leadership to the California Coastal Conservancy’s 2015 Baylands Goals—a blueprint to accelerate the restoration of tidal marsh in San Francisco Bay toward a goal of 100,000 acres. In the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, our landmark studies have supported a partnership between state agencies and major water users by creating science-based options and a vision to restore up to 30,000 acres of Delta wetlands habitat. In cities, our Urban Nature Lab uses the quantitative science of nature in cities to help advance innovative, ecologically based urban planning and design.

SFEI develops nature-based solutions to improve conditions across the landscape -- along shorelines, in cities, and in rural areas. We use science-based planning to create multi-benefit approaches to improve ecosystem functions for people, like reducing flooding and sequestering carbon, and for nature, like creating habitat for native wildlife. These interventions are cost-effective, resilient, and can be implemented across the land-use spectrum from high in watersheds, through the valleys that hold our cities and agriculture, down to the edge of the Bay and Delta, with the intention of ensuring equitable outcomes for all communities. Our approach takes advantage of natural processes by restoring wetlands, floodplains, and riparian areas; creating high-performance networks of nature throughout; realigning creeks to reduce flooding and improve sediment delivery to protect the shoreline; and managing landscapes to sequester carbon rather than emitting greenhouse gases. 

Our vision of the Bay Area, as a model for other urbanized regions facing similar challenges, encompasses:

• Healthy ecosystems supporting people and nature across the landscape: along the shoreline, in cities, in agricultural areas, and in open space,
• Natural infrastructure helping urban areas and their surrounding landscapes manage sea-level rise, water supply challenges, higher temperatures, water pollution, more severe drought and flooding, and other climate-related threats, and
• Green space in developed areas improving the health and quality of life for all residents and for native wildlife.

For more information about SFEI and the Resilient Landscapes Program, please see our Strategic Plan.

Seed Fund Specific Projects

• The SF Bay Shoreline Adaptation Atlas is guiding local and regional strategies to adapt to sea level rise.
• Hidden Nature SF reveals the San Francisco landscape before the city.
• SFEI’s Urban Nature Lab uses the quantitative science of nature in cities to help advance innovative, ecologically based urban planning and design.

Our novel research on cities, published in The Biological Deserts Fallacy (BioScience 2021), identifies the different pathways by which cities can benefit regional ecosystems 

sfei.org

San Francisco Waldorf School

San Francisco Waldorf School
2018 - $34,000 Outdoor Classroom
2016 - $33,000 Outdoor Classroom
2015 - $5,000 Outdoor Classroom
2014 - $7,500 Outdoor Classroom
2013 - $10,000 Outdoor Classroom
2009 - $10,000 Biodynamic Garden Program
2008 - $6,000 Biodynamic Garden Program
2007 - $10,000 High School Capital Campaign

San Francisco Waldorf School is an independent, co-educational, non-sectarian school providing education from Kindergarten through Grade 12. SFWS was founded in 1979 as an independent school within the rich Waldorf tradition whose mission is to educate students using an approach that fosters independent thought and a sense of personal responsibility. The Waldorf curriculum, designed by Austrian philosopher and scientist Rudolf Steiner in 1919, is based on a thorough study of child development, so that the subjects taught meet not only the cognitive developmental needs of the students, but also their physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. There are over a thousand Waldorf schools around the world, each operating independently, but held together by a common understanding of human development and a recognition of the value of artistic work and meaningful social interaction.High School capital campaign

San Francisco Waldorf High School’s campus opened in September 2007. As the first school in San Francisco to be awarded the coveted LEED Gold certification, the overall goal of the project was to create an environment that is in harmony with the philosophy of Waldorf Education. Perhaps the greatest reflection of this success is the fact that the building itself will be incorporated into the curriculum as an educational resource for environmental studies. The principals of the Waldorf philosophy and the actual building serve as a teaching tool for students, demonstrating how to become actively involved in today’s social issues.Biodynamic Garden

The Waldorf School Biodynamic Garden was created to grow children's love for the earth, for meaningful labor, and for themselves and their community through infinitely fascinating work as farmers.  Located at the Little Sisters of the Poor’s St. Anne’s home, the garden acts as a teaching tool, a healthy food source for the lunchroom and a social hub for the children as well as the residents of St. Anne’s. The participating students, kindergarten through third grade, are toured through the garden to taste what is in season and observe the garden’s changes before splitting up to participate in the upkeep of the garden.  With tasks like planting apple trees, building compost and harvesting crops, every child is engaged with the garden directly, discovering the benefits of farming for themselves.Nature Program\The Waldorf School Nature Program creates an overarching program that serves as a model for other urban schools who aspire to “bring nature alive” for students, faculty and the entire community. The program brings younger children out into nature and older students the opportunity to learn more about regional biodiversity. This program will offer an ongoing educational series to facilitate community understanding and support. This series brings a wide variety of speakers to address topics that enhance understanding of environmental education, brought via lectures, workshops and events. The program's goal is to create awareness of issues and initiatives that are relevant in the San Francisco Bay Area.

sfwaldorf.org

SF Environment

SF Environment
2014 - $10,000 Biodiversity Program
2013 - $10,000 Biodiversity Program

Under the San Francisco Department of the Environment, a Biodiversity Program, led by biodiversity coordinator Peter Brastow, creates programs, plans and strategies for the management and stewardship of San Francisco wildlands, biodiversity and public biodiversity education.

The Biodiversity Program will create a Strategic Biodiversity Action Plan, with a blueprint for the program and San Francisco. It will also create the infrastructure to act as the hub for biodiversity planning, policy-making, coordination and education city-wide.

sfenvironment.org

SF Nature Mapping Project

SF Nature Mapping Project
2014 - $5,000 General Support

The Children in Nature Map will be the first interactive map of the SF Nature Mapping Project and the first map tailored to families who want to find places to play in San Francisco’s nature.  The map is being created in partnership with the San Francisco Children in Nature Forum and GreenInfo Network.

 The SF Nature Mapping Project seeks to connect people to nearby urban nature through online interactive maps. As people move into cities many assume that this means less time that they can spend in nature, but this project challenges that myth by showing clearly where we can access nature in San Francisco.

sfnaturemaps.com

SPUR (formerly San Francisco Planning + Urban Research Association)

SPUR’s We Are the Bay exhibition

Farmer’s market in San Francisco; photo credit Sergio Ruiz

Rising tides threatening to flood; photo credit Sergio Ruiz

SPUR’s How We Move exhibition

A transit + design workshop held at SPUR’s Urban Center

SPUR (formerly San Francisco Planning + Urban Research Association)
2023 - $20,000 Transit Oriented Communities
2021 - $15,000 Transit Priority Program
2019 - $10,000 Operational Landscape Units Project
2018 - $20,000 Regional Plan
2017 - $10,000 Operational Landscape Units Project (with SFEI)
2017 - $10,000 Framework for Sea-Level Rise Adaptation
2016 - $15,000 Framework for Sea-Level Rise Adaptation
2014 - $15,000 Fossil Fuel Reduction Report
2010 - 2014 $38,000 Food Systems and Urban Agriculture Program
2007 - $5,000 General Support

Work

Through research, education and advocacy, SPUR works to create an equitable, sustainable and prosperous region. SPUR practices urban policy, developing and advocating for ideas and reforms to bring about systems change. The decisions that shape housing, transportation, land use, economics, food access, sustainability and resilience have significant impacts on people’s lives. SPUR also focuses on governance because it’s how communities organize themselves to achieve collective goals and because SPUR believes in the power of government as a force for good. SPUR works across the nine counties of the Bay Area because the structural systems that shape people’s lives— the housing market, the transportation network, the economy — are regional. SPUR does deep work in San Francisco, San José and Oakland because policies set in the region’s three biggest cities have widespread impact on most Bay Area residents and because local context is critical for effective policy. SPUR believes that community and individual well-being are healthiest when a society achieves equity, sustainability and prosperity. Equity because systemic racism continues to create unjust and unacceptable outcomes for many members of our community. Sustainability because human well-being depends on a healthy and thriving natural environment. And prosperity because meeting individual and collective needs requires resources. SPUR conducts its work through research, education and advocacy because these tools have the power to change minds and shape outcomes. The organization believes that profound systems change requires addressing beliefs, relationships and policies, and SPUR works at all three of these levels. SPUR grounds its work in a spirit of inquiry and a big-tent perspective that engages partners and communities across the region.

Goals

SPUR has many key goals related to each of the organization's major policy areas, including:
Planning: Add new jobs and housing where they will support equity and sustainability, and make neighborhoods safe and welcoming to everyone.
Housing: Make housing affordable for everyone.
Transportation: Make it fast, easy and inexpensive to get around without driving alone.
Sustainability + Resilience: Eliminate carbon emissions and make communities resilient to climate change.
Economic Justice: Enable all people to participate in the region’s thriving economy and attain economic security.
Good Government: Support a high-functioning public sector that serves the collective good.
Food + Agriculture: Create healthy, just and sustainable food systems, and put an end to food insecurity.

Achievements

SPUR has accomplished many things over the course of its 100+ year history. The organization shaped some of the most important planning and urban policy issues in the region, including planning for the BART system, establishing the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, proposing San Francisco’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund and more. Recent achievements of the organization in 2020, include:

• Crafting more than 70 policy recommendations on housing, transportation, planning, sustainability and resilience and more
• Welcoming more than 13,000 individuals to public forums covering pressing issues in the Bay Area, such as the housing affordability crisis, economic inequality, how COVID-19 affects small businesses and more
• Co-sponsoring three pieces of legislation passed by California lawmakers, including SB288, which expands CEQA exemptions to speed up the delivery of sustainable transportation projects in the state
• Hosting the organization's first Ideas + Action symposium, which brought together public space experts and more than 1,500 attendees from across North America
• Released numerous reports and white papers, on topics such as the future of transportation, transit project delivery, climate hazards and modeling future places, which envisions a Bay Area that can welcome everyone
• Hosting a forum with Mayors Breed, Liccardo and Schaaf of San Francisco, San José and Oakland to learn how cities of the Bay Area can collectively work toward a more equitable, sustainable and prosperous region
• Leading convening efforts for the new California Home Builders Alliance, an informal advocacy coalition focusing on state legislation and regulatory reforms to build more housing

Impact Report attached; our most recent annual report was online only--it is available here: https://www.spur.org/about/annual-reports/2020

spur.org

Sutro Stewards

Sutro Stewards
2014 - $5,000 Living Seed-Bank Project

Sutro Stewards brings to life local open space areas, biodiversity, and the benefits that indigenous plant species provide to wildlife. They enable thousands of volunteers to help transform a sixty-one acre open space in the heart of San Francisco into a destination for exploration, recreation and stunning views.

The Sutro Stewards Nursery team is gathering locally genetic plants to place into a "living seed-bank" gardens. This "living seed-bank" provides seeds and cuttings in large quantities, allowing successful field planting projects. This project minimizes habitat loss by reintroducing species to new suitable sites.

sutrostewards.org

The High Line

The High Line
2014 - $5,000 Thriving Cities Lecture Series
2013 - $5,000 Beyond the High Line
2010 - $1,000 General Support

Friends of the High Line works to build and maintain the extraordinary public park on the High Line in New York City.  They seek to preserve the entire historic structure, transforming an essential piece of New York’s industrial past and providing over 70 percent of the High Line’s annual operating budget.  Friends of the High Line is responsible for maintenance of the park, pursuant to a license agreement with the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. Through stewardship, innovative design and programming, and excellence in operations they cultivate a vibrant community around the High Line.

Beyond the High Line

Beyond the High Line showcases exceptional adaptive urban reuse projects from around the country, featuring projects that have a strong likelihood of being completed, but are still in formative phases. This series will foster discussion about what moves these kinds of projects forward and to raise the profile of other projects that have the potential to transform neighborhoods, cities, or regions—expanding the visibility of the entire field of adaptive reuse. 

Thriving Cities

A forum where participants can explore new ways to make their blocks, neighborhoods and cities better, more livable places.  The day-long program will feature public talks, book presentations, civic participation workshops and children's activities - all exploring recent trends and ideas around contemporary urban design and planning that foster sustainability, equity and creativity.

thehighline.org

Tigers on Market Street

Tigers on Market Street
2014 - $5,000 General Support
2013 - $3,000 Habitat Research

The Western Tiger Swallowtail butterfly (Papilio rutulus) has found a home on San Francisco’s Market Street; it lives a complete life cycle in the London Plane trees that line the busy thoroughfare. The canyon of tall buildings lined with trees resemble the butterfly’s natural habitat – river canyons. This project engages the public in this unique butterfly phenomenon, create methods for creative interactions, and connects people to wildlife in one of the densest urban areas.

The Western Tiger Swallowtail butterfly habitat will be incorporated into the new design for Market Street, aligning the San Francisco Department of Public Works, the San Francisco Planning Department and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission to support this vital habitat.

Tigers on Market's will use data gathered in their 2013 fieldwork to produce a graphic poster and field guide as a takeaway for those interested in learning more about wildlife living in the downtown and an educational tool for schools in the greater downtown area.

natureinthecity.org/tigers

Walk San Francisco

Mayor London Breed, State Senator Scott Wiener, Walk SF executive director Jodie Medeiros, and children from El Dorado Elementary School get ready for the 2019 Walk & Roll to School Day. Photo: Greg Zeppa

Walk SF was part of an action on Market Street pushing for permanent removal of private vehicles. 500,000 people walk on Market Street every day, and five of the city’s top ten most dangerous intersections are on Market. Photo by Walk SF.

Walk SF was part of an action on Market Street pushing for permanent removal of private vehicles. 500,000 people walk on Market Street every day, and five of the city’s top ten most dangerous intersections are on Market. Photo by Walk SF.

Walk SF was part of an action on Market Street pushing for permanent removal of private vehicles. 500,000 people walk on Market Street every day, and five of the city’s top ten most dangerous intersections are on Market. Photo by Walk SF.

At a March 2019 action on the steps of City Hall to shine a light on recent traffic fatalities. Photo by Walk SF.

A memorial to the lives lost in traffic crashes in San Francisco since January 2014. From the 2020 World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims. Photo by William McLeod with permission from Walk SF.

Walk San Francisco
2023 - $15,000 Climate Justice in the Bayview
2022 - $10,000 General Support
2021 - $10,000 20mph Speed Limit in the Tenderloin: Data Study
2016 - $10,000 Green Connections
2014 - $10,000 Vision Zero
2013 - $10,000 General Support
2012 - $6,000 General Support

San Francisco can and should be the safest, most walkable city in the United States. Yet every day, at least 3 people on average are hit by cars while walking in our city.

Walk San Francisco exists to change this. Walk San Francisco (Walk SF) was founded in 1998 by a small group of volunteers united by the belief that the city’s streets and sidewalks should be safe and welcoming for all.

Today, Walk SF is known as a tireless advocate in pushing for – and winning – life-saving changes across the city. Some defining wins include: 15 MPH speed zones around 181 schools; San Francisco’s second-in-the-nation commitment to Vision Zero; the removal of private vehicles from Market Street; the tax on Uber and Lyft; and groundbreaking changes to some of the city’s most dangerous streets.

Walk SF also founded and supports San Francisco Bay Area Families for Safe Streets, a group of traffic crash survivors and the loved ones of people who have been killed or injured in traffic crashes. Members offer emotional support and work together to win changes to prevent more lives from being destroyed by traffic violence. Each November, Families for Safe Streets and Walk SF hold World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims

In addition, Walk SF works to increase the number of children safely getting to school on foot, bicycle, scooter, and transit as part of the San Francisco Safe Routes to School Partnership. Walk SF also brings together the voices of the 30+ community-based organizations, nonprofits, and civic groups that make up the Vision Zero Coalition, plus leads the Senior and Disability Work Group. And throughout the year, Walk SF offers a variety of walks to both explore the pure joys of exploring the city on foot and the challenges faced due to unsafe streets.

In 2019, Walk SF launched its first-ever three-year strategic plan. The long-term goals outlined in it are to: 1) end pedestrian traffic deaths and severe injuries, and 2) increase the number of trips people take on foot.

As part of the strategic plan, Walk SF prioritized both what it works on and how it will work. Crash data shows that San Francisco’s residents living in communities of concern suffer the most from traffic violence. These are communities with the most low-income people, immigrants, communities of color, seniors, children, and people with disabilities. That is why while Walk SF works in the interest of all pedestrians in San Francisco, Walk SF prioritizes its efforts on communities and/or geographies where issues of equity are most at play.

Walk SF also focuses its outreach and education in communities and populations that have disproportionately been impacted by traffic violence and often not engaged in the community process. Walk SF works hard to ensure a community’s voice is authentically brought forward to guide advocacy efforts, and build coalitions across diverse communities. That’s why Walk SF goes much deeper in its community engagement and advocacy work in neighborhoods like the Tenderloin, where traffic violence is a daily reality for the nearly 40,000 people who live there.

Walk SF’s vision is for a San Francisco where everyone – of every age and ability – can get around safely. And the benefits of making this vision a reality ripple far beyond the precious lives that will be saved. When it is safe and inviting for many more people to walk in San Francisco, it also means reducing climate emissions. It means thriving neighborhood businesses and greater health. It means changing the fact that people of color are more likely to live, work, and walk on dangerous streets. It means stronger and more connected communities.

A memorial to the lives lost in traffic crashes in San Francisco since January 2014. From the 2020 World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims. Photo by William McLeod with permission from Walk SF.

At a March 2019 action on the steps of City Hall to shine a light on recent traffic fatalities. Photo by Walk SF.

walksf.org

What is Missing?

What is Missing?
2016 - $10,000 What Is Missing? Project
2015 - $10,000 What Is Missing? Project
2014 - $10,000 What Is Missing? Project

Maya Lin is an artist and environmentalist. She established the What Is Missing? project to create, through science-based artworks, an awareness about the present mass extinction of species due to habitat degradation and loss, and to emphasize that by protecting and restoring habitats, carbon emissions can be reduced and species & habitats protected. Designed as Maya Lin’s last memorial, the What Is Missing? project takes place in multiple sites and forms dedicated to creating a connection between people and the species and places that have disappeared or are predicted to become extinct.

This project is a call to action and helps participants and viewers reimagine the human relationship to nature.  It creates hope by showing individuals what they can do to make a difference through their own consumer choices. The What Is Missing? project is made up of sound and media sculptures, traveling exhibitions, video installations, a physical and digital book and a website. Part of the website is devoted to introducing Greenprint for the Future, which when completed will help visitors examine their land use and resource consumption patterns and will demonstrate how changing these practices can effectively help the planet.

whatismissing.net