Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Resilient Forests
The goal of our Resilient Forests program is to restore North America’s forest landscapes to full health with long-term resilience. We strategically focus on planting trees in priority threatened areas, revitalizing whole ecosystems that are essential to people, water, wildlife and climate, from mountain ranges to watersheds.
In each location, we employ a comprehensive approach to achieve lasting forest recovery, which includes research, partnerships, climate science, conservation plans, and cutting-edge strategies to ensure success.
To massively expand reforestation across the country, we are identifying priority locations through tools such as forest carbon models and the Reforestation Hub, investing in tree nurseries and seed collection, and advocating for policies to help fund large-scale reforestation work.
Tree Equity
Through this program, we seek to bring “Tree Equity” to urban areas across North America.
Trees in cities enhance health, employment and climate resiliency, filtering rainfall for clean urban waters, cleaning the air we breathe, and keeping neighborhoods 5-7 degrees cooler on hot summer days. Numerous studies have demonstrated that urban trees improve mental health and increase student performance.
But too often a map of tree cover in U.S. cities correlates to income and race. Due to decades of redlining and other discriminatory policies, trees are often sparse in neighborhoods with more low-income families and people of color.
To help address these systemic societal inequities, American Forests is partnering with city leaders and community groups to spread resilient urban tree canopy to every neighborhood. We have created and provide free tools like Tree Equity Score and Vibrant Cities Lab to help city leaders and organizations identify gaps and create a plan of action to fix them.
Where we work
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Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Number of trees planted
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Resilient Forests
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Our Sustainable Development Goals
Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.
Goals & Strategy
Reports and documents
Download strategic planLearn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
1. Place-Based Partnerships: American Forests creates place-based partnerships in cities and forest landscapes so we can work with others to develop enduring, science-based forestry plans that include techniques for adapting to climate change. We advocate for local, state and federal policies and programs — as well as funding to support them — to bring the plans to life. We also plant and care for forests so they are healthy and resilient for generations to come. American Forests works with local partners to create reforestation plans focused on neighborhoods that need trees most and to build capacity in the urban forestry workforce. We have worked in more than 25 cities and are now focused on Detroit, Boston, Phoenix, San Antonio and Rhode Island (a small state that categorizes itself as a large urban forest).
2. Innovation Lab: In our Innovation Lab, American Forests incubates new tools and scientific research to help solve complicated puzzles, empower the forestry field and help forests cope with climate change. For example, we use climate change-informed techniques to boost forest growth after wildfires, and we share data-rich tools to help cities prioritize planting in neighborhoods that need trees the most. These tools include Tree Tree Equity Score and the related Climate & Health Action Guide and Rhode Island species selection guide to help city leaders, urban forestry professionals, and residents look at neighborhood-level scores across a city or region and identify where resources should be focused in order to close any gap in tree cover between neighborhoods.
3. Movement-Building: American Forests builds movements that inspire and empower actions at a large scale — such as the creation of new reforestation policies. Many of our projects focus on fulfilling the two pledges we have made as part of the 1t.org US Chapter, which we lead with the World Economic Forum. We have pledged to plant 100 million trees in natural landscapes and 1.2 million in cities across the U.S. by 2030. American Forests shapes new urban forestry and climate justice policies in a variety of ways, including through Vibrant Cities Lab, the preeminent online resource for urban forestry research, tools and case studies. We helped create the site and now manage it with the United States Forest Service. We also helped launch the Urban and Community Forest Working Group of the U.S. chapter of 1t.org to advance climate resiliency and equity in urban forestry.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
We have a dedicated program staff of over 60 individuals, who are located from California, to Michigan, to Montana, and beyond. They are responsible for gathering seeds in remote forests, building movements with BIPOC-led and serving organizations in urbanized areas, and developing new GIS-based tools to inform mass-scale policy decisions. Their passion, knowledge, and skills drives our Resilient Forests and Tree Equity programs forward to meet the complex, evolving needs that the nation and globe have for climate informed forestry and reforestation.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
Although we have planted more than 65 million trees since 1990 to mitigate the effects of climate change and bring Tree Equity to all Americans, we define our success by more than the number of trees we have planted. For us, our success rests upon several metrics, internally and externally defined, that tell us if we are moving the needle in 1) the fight for racial and social equity, and 2) the fight against climate change. If what we are doing isn’t affecting both of these mission critical areas, then we retool our programming to scale our impact and live our values.
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
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American Forests
Board of directorsas of 08/05/2022
Mary Wagner
US Forest Service (retired)
Zim Boulos
Office Environments and Services, Inc.
Richard Kabat
Kabat Company
Jeffrey Elliott
Iridian Asset Management
William Hazelton
Chubb Group
Elisa Rapaport
Mary Wagner
US Forest Service (retired)
William Bohnett
White Investment, LLC
Ara Erickson
Weyerhaeuser
David Hunter
Electric Power Research Institute
Clara Poffenberger
Clara Poffenberger Environmental Law and Policy
Pamela Tate
Holly Beale
Microsoft
Candace Dodson-Reed
University of Maryland
James Daley
American Forests
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? GuideStar partnered on this section with CHANGE Philanthropy and Equity in the Center.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
No data
Gender identity
No data
No data
Sexual orientation
No data
Disability
No data
Equity strategies
Last updated: 04/29/2021GuideStar partnered with Equity in the Center - an organization that works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems to increase racial equity - to create this section. Learn more
- We review compensation data across the organization (and by staff levels) to identify disparities by race.
- We analyze disaggregated data and root causes of race disparities that impact the organization's programs, portfolios, and the populations served.
- We seek individuals from various race backgrounds for board and executive director/CEO positions within our organization.