1000 Friends of Florida, Inc.

The state's leading not-for-profit smart growth advocacy organization, 1000 Friends of Florida is building better communities and saving special places in one of the fastest growing states in the nation. We promote vibrant, sustainable, walkable, livable communities which provide residents with affordable housing choices and transportation alternatives. We work to protect natural lands that cleanse and store fresh water needed for residents, agriculture and the environment, provide refuge for wildlife, and support abundant recreational opportunities for residents and visitors alike. Above all, we strive to give citizens a meaningful role in shaping the futures of their communities and state. 1000 Friends of Florida has two primary goals:

GOAL 1: Building Better Communities -- 1000 Friends works to foster sustainable, livable communities, developing Florida-specific approaches to encourage compact and energy-efficient community design with a mix of shops, homes and businesses. These include alternative means of transportation, quality infill development, and strategies to help Floridians “age in place." We promote revitalized downtowns and waterfront communities, walkable neighborhoods and improved disaster planning to preserve historic resources. Nationally recognized for promoting affordable workforce housing, 1000 Friends focuses on ensuring adequate funding and advocating for inclusionary planning strategies.

GOAL 2: Saving Special Places -- 1000 Friends of Florida is a recognized leader in protecting Florida's unique and distinctive natural resources. We back major statewide initiatives to conserve sensitive natural lands. We also develop and promote state, regional and local planning strategies to promote the conservation of environmentally sensitive lands including springsheds and watersheds, greenways systems, wildlife habitat, military buffering lands, water recharge areas, the greater Everglades ecosystem, and more.

1000 Friends uses the following strategies to meet its goals:

STRATEGY 1: Advocacy – 1000 Friends advocates, negotiates and, when necessary, litigates to protect the quality of life in Florida. At the state level, each legislative session 1000 Friends carefully monitors proposed legislation, supporting positive refinements to the growth management process, and working to halt harmful bills that promote sprawl and limit the rights of citizens to participate in their planning process. We also work with state agencies to promote smarter growth policies, have served on or staffed a variety of state panels and commissions, and can effectively represent on key planning issues before the Governor, Cabinet, Legislature and state agencies. 1000 Friends also works to promote sound public policy at the regional and local levels, promoting sound community planning and effective citizen participation. When other avenues are not effective, 1000 Friends can litigate to support its smart growth efforts. 1000 Friends works to establish the necessary “standing" to litigate, and its knowledgeable staff serves as “expert witness" on many important cases.

STRATEGY 2: Education and Outreach -- Citizen involvement is at the heart of all we do. 1000 Friends conducts workshops on critical growth and development issues facing Florida and workable solutions with its popular Florida 2070 workshop series where analyze growth and development and recommend sustainable practices geared to the county level. In addition to its newsletter, Foresight, and annual report, 1000 Friends' webinar program is widely popular among both professionals and laypersons across the state. To encourage planning professionals and attorneys to attend, 1000 Friends offers professional continuing education credits for the American Institute of Certified Planners, Florida Bar, Certified Floodplain Managers and Florida Environmental Health professionals. Through projects like Florida 2070, we share visions of what our state could look like if current patterns of development continue and offer more sustainable alternatives.

1000 Friends is Florida's only statewide nonprofit membership organization dedicated to managing Florida's growth in a more sustainable manner. 1000 Friends is able to respond quickly and forcefully to issues as they arise, with considerable access to local and state power brokers, including city and county commissioners, key staff, the media, state legislators, business leaders, agencies, the governor and cabinet and others.

Current and former board members are state leaders who bring a wealth of experience and knowledge to our organization. Over the years, they have included governors, an Assistant Secretary to the U.S. Department of the Interior, a secretary of the Florida Department of Community Affairs and founder of Florida's growth management process, a secretary of the Florida Department of Environmental Regulation, state senators, business leaders, university presidents and other renowned academics, environmentalists, architects, developers and community leaders. 1000 Friends' expert, experienced staff deal with all aspects of growth management and land use law in Florida.

Saving Special Places--1000 Friends launched Florida's Greenways system and helped shape and secure passage of Preservation 2000 and Florida Forever, conserving more than a million acres of natural lands. We promote sound planning to protect springs, the Florida Panhandle, coastal resources, waterfronts, military bases, wildlife habitat, and the Everglades. We advocate for effective urban development boundaries in Martin, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade Counties and beyond.

1000 Friends also has earned a reputation as a savvy negotiator and tenacious litigator, establishing vital legal precedents. We have championed more than fifty major administrative and appellate growth management legal cases with statewide significance. 1000 Friends' landmark Florida/Water 2070 study depicts what Florida would look like in 2070 if the state took a “business as usual" sprawling approach to accommodate new growth and development , and an alternative approach which better conserves land and water.

Building Better Communities--1000 Friends was instrumental in securing passage of the William E. Sadowski Affordable Housing Act, creating the nation's single largest dedicated revenue source for workforce housing. 1000 Friends provides input into the development of state and regional transportation plans, advocates for alternative transportation, and works to limit the construction of sprawl-inducing roads in key rural areas, including the M-CORES project planned for a 300-plus mile swath from Collier County on the fringes of the Everglades.

Updated weekly and with more than 100 pages, 1000 Friends' web site at www.1000friendsofflorida.org serves as Florida's clearinghouse on planning. Since 2011, 1000 Friends' free webinars have reached more than 18,000 individuals. Our weekly email alerts reach more than 12,000 contacts and we have active Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts. We have produced numerous special reports and held many workshops. 1000 Friends is frequently covered in the media, in news articles and editorial coverage.

New priorities--Florida's rate of growth is once again approaching 1000 new residents a day, bringing with it a host of new issues. 1000 Friend and the University of Florida's GeoPlan Center partnered on Florida 2070 and Water 2070 which had a media reach in excess of 135 million viewers. We launched series of 2070 workshops to date focusing on Palm Beach, Martin, Walton and St. Johns Counties, with more planned. We are now seeking funding for Sea Level 2070, a map series to educate state leadership on ramifications of sea level rise on Florida's population distribution, agriculture, and the environment.