San Diego Foundation
San Diego Foundation is a community foundation dedicated to inspiring enduring philanthropy and enabling community solutions to improve the quality of life in the region. Since 2006, San Diego Foundation's Climate Initiative has provided leadership and philanthropic investment to create a more sustainable path towards economic growth and a higher quality of life for San Diego's diverse communities. The Initiative aims to advance science-based, collaborative development of local policies and programs that reduce the region’s polluting emissions and minimize local risks from climate change. With a focus on building regional resilience communities, the Initiative invests in projects with multiple environment and community health benefits.
In 2023, San Diego Foundation established a partnership with The Good Traveler and serves as the designated San Diego nonprofit tasked with investing donations from The Good Traveler into local San Diego environment projects such as urban forestry and tree planting. Trees, for example, provide ecosystem services that include, but are not limited to, carbon dioxide removal, health benefits, water control, wildlife habitat, and air quality. In 2023, funds from The Good Traveler Program and supported Tree San Diego.
Tree San Diego is a nonprofit organization dedicated to enhancing the quality, density, and sustainability of the region's urban forests for the benefit of all communities and the environment. Recently celebrating 10 years of impact, they have planted more than 9,000 trees with project partners and monitored over 34,000. San Diego Foundation has had a long-standing partnership with Tree San Diego over the years to support their climate mitigation and community health efforts throughout San Diego County. In January 2022, San Diego Foundation funded Tree San Diego's research project to analyze the urban forestry initiatives in each jurisdiction's climate action plan goals. With support from the County Green Workforce grant program, Tree San Diego implemented an urban forestry training pilot program, engaging 32 individuals in its first official cohort in Spring 2023. Since the conclusion of TSD's pilot cohort, 8 have been placed in urban forestry related jobs, filling a vital gap within the community and this sector. These programs helped prompt federal funding and capacity for Tree San Diego to expand upon their initiatives. Funds donated through The Good Traveler Program in 2023 have been combined with additional SDF funding for Tree San Diego to work on the following:
- Identifying best practices in urban forestry and tree planting initiatives
- Recommendations for the development of a sustainable model for tree planting
- Successful execution of a piloted tree planting event, fostering collaboration among municipalities
- Development of a formal implementation proposal for the regional urban forestry management plan
https://www.sdfoundation.org/community-impact/impact-areas/environment/climate-initiative/
