Mission & Impact

Our mission is to connect everyone in San Francisco to nature by cultivating and conserving local habitats.

As a 20-year-strong grassroots environmental nonprofit, we empower everyone to be nature stewards. We organize habitat restoration projects, lead nature walks and events, offer wildlife gardening services, and provide tools and education for citizen scientists and lifelong learners.

Read below about our impacts, our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusionm our history, and our fiscal sponsor.

Our impact

For the last 20 years, we have connected people to nature and, in community, restored habitats all over San Francisco. Our work leverages the power of partnership, volunteers, technology, and inspiration to create and maintain lasting benefits for people, wildlife, and climate.

    • Presented 50 nature events across San Francisco with Youth in Action host for events in the Green Hairstreak Corridor, Palou Phelps Park, and Alemany Farm.

    • Gave 13,000 Nature in the City maps to valued partners, who will help distribute them.

    • Read about our 2024 impacts.

    • Engaged 300 volunteers and site stewards in the Green Hairstreak Corridor alone.

    • Launched the BART/MUNI Living Roofs corporate sponsorship initiative.

    • Read about our 2023 impacts.

    • Provided weekend volunteer opportunities, habitat restoration, on-site education, and neighborhood cohesion to four communities.

    • Piloted the Climate Career Corps with Enterprise for Youth and placed 200 young people in paid summer environmental sector internships.

    • Read about our 2022 impacts.

    • Adapted our workdays so family and same-household groups could safely participate during the COVID-19 shelter-in-place mandate.

    • Launched comprehensive interlinked projects on iNaturalist to leverage the power of community science.

    • Spoke up in favor of the San Francisco Climate Action Plan.

    • Read about our 2021 impacts.

We commit to diversity, equity, and inclusion by

  • Recruiting and retaining people of color for the Nature in the City staff, internships, and Advisory Council

  • Partnering with, learning from, and supporting groups dedicated to fighting racial and environmental injustice

  • Developing more projects that help ensure that Black, Indigenous and People of Color have local access to nature

  • Inviting our staff and Advisory Council to reflect on internal and external biases relating to race, class, and historical oppression

Our history, deeply rooted in San Francisco

Founder Peter Brastow started Nature in the City in 2005 to build, strengthen and unify the movement to conserve San Francisco's natural areas and restore biological diversity. Nature in the City has sought to catalyze ecological restoration and stewardship in San Francisco by connecting urban people and nature, right where we live. Peter entered the city's environmental activist community with a unique set of skills and experience, as an urban natural resource manager and community stewardship coordinator, from his former position as the Presidio's National Park Service Ecological Restoration Specialist.

Our fiscal sponsor, Earth Island Institute

Nature in the City is a project of Earth Island Institute. Since 1982, Earth Island has been a hub for grassroots campaigns dedicated to conserving, preserving, and restoring the ecosystems on which life depends. Earth Island provides comprehensive fiscal sponsorship and project support to a vibrant network of activists and social entrepreneurs promoting ecological sustainability and environmental justice.

Visit the Earth Island Institute website to learn more.