Search

EarthCorps 

Description

EarthCorps provides more than 100,000 hours of critically needed, community-based environmental restoration service in Washington State every year. Our efforts unite best practices in environmental restoration with a community-based approach to service, education and action. EarthCorps restores key ecological sites such as urban forests and parks, wetlands, streams, shorelines and backcountry trails and facilities. We lead 10,000 volunteers annually, helping meet the urgent need for healthy forests and watersheds for the region's 3 million residents and visitors.

Mission Statement
EarthCorps' mission is to build a global community of leaders through local environmental service. Based in Seattle, EarthCorps trains emerging environmental leaders from across the United States and around the world and engages more than 10,000 volunteers each year to restore natural areas around the Puget Sound region.
Donate Now
EarthCorps
6310 NE 74th St Ste 201E 
Seattle 
WA
98115-8168 
(206) 322-9296 

Steve Dubiel 
Executive Director 

Programs

EarthCorps Programs

Corps Program
EarthCorps envisions a global community of young leaders and engaged citizens working to build strong local communities that support healthy habitats. The flagship corps program brings together up to 50 diverse young adults in a full-time, year-round conservation corps experience. They plant trees, restore salmon habitat, maintain trails, participate in environmental and cross-cultural workshops and learn to lead volunteers. Many of these young people go on to lead environmental projects in their home communities, from Seattle and Federal Way to Armenia, Kenya and Fiji.

Volunteer Program
The volunteer program engages 10,000 youth and community volunteers in hands-on environmental service projects each year. These projects take place in urban, suburban and rural areas. Activities with K-12 youth include in-school, weekend and summer environmental education and service learning experiences. EarthCorps has a long track record of partnering with youth and community organizations in low-income, ethnically diverse and underserved neighborhoods, for example, the Cheasty neighborhood of South Seattle and White Center in unincorporated King County.

Ecological Science
EarthCorps is a leader in the evolving field of community-based environmental restoration. In addition to hands-on habitat restoration and volunteer management, EarthCorps provides ecological planning and management tools including mapping, monitoring and scientific experiment design that help natural resource planners, public agencies and land trusts prioritize and benchmark their stewardship efforts. EarthCorps ecologists contribute actively to scientific and professional knowledge in the field, including our demonstration Coastal Blue Carbon project in the Snohomish estuary.

Recent Successes and Current Challenges

EarthCorps' corps program is an innovative "Peace Corps for the Earth" that allows young people from different countries to serve together, building global understanding while creating a healthier environment. For example, Karmila Parakkasi is an EarthCorps graduate who has taken on the challenging work of documenting endangered Sumatran tigers in the wild. She led the first team to photograph these tigers in Sumatra, and is at the forefront of preserving habitat for this iconic species. Karmila consistently defies stereotypes about women's roles and abilities, serving as a terrific role model for young women and men everywhere. She credits EarthCorps' program with giving her the confidence and network to pursue her longtime dream of species conservation.

Funding is needed to recruit, train and support emerging environmental leaders like Karmila who transform natural areas in the region and launch impactful careers by participating in EarthCorps' corps program. We also need homestay families who can host young people like Karmila and volunteers who can serve alongside her. When you support EarthCorps as a donor, volunteer or homestay, you improve the natural areas in our backyard, and you create a ripple effect of environmental improvements across the globe.

Evaluation

EarthCorps provides restoration services throughout the region and is effective at engaging and involving a diverse set of volunteers in their work. Their corps program provides quality environmental leadership development to young adults.

Proven Success
More than just a conservation organization, EarthCorps is a training and development organization for the conservationists of tomorrow. Through their participation in EarthCorps, alumni are spreading a hands-on education in project management, team building and environmental restoration. By providing ongoing mentorship to alumni in career preparation, resume building, references and job searches, EarthCorps is creating a global network of community-minded environmental leaders. Many alumni go on to serve in key stewardship or community roles in environmental organizations in the region.

Collaboration
Following the successful merger with Seattle Urban Nature, EarthCorps joined forces with long-time partners Friends of the Hylebos, a group that has worked with the Federal Way community to protect and restore the Hylebos Watershed. This merger strengthens their combined restoration and community building efforts while expanding EarthCorps’ presence in South King County. Following the People For Puget Sound’s closure, EarthCorps has once again shifted in order to take on their habitat restoration work, ensuring that this programming is continued.

Best Practices
As a result of every project involving its own unique collaboration of groups such as public agencies, neighborhood groups and local businesses, EarthCorps sees “every project site as a partnership.” This community based environmental restoration approach uniquely meets the needs of immediate of projects while empowering volunteers for the development of long-term maintenance solutions. By leveraging this volunteer resource, EarthCorps is able to strengthen the community as a whole.

Sustainability
EarthCorps uses a fee for service model and is able to charge a fee for many of their restoration programs. This provides them with a relatively stable source of revenue that helps their bottom line, which will allow EarthCorps to celebrate their 20th anniversary in 2013.

Grant History with The Seattle Foundation:

Grants Awarded through The Seattle Foundation Grantmaking Program:

DateAmountPurpose
3/10/2013 $12,000.00support general operating expenses.
3/10/2012 $10,000.00support general operating expenses.
9/10/2010 $25,000.00support general operating expenses.
6/26/2008 $26,000.00support general operating expenses.
6/21/2006 $25,000.00support general operating expenses.
3/18/2004 $25,250.00support general operating expenses.

Financials

Similar Organizations

Give broadly to the Environment
If you care about restoring the environmental health of Puget Sound, ensuring sustainability in our region, and broadening the environmental movement, then make a difference by giving to the Grantmaking Program.
Questions or comments about this organization?
Contact us to learn more.