Stewardship Partners 

Stewardship Partners helps farmers, landowners and community-based organizations to garner resources and take advantage of the variety of incentive-based programs that reward environmentally responsible land management.

Proven Success
Since 1999, they have restored 10+ miles of Snoqualmie River on 21 different private properties; built over 100 rain gardens and facilitated development of hundreds more, launched the 12,000 Rain Gardens campaign; completed "Salmon-Safe" certification on 107 agricultural properties, and conducted 60 educational workshops for 1,500 people on how to reduce polluted run-off. They have established collaborative relationships with other environmental groups, government agencies, tribes and the agricultural community to bring about mutually workable solutions to environmental problems.

Stewardship Partners manages the Washington Salmon-Safe program, an eco-label that recognizes farms, vineyards, golf courses, and college and corporate campuses that adopt conservation practices to help restore native salmon habitat in Pacific Northwest rivers and streams. To qualify each property owner adopts rigorous measures to restore in-stream habitat, conserve water, improve water quality, protect river and wetland habitats, reduce erosion and sedimentation, and limit the use of chemical pesticides. Stewardship Partners has certified as Salmon-Safe the University of Washington Seattle campus, REI's flagship store, a golf course, Seattle Art Museum's Olympic Sculpture Park, and the Edmonds PCC, and they are in conversations with Boeing and Microsoft about participating in the Salmon-Safe program.

Best Practices
Stewardship Partners offers programs and demonstration projects aimed at providing homeowners with ideas and tools to create stormwater runoff landscapes in their homes, public spaces and local businesses. Its rain garden program is an accessible tool for individuals to take action against stormwater runoff. The 12,000 Rain Gardens in Puget Sound project, a partnership with Washington State University, aims to grow and designate 12,000 rain gardens — which reduce pollution and alleviate flooding all while creating attractive landscapes that promote native plant growth in hearty soil — in the area by 2016. Caffe Vita, which has created the 12,000 Rain Gardens blend to benefit Stewardship Partners.

Collaboration
Stewardship Partners works with the community to implement collaborative restoration, environmental planning and conservation projects. It is effective at brokering relationships and involving community groups, government entities and landowners in creating sustainable stewardship plans.

Two primary partners are Washington State University (WSU) Extension and the Salmon-Safe Certification program. WSU is the national leader in rain garden research and design and their 12 Puget Sound Extension offices are committed to helping them build or register 12,000 rain gardens by 2016. WSU will provide students in their Master Gardener program with 100 hours of free training to become Rain Garden Mentors. In turn, each Mentor will volunteer an additional 100 hours to promote, build and maintain rain gardens throughout the region.

Financial Health
In recent years a high percentage of their budget has been from grants. In late 2011, they hired a part-time Development Director, the first dedicated fundraising staff position, to create a plan to identify and cultivate potential new donors and to retain and steward existing donors and diversify their revenue streams.

They have maintained a balanced budget the last three years. Through conservative fiscal management, Stewardship Partners has set aside reserves that will fund organizational expenses for up to six months should funding not be available from other sources. They are ramping up their new Adopt-a-Buffer program, which they expect will raise new funds from businesses and corporations who want to participate in the restoration of Puget Sound and its watersheds.