How Environmental Nonprofits Bridge the Gap in Urban Forestry: The Role of NTCC in Local Environmental Stewardship
Nonprofit organizations harness the power of local presence, expert knowledge, and network resources to meet pressing community needs. As an environmental nonprofit, Nashville Tree Conservation Corps’ mission is to support Nashville’s urban forest by collaborating intentionally with stakeholders of all kinds from across the city. In this article, we’ll examine what a nonprofit is, looking at NTCC as an example to illustrate how this type of civic institution implements its organizational goals for public (and ecological) benefit.
What Is a Nonprofit Organization?
A nonprofit organization is a form of social entrepreneurship. These self-organized civic engagement groups take initiative to meet widespread needs that aren’t sufficiently met by the public or private sectors.
Occupying the volunteer space, nonprofits seek to support the public good in a range of areas, such as education, health, social and cultural services, and environmental management. Nonprofits are usually formed to help provide solutions to problems that are too complex for existing institutions to address. Their organizational focus and expertise support them in meeting these needs with real, on-the-ground impact.
In particular, nonprofits can secure resources for projects that might otherwise be out of reach for smaller initiatives or beyond the scope of government programs. Many nonprofits are charitable organizations (including NTCC) that focus and direct all of their available resources to their particular cause.
What Does “Nonprofit” Actually Mean?
A nonprofit organization can technically make a profit (which may contribute to healthy fund reserves), but any profits must be used in service of the mission for the public good instead of being used for private benefit. This is ensured by legal registration and organizational requirements that promote transparency and accountability within the group.
Nonprofits are defined by the IRS under the code 501(c) as tax-exempt public benefit organizations, which can receive tax-deductible contributions from individual and corporate donors.
An organization’s 501(c) registration demonstrates legitimacy and allows donors to confidently contribute to the organization’s cause, knowing that the funds will be used for their intended purpose. A nonprofit is also required to be governed by a board, whose members provide oversight of the organization’s activities and financial responsibilities.
To be registered as a nonprofit, an organization must demonstrate that it produces an identifiable public benefit by submitting detailed descriptions of its planned activities with its main organizational documents. Once registered, the group is able to accept funding from various sources (including donations and grants) and implement its programs and projects.
Nashville Tree Conservation Corps as a Nonprofit
Nashville Tree Conservation Corps (a 501(c)(3) registered organization) creates several public benefits through our mission to promote, preserve, protect, and plant Nashville’s urban canopy. The benefits we strive to produce include:
Increased planting and active care for Nashville trees on public and private land;
Support for the development of canopy-conscious laws and regulations;
Provision of educational content for Nashville residents on private tree care (which produces many off-property benefits) and the importance of tree care in general;
Safeguard of ecosystem services performed by trees on both private and public land that were planted, cared for, or whose care was influenced by NTCC.
As an environmental nonprofit, we take initiative in many ways to protect and care for Nashville’s urban forest, including planting and maintaining the Shelby Avenue Arboretum, supporting legislation and the development of various local tree regulations, and distributing hundreds of quality trees annually to homeowners through our farm-to-yard tree sale.
By collaborating with a range of actors, including public agencies, businesses, and communities, we can gain insight into the canopy and leverage resources to make targeted interventions in the realms of legislation, advocacy, and tree planting. Check out more examples of the work we’re proud of on our accomplishments page.
Environmental Nonprofits
Nonprofits are well-suited to help manage environmental issues because they work at different scales (local, state, and national) with a range of stakeholders, including residents, businesses, grantmakers, and politicians (among many others). These organizations are network builders, which is essential in the environmental field because it affects every industry and every aspect of life.
Nonprofits are impactful in addressing environmental issues because, as formal groups, they can leverage their connections and resources to coordinate large, area-wide projects with multiple stakeholders over a long period of time. With a board of expert professionals and engaged citizens, members use data and research to assess, discuss, and plan ways to implement solutions and oversee the achievement of objectives in a focused, informed, and thorough way.
Managing natural environments is complex, since the resources (in our case, trees) are distributed over physical space and there are lots of different elements and time horizons to keep track of. Additionally, urban forests are regularly affected directly and indirectly by human activities and are constantly in flux. This requires a strategic agility that collective action groups are formed to embody.
Why It's More Important Than Ever to Support Nonprofits
Nonprofit organizations often rely heavily on donations from individuals, groups, and businesses to fund their on-the-ground work. When state or federal agencies tighten their budgets or de-prioritize environmental issues, private funding becomes even more important to keep nonprofits resilient and operational.
In 2024, only 3% of all charitable donations were made to environmental causes, indicating that these issues are underfunded relative to their importance. This number stresses the fact that there is a lot of work to be done in building awareness, urgency, and appreciation of among charitable donors to increase support for protecting and maintaining natural spaces.
The Nashville Tree Conservation Corps is one of the few local organizations dedicated to preserving trees, especially in policy, where we can scale our impact and amplify the voices of residents. Rapid development needs ecological safeguards, and property owners need a supportive system that helps them best care for the landscapes under their responsibility (big and small, rural and urban).
This work costs money, and we can’t do it without grassroots support from Nashvillians. Your gift will fund new trees and protect existing canopy through our policy and advocacy work.
$25 can water a new tree
$100 can fund a small tree from local farmers
$250 can fund a tree and professional planting
$1,000 can water 10 mature trees in the heat of summer
Donate today to support tree preservation and planting in your community!
If you’re in the market for new trees for your yard, purchase your next specimen(s) through NTCC’s tree sale! You can also donate a tree for us to plant, or sign up to volunteer with us to lend a hand to canopy care! Subscribe to our email newsletter to stay informed with our regular updates on local tree topics and care tips, and check out our Linktree for more ways to connect.