Keep Indianapolis Beautiful
Indianapolis, Indiana, United States · Nonprofit · Local · since 1976
Indianapolis nonprofit planting thousands of trees a year, building GreenSpaces and mobilizing 20,000 volunteers
About
Keep Indianapolis Beautiful (KIB) is a Keep America Beautiful affiliate founded in 1976 that engages Indianapolis neighborhoods to create vibrant public places. Its Community Forestry program plants free native trees in public rights-of-way at the request of residents, in partnership with the City of Indianapolis, Citizens Energy Group, AES Indiana and the Arbor Day Foundation; a 10,000-tree stormwater partnership with Citizens begun in 2017 reached its 10,000th tree on Arbor Day 2024. KIB also builds pocket-park GreenSpaces on vacant lots, restores native habitat with its Urban Naturalists, employs a summer Youth Tree Team to water and mulch young trees, and runs the Adopt-A-Block and Great Indy Cleanup litter programs. In 2025 it planted 3,491 trees and cared for 9,775 more with more than 20,000 volunteers across Marion County.
What they run
Residents apply for 30 or more free native trees to be planted in public spaces near them; KIB selects species, notifies neighbors and plants with volunteers, in partnership with the City, Citizens Energy Group, AES Indiana and the Arbor Day Foundation.
Paid summer crews of high-school youth and young-adult leaders who water and mulch KIB-planted trees across Indianapolis (4,052 trees mulched and 1,126 watered weekly in 2025).
Transforms vacant lots and underused spaces into planted pocket parks and greenspaces (64 sites by 2024), with ongoing volunteer maintenance workdays.
Trees by type of work
| Activity | Trees | Years |
|---|---|---|
| 🏙️ Urban forestry | 2,229 | 2024 |
Only figures attached to a named program count here. Organization-wide totals sit in the table below.
The numbers
| Metric | Year | Value | Program | Confidence | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trees planted | 2024 | 2,803 | Organization-wide | Self-reported | source2024 Perennial Report: 'KIB planted or gave away a total of 2,803 trees through its Community Forestry, GreenSpace, habitat restoration, and Adopt-A-Block programs in 2024' |
| Trees planted | 2025 | 3,491 | Organization-wide | Self-reported | source2025 Perennial Report, 'Growing the Urban Canopy' page: '3,491 trees planted', '9,775 trees cared for', '259,708 tree watering visits'; board chair letter says volunteers 'planted nearly 3,500 trees across Marion County' |
| Volunteers engaged | 2024 | 18,000 | Organization-wide | Self-reported | source2024 Perennial Report, board chair letter: 'more than 18,000 volunteers giving nearly 48,000 hours' |
| Volunteers engaged | 2025 | 20,512 | Organization-wide | Self-reported | sourceIRS Form 990 for 2025, Part I line 6 'Total number of volunteers (estimate if necessary)': 20,512; the website says KIB works with 'nearly 20,000 volunteers' each year |
| Trees planted | 2024 | 2,229 | Community Forestry | Self-reported | source2024 Perennial Report: 'The forestry program alone was able to plant a total of 2,229 trees in partnership with the City, Citizens Energy Group, AES Indiana, and the Arbor Day Foundation' |
How they report
What earned it
- 10/20 Publishes annual tree figures: 2 years of annual figures on record (5 points each, up to 4 years)
- 15/15 Figures are recent: Latest annual figure is for 2025
- 10/10 Every figure has a public source: 5 of 5 figures link to a source
- 0/15 Publishes financials or cost per tree: No financial figure recorded
- 0/15 Reports survival or monitoring: No survival or monitoring figure
- 0/10 Independently verified figure: All figures are the organization's own
- 10/10 Breaks figures down by program: Figures attached to named programs
- 5/5 Reports volunteers or events: Volunteer figures on record
- Latest annual figure
- 3,491 trees in 2025 (+25% on the year before)
- Trees per volunteer
- 0.2 in 2025
- Compare
- Put Keep Indianapolis Beautiful next to others · method
Upcoming events
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