TreeRM

Our City Forest

San Jose, California, United States · Nonprofit · Local · since 1994

San Jose nonprofit greening Silicon Valley since 1994 with free yard trees, a community nursery and AmeriCorps crews

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Urban forestry (primary) Tree adoption & giveaways Nurseries & seedlings Tree care & maintenance Education & advocacy

About

Our City Forest has been San Jose's leading urban forestry nonprofit since 1994, planting and caring for trees across Santa Clara County with volunteers and an AmeriCorps program that has graduated more than 650 members since 2007. It grows drought-tolerant trees and shrubs at its Community Nursery and Training Center on Spring Street, provides free or donation-based 15-gallon yard trees to residents in grant-funded areas of San Jose and Sunnyvale with three years of follow-up care, runs the Lawn Busters lawn-conversion program and operates an Urban Forestry Education Center with an arboretum. The organization says it has planted and cared for more than 80,000 trees.

What they run

Free Trees Tree adoption & giveaways

Free or donation-based 15-gallon yard trees for residents of grant-funded areas in San Jose and Sunnyvale, chosen at the Community Nursery, with planting and three years of care included.

Community Nursery and Training Center Nurseries & seedlings

Volunteer-run nursery at 1000 Spring Street growing thousands of native and drought-tolerant trees, shrubs and grasses, with weekly workdays and an annual Fall Fest.

Tree Care Tree care & maintenance

Follow-up watering, pruning and stewardship of planted trees, including Tree Amigo volunteer stewards.

Urban Forestry Education Center Education & advocacy

Arboretum and demonstration gardens at 391 Chynoweth Avenue hosting workshops, DIY lawn-conversion classes and Saturday volunteer workdays.

The numbers

MetricYearValueProgramConfidenceSource
Funds raised (USD)20252,636,712Organization-wideSelf-reportedsourceProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, Form 990 for fiscal year ending June 2025: total revenue $2,636,712 (expenses $2,358,042)
Trees plantedto date202680,000Organization-wideSelf-reportedsource2026 Growing Our Future Gala page: since 1994 Our City Forest has 'planted and cared for more than 80,000 trees across Santa Clara County' (figure combines planted and cared-for trees)

How they report

Transparency
34 / 100 · Thin
What earned it
  • 0/20 Publishes annual tree figures: No year-by-year figures found
  • 0/15 Figures are recent: No dated annual figure
  • 10/10 Every figure has a public source: 2 of 2 figures link to a source
  • 15/15 Publishes financials or cost per tree: Revenue or cost-per-tree figure on record
  • 0/15 Reports survival or monitoring: No survival or monitoring figure
  • 0/10 Independently verified figure: All figures are the organization's own
  • 4/10 Breaks figures down by program: Programs named, figures not broken out
  • 5/5 Reports volunteers or events: Public events listed
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