Impact Award Winner - Non-Profit Breaking Tree-Planting Records Despite Federal Cuts [Shelly Douglas]

[00:00:10] Dominique: Hello. Welcome to another episode of Green Champions.

[00:00:13] Adam: Thanks for joining us in a conversation with real people sharing sustainability success stories.

[00:00:17] Dominique: From entrepreneurs to artists, scientists to activists, this podcast is a platform for Green Champions to share their stories and plant new ideas. I'm Dominique.

[00:00:27] Adam: And I'm Adam. This episode is part of a mini-series in partnership with the Midwest Regional Sustainability Summit, which celebrates the collaborative climate solutions in the Midwest region of the United States.

[00:00:37] Dominique: If you've kept up with this mini-series, you've joined us in virtually attending this annual summit and meeting a few of the over 100 speakers and key storytellers from this year's event. Today we're actually doing something special, we're bringing back our very first guest in the podcast for a special reason, but first I'm gonna let Adam tell you about the awards that take place at the Midwest Regional Sustainability Summit.

[00:00:58] Adam: Every year, the Midwest Regional Sustainability Summit announces their sustainability awards. There's awards for impact, innovation, leadership and achievement, which are given to organizations and individuals. A quick glimpse into this year's winners include filmmakers, nonprofit leaders, food system innovators, UN advisors, and more.

[00:01:15] Dominique: A dear friend of ours and the podcast was awarded the Impact Award this year, and we thought it was very fitting to bring her back to catch us up on her champion story. So welcome back, Shelly. 

[00:01:25] Shelly: Hello. Thanks for having me back.

[00:01:27] Dominique: Shelly. 

Congratulations on being awarded the 2025 Impact Award. This recognizes significant and measurable sustainability impact that increases natural resource conservation with and for diverse audiences within its facilities operations, organizational structure, and the community at large.

And as a reminder for our listeners, we have here Shelly Douglas. She is the Executive Director of Green Columbus. Green Columbus is a nonprofit that activates volunteer engagement, increases equitable tree canopy coverage, and fosters resilient communities. And since we last had Shelly on the podcast, she actually has broke her all time record for trees planted, which was actually the second year in a row for doing that. She's secured quite a bit of grant funding, bought a truck, piloted a new model as a way to help schools get more tree coverage and found herself at the receiving end of Trump's executive orders.

And we'll get into all of that. But before we get there, Shelly, can you just talk us through those three pillars of what you do as a refresher and then we'll get to your incredible story. So start at the volunteer engagement, what does that mean for Green Columbus?

[00:02:29] Shelly: volunteer engagement is very important for Green Columbus because everything that is done besides what I do, is done by a volunteer. it's just me full-time and we have a lot of summer fellows and an AmeriCorps member and interns in and out throughout the year.

But our volunteers who do most of the work when we talk about the thousands of trees planted and all of our programs happening, our volunteers actually are the ones who show up and do all the work. And also that's really part of our effort to get people involved in these projects so that they care more, that they walk away with some sort of like attachment to their community or to that project. And we just have more eyes and ears out in the community, looking for new projects and kind of talking to people about Green Columbus. And so our volunteers are really our mobilization effort.

[00:03:19] Dominique: How many volunteers are we talking?

[00:03:21] Shelly: Well, we have thousands of volunteers at Green Columbus. Depends on the project we're talking about, but most of our volunteers annually come from our Earth Day campaign in the month of April. We have 5,000 volunteers each April engage in volunteer projects across Central Ohio. But beyond those 5,000 volunteers, we have a volunteer board of directors. There's about 15 of them who help more with the operational support of Green Columbus. And we welcome over 500 volunteers out to our tree nurseries every year to help grow our trees for our giveaways. So, thousands. 

[00:03:58] Adam: Wow. 

[00:03:59] Dominique: the second piece here is like your tree canopy coverage focus. What does that mean?

[00:04:03] Shelly: that means not only planting trees, but planting them in places that need the most and where they're gonna have the most impact.

And so we do that through pretty much three different projects, our tree giveaways from our Linden Tree nursery, our Earth Day free seedling giveaways, and our Columbus City Schools Tree Planting program. And so we're always adding new projects and recently the gap in the need seems to be in filling that tree canopy gap that we have in our communities. And so we know that communities with less trees have higher rates of asthma, high rates of heart disease. They actually have lower property values, higher crime rates, lower business vitality. So there's all sorts of social benefit to having trees in your community.

And we kind of wanted to tie that in with our mission statement 'cause you can't build resilient communities or build a volunteer base if people don't have a safe place to live if they don't have shade and protection from extreme heat clean air, things like that. 

[00:05:04] Dominique: People love to say like, our thing, our initiative, our sales, whatever it is, helps plant trees. But you are actually growing and planting those trees.

[00:05:13] Shelly: Right. Yeah. If those people are looking for someone to plant the trees for them, we're available. You can hit us up. 

[00:05:19] Adam: Now, how many trees are you planting each year? 

[00:05:21] Shelly: So we are trying to always plant more. That is always the goal, right? Is to try to beat our record every year, but for seedling trees, which are, smaller, they're between 12 and 24 inches. So we lovingly call them sticks and pots at the tree nursery, they look like sticks.

But since the last time I have been here, we broke our record was 74,000 tree seedlings for Earth Day, and 72,000 was our record before that. So we beat it again. And we've actually planted 220,000 seedling trees in the last four years alone. And we've done 300,000 since we started in 2007. So we're rapidly picking up steam. 

[00:06:01] Dominique: And it's all local?

[00:06:02] Shelly: All 300,000 of those trees have gone to Central Ohio and we're able to plant a lot of those because they're small. And so the goal there is to plant as many as you can and to plant them a little more closely. Whereas when we do large tree plantings, those numbers are smaller 'cause these are much bigger trees and it's kind of a different approach to that. The seedlings are for restoration and the large trees are more for like immediate visual impact. 

[00:06:29] Adam: Now since you were our first guest, you've piloted this new program with schools, tell us a little bit more about that.

[00:06:35] Shelly: Yeah, so I think the last time I was here we had planted about four schools and there's about a hundred trees between those four schools. And now today, we've done 24 schools. 

We were able to pilot a contract planting project. And so while we have our volunteer engagement arm and we host thousands of volunteers throughout the year, we felt that we could do more faster if we kind of had an assigned team just out planting trees, and especially because we're planting trees in communities that are suffering from extreme heat, low income and all kinds of poverty and addiction happening in communities we can't expect volunteers to be able to come out and complete all this work at the same time as they're trying to live their day-to-day life.

And so we secured grant funding to plant 500 trees at region one Columbus City schools. And these are all native, large canopy, 200 pound, 10 foot tall ginormous trees. And we hired a contracted team to go out and plant all of those, but Green Columbus did all of the communication with the schools, the fundraising, we made the maps, we go out and do the maintenance. And now we're able to have our volunteer events and also be planting trees in the meantime to try to meet the goals we have rapidly coming up for our city 2050, 2040 years that we're trying to meet some of these tree planting goals. 

[00:08:04] Adam: you mentioned that these are bigger trees. They're not the, not the sticks and pots, seedlings? 

[00:08:10] Shelly: So these are what we call ball and burlap trees, and they're called that because they have the burlap sack on the bottom of the root ball. And these trees like one person could not pick them up. Like we have to get the contractors bring machinery to get them off the truck. They have to auger the holes with machines. And the reason that we're using trees that big is because Columbus City schools asked us to because they also want these trees to live and provide benefits. And if we plant seedlings next to the playground, they're gonna get yanked outta the ground immediately. So these trees are not able to be knocked over by children.

[00:08:48] Dominique: Durable. Resilient from a nature standpoint and from children.

[00:08:53] Shelly: Yes. So they will be stronger and have more likelihood of surviving.

[00:08:57] Dominique: Yeah. That's awesome. And I was gonna ask you like, why schools, like, why is it so important? Why was it grant funded? Can you share a bit about just the benefit for like the actual building and the students inside?

[00:09:07] Shelly: Yeah, so part of the reason we went with schools is because it is technically not public property, even though they are Columbus city schools. The city of Columbus is not responsible for paying for, you know, trees at schoolsSchools are viewed as a community space. People use the playgrounds and the green space. And some of them don't have air conditioning or are paying really, really high utility bills. And so that was part of why Columbus City Schools was willing to partner with us is because eventually their utility bills will start to come down.

It won't be as hard to run air conditioning in the schools. Teachers are telling us that students don't wanna play sports anymore. They don't wanna go outside for recess. They don't wanna be in the marching band because it's just so hot. And so, they have to cancel band practice 'cause the instruments get too hot outside, right?

If you're a parent listening, you don't wanna sit out at a baseball game for three hours in the blazing sun with no shade. And so just creating like usable space on the campus to kind of calls back to our building resilient communities arm of like having a space outside in nature where these students, and not just students, parents and teachers can like connect with green space and trees and nature 

So we've been planting heavily around baseball fields, football fields, track, the bus stops, the entrance, whatever the walking path is from the neighborhood to the school. We're strategically placing them in areas where people use so that we can make sure that our schools are continued to be usable in a safe place for our children to go. And so the schools have spent a lot of money on like beautiful playgrounds and things like that. And so it's kind of protecting their investment as well, of making sure future students will still be able to use that playground.

[00:10:55] Dominique: these trees only gonna grow bigger and have like a wider canopy. And so that just is like a great thing to think about investing in now, which, yeah, we talk all day about how good trees are.

You also run a tree nursery. And on the front of like the equity work that you do is giving those trees out from the nursery for free.

And you hit a really great achievement in the past year while also losing a nursery location. Can you tell us a bit about that and what that achievement has looked like?

[00:11:22] Shelly: Yeah, so our Tree Nursery initiative started in 2019 and it has evolved in many ways since then. 

last time I was here, we were right in the middle of expanding our Linden Nursery so that we could close our Hilltop Nursery.

we now have all 3000 of our tree giveaway capacity at our Linden nursery. Before it was split. 1500 and 1500 and we made that decision for a multitude of reasons.Now all our trees are in the same place. It's a lot easier to get a huge group of volunteers out for one big day rather than doing two days at two separate locations, 

And we still hosted giveaways, not only at our Linden Nursery, but we drove trees.

I think it's a real like feat of volunteer power to just like, look at this entire, property where a house should be really, it's in the middle of a community and it's just 3000 pots and then within an hour, right? Empty. Like every single tree gone. And it happens every year and it surprises me every year.

[00:12:22] Dominique: last time you were on the podcast, we asked you what would take organization ahead and you answered without a beat saying, "Hey, we need a truck." 

[00:12:30] Shelly: Yep. And we got it.

[00:12:31] Adam: Very awesome.

[00:12:32] Dominique: How'd that happen?

[00:12:33] Shelly: Well, I don't know, maybe I had a supporter listening to my Green Champions episode, but we had the Jeffrey Family Foundation reach out. And they basically asked us that question of, we really like to support, almost like tactile, like something that's just going to immediately help your organization. Like what would that be? And I answered "I need a truck and I need it fast." And so we bought a used vehicle and they helped us pay for that. And they also paid for trees to be planted at schools. 

Since I asked for the truck last time I was on here and then it, 'poof!' appeared for me. I'll just keep putting things out there.

[00:13:07] Dominique: That's incredible. Has that had the impact in the organization that you thought it would? 

[00:13:11] Shelly: Oh yeah, yeah. So not only are we, we're saving money, we were renting U-Haul, we were paying for delivery and freight. And not only that, but like my personal vehicle was getting destroyed. Our volunteers vehicles were getting destroyed. And so it has increased our organizational capacity in a big way. But also I think that just being able to offer, "Hey, can we drop off trees to you?" "Hey, I have this, can I drop it off to you?" Rather than, "Hey, can you come pick it up?" Like, we just have a lot more interest in people taking part in things because it's just easier for us to get trees to them.

[00:13:46] Dominique: Well, you also gained a new title in the last year. 

The mayor has appointed you as an advisor. Can you explain what that is and what that means?

[00:13:55] Shelly: So the Columbus Recreation & Parks Department has a committee, the Recreation Parks committee, that kind of advises the future of our parks and green spaces in our city. And they are advised by the Columbus Tree Subcommission. And Rosalie Hendon, who's our City Forester, recommended me to the committee, the subcommittee, because she wanted to have more of a community driven voice on the commission.

Mayor Ginther appointed meSo I am a Columbus Tree Subcommissioner and we meet basically to advise recreation parks on the types of trees they should be planting, where they should be planting 'em. I was super excited to be added to that commission because while we do mostly planting on private property and with residents and volunteers, that's our opportunity to advocate and influence the city and their much larger budget that they have and they're about to get.

And that's why it's really important to have, organizations like Green Columbus and people who actually work with the residents in on those conversations.

[00:15:01] Adam: talking about politics, you've had a lot of success this year, but you've also been impacted by Trump's executive orders. How have you navigated that and how has that impacted you? 

[00:15:09] Shelly: thank you for asking about this. I think it's really important to let people know that these impacts are being felt locally. It's not just the big corporations and things like that being hit, it'syour one staff person, grassroots, nonprofit. 

And we, as a nonprofit, our financials are public, right? But last year, to put it in perspective, our income was about $400,000. So that gives you an idea of the size of organization that we are. We had a grant with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. Actually, it just finished on May 31st, but it was a three year long grant. So I signed that in 2022.

And that project was to plant trees at Columbus City School, so that was about half of our funding. It was a one-to-one match grant. So not only do we have to spend the money that they're reimbursing us for, we have to show that we're also bringing in money from other places to match that. 

And so we had $75,000 from Ohio Department of Natural Resources to plant trees at Columbus City schools. so we're in the last few months of our contract and I submitted for reimbursement. "Hey, we planted all 500 trees. Yay. They're all on the ground. We're done. "

[00:16:19] Dominique: Already spent the money. Already put the trees in the ground. You're just seeking reimbursement?

[00:16:24] Shelly: Right. Yeah. So we've already paid out all of our contracts, right? And so I submit for reimbursement and Ohio Department of Natural Resources sent out a letter to all of their grantees that due to Trump's executive orders, they're not able to access the funding that they need to reimburse us because it comes from the US Forest Service and the US Forest Service was frozen.

So, they were in a really uncomfortable position of being like, We have this contract with you and we can't fulfill it because we're not being given our money. So it wasn't even a federal grant, it was a state grant. But they were still able to freeze that. And we, as a $400,000 a year nonprofit, we're out $75,000.

[00:17:07] Dominique: A large chunk, percentage-wise. 

[00:17:09] Shelly: we basically had to sit down as a group and figure out where $75,000 worth of funding was gonna come out of. And they said at that time, "we have no idea if it will get unfrozen. It is our professional opinion that you should not spend anymore of that money." We spent it all. 

[00:17:26] Dominique: Thanks. Yeah, thanks for that.

[00:17:28] Shelly: at that point in time, in order to make sure our organization would survive, had to take money out of other projects like Earth Day. And had to ask our contracts that were already signed if, you know, there's anything we can do to bring down costs and we as an organization didn't wanna cancel our Earth Day celebration.

We didn't want to plant less trees, but we had to wait and see what was gonna happen. And so we decided to pull that money from our Earth Day programming wherever we could. As a result, we're only able to plant 14,000 tree seedlings for Earth Day this year. So if you recall last time I was here, we broke our record, 72,000 in 2023. 74,000 in 2024. And then we did 14,000 this year. So that just like, kind of gives you a numerical impact of what Trump's executive orders took from our community.

And it was really heartwarming because nonprofits and individuals and businesses stepped up to pay for people's trees. And not only their trees, but other groups who weren't gonna be able to get their requested tree seedlings this year. And so for us, that made us feel like even in hard times people are still kind of resonating with our mission and want to make these projects happen.

 Sitting here today, we did, we have received $50,000 worth of that grant reimbursement. I'm still waiting on the last check, but they did unfreeze it. It was just unfrozen so long after we had expected to receive the funding that the damage had already been done. 

And so the good news is we have a lot of people who were very upset and didn't feel that something like this, planting trees at schools should be political. It should be something that everyone is in support of because we all live on this planet, we all breathe this air. We all are a part of this community. 

 So hopefully I'll be back next time with my next all time record of 100,000 Tree Seedlings for Earth Day 2026.

[00:19:24] Dominique: I hope that's true and yeah, I think it's incredible how the nonprofit had to shift into like survival mode. And like kudos for surviving 'cause that is like a really huge deficit to not have like organizational loss with. But also I think that does speak volumes. Just the impact that you're having and the way the people feel and see what you're doing to rise to the occasion of "Oh, they're not gonna support this, then I'm going to."

So I'm happy for the fact that we know a lot of like this negativity is on the way still currently being delivered. I have to laugh otherwise I cry. But it's a good reminder that like we do have a lot of power. Like there is so much, potential and like the way that we react.

So for next year, what you need not only is funding support, but also able to show up and to help put those trees in the ground. So I'll say that for you of if you're gonna beat that record again, you also need people to show up and I hope people who are listening either have time, money, or both.

[00:20:21] Shelly: Yeah. Or project ideas. If you have an area around you near a stream or farmland or something that doesn't look great environmentally wise, let us know and we might be able to get some trees in there.

[00:20:32] Dominique: On that note, this spring, so you talked about the way the executive order had affected your funding and some of the initiatives you're planning to have. But the spring in particular was a time for celebration for you, for Green Columbus, for the community. On top of your earth day celebration, which we'll talk about, You were also selected as one of five nonprofits to watch which I think is also really awesome to acknowledge and celebrate amidst a lot of craziness.

I was super excited to hear that we were five nonprofits to watch in Columbus because this was not something that we like applied for or were nominated for. This is something that the Columbus Foundation sits down and decides internally just based on what they've seen. So that to me makes me feel like, despite it being a hard year, that we're growing and that we're always getting better and that somebody thinks we're worth watching. Besides me. 

Adam and I do think so too. 

[00:21:24] Adam: Very much. 

[00:21:24] Dominique: That's now a group of four. 

[00:21:26] Shelly: There are probably thousands of nonprofits in Columbus, 

And so I'm very humbled to know that Green Columbus out of a wealth of really amazing groups stands out. And I think it was really good timing for us as an organization because we've kind of had these multiple years of building and new leadership and a truck and new changes happening that this kind of came at a really great time to where we're ready to like, open everything up to the community and be like, "This is who we are and where we're going."

W

[00:21:57] Adam: hat is that next level and what's next for Green Columbus? 

[00:21:58] Shelly: Well, I think that the Columbus Climate Action Plan and the Columbus Urban Forestry Master Plan guide a lot of the work that Green Columbus does. we wanna reach 40% tree canopy and we wanna have 0% net loss, right? We wanna at least be planting at the same rate that we're removing. It should be, we should be planting more. And we want to take the lead in terms of private property planting. So we wanna do all the schools. That's our goal is there's over a hundred Columbus City schools. 

 Then we are trying to figure out what city funding there might be for us to tap into over the next four years where we can do things like libraries and our recreation centers, which act as cooling centers, shelters, resiliency hubs, right in a climate emergency of, in a natural disaster of some sort.

And so we want to make sure that those are resilient.

We wanna do affordable housing units. We would love to do like early childhood learning centers. And so I think we are gonna start thinking about a larger nursery location and kind of what that would look like 'cause we're maxed out at 3000 at our current property. 

Something that we look to do in the next couple of months is launch the Columbus Tree Coalition. we just want to have a place for community leaders where there's not city employees and where, you know, the government is not in the room to where they can talk about what they need and value in their community. So hopefully that'll be our next like convening opportunity for the community will be the Columbus tree coalition.

[00:23:29] Adam: Love that. Fantastic. 

[00:23:31] Dominique: Yeah, I mean, thank you so much for walking us through your success, but also thank you for how much you do for the community. I'm happy to see you getting rewarded for awards and recognition 'cause it is so deserved. We love you and we think that what you do is really awesome.

We talked a lot about like the milestones you've hit. 

I wanted to also mention this is the 55th anniversary year. What are you most proud of when you sit back and just think about like the last year and some, what makes you feel most proud of the work that you're doing? 

[00:24:01] Shelly: For me it's always been the tree giveaway day when people actually come and pick up their trees from the nursery. That is always the most like fulfilling full circle moment for me And I see them go off to their homes and it, every year is astounding to me that every single person who shows up has a smile on their face and is just tickled to death to be getting their free tree. And that it works, right? That the model works. It's not like I'm growing these trees and I stand there and I'm like pulling teeth to get people to come pick 'em up. 

So that's definitely the most rewarding. And then honestly our Earth Day celebration this year was the 55th anniversary of Earth Day in our country, but the 18th anniversary of Earth Day in Columbus. this was the best event we've had yet was our Earth Day celebration at Scioto Audubon Metro Park. And it was another time where I was fully convinced nobody's gonna show up because everything went wrong. Construction, different day, different location, and it was just the absolute best day ever, with the best turnout ever and the best weather ever.

And so I think it was really refreshing for people in a time like this to see so many people in the community come out just to spend time and like be around each other and to show support for something that isn't being supported at the national level. 

[00:25:19] Adam: So how can people connect with you and support the work that you're doing?

[00:25:22] Shelly: So Green Columbus is on Instagram and Facebook, follow us on there just to see when we have like, upcoming events or when we win cool awards, like the Sustainability Impact Award and we post about it, that's where you can see photos of our events that happen and we're trying to be better about sharing more about our wins and not just like doing the work and calling it a day.

Our website is greencbus.org and that's where if you're interested in volunteering at the tree nursery, or even if you wonder about being a board member or you wonder how else you can get involved, that's where you can submit your information for that.

And we have a email list. So on our website you can also sign up for our email list and we'll notify you of when I need help.And so we will communicate with you through those channels. 

[00:26:12] Dominique: So last time you said you needed a truck, now you have a truck. This episode, what do you wanna tell the universe you need?

[00:26:18] Shelly: I am going back to the second staff person because I think it's always been kind of like a bragging point of like, "Oh, we do all this with one staff person," but like, it's getting to the point now where like, we shouldn't. Like, we should have more support to do this work. I think 

 the energy I'm putting into the universe is that we're gonna grow internally at Green Columbus so that we can start pushing out even more work into the community. 

[00:26:43] Adam: Well done. Awesome. Well, thanks again for joining us and thanks for all the work that you do with Green Columbus.

[00:26:48] Shelly: Thanks for having me.

As always, our guests have found a unique way to champion sustainability. We are here to put real names and stories behind the idea that no matter your background, career, or interests, you really can contribute in the fight against climate change.

[00:27:00] Dominique: You can find our episodes and reach us at thegreenchampions.com. If you wanna stay in the loop, give us a review and follow us in your favorite podcast platform.

[00:27:08] Adam: Our music is by Zayn Dweik. Special thanks to the Green Umbrella, host of the Annual Midwest Regional Sustainability Summit. And thanks to you for listening to Green Champions. We'll dig into another sustainability success story in our next episode.

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