Using Grants to Fund Tree Planting and Urban Forestry Projects
Organizations that rely on grants to fund tree planting and urban forestry projects can dramatically cut reporting time and win more funding by seeing how Openlands uses TreePlotter to track every tree, funder, and outcome in one place
Why open this case study
- Learn how a leading Chicago-region nonprofit planting 1,000–1,200 trees per year uses TreePlotter to keep complex state, federal, and corporate grant requirements organized and audit‑ready.
- See how Openlands connects individual trees to specific grants, partners, and neighborhoods so staff can answer “which trees did this grant pay for?” in seconds instead of days.
- Discover how better tracking led to stronger stories of impact and helped support new awards, including a recent $75,000 EPA education grant.
What you’ll take away
- Practical ideas for simplifying grant reporting with custom data fields for funder name, nursery source, project code, and grant cycle built directly into your tree inventory.
- Reporting workflows you can copy to generate funder‑specific summaries, export clean spreadsheets, and create clear, community‑facing maps showing exactly where grant dollars are working on the ground.
- Examples of how accurate, mapped data turns routine reports into compelling narratives about public benefits, equity, and environmental outcomes that resonate with reviewers and stakeholders.
Who this Case Study is for
- Urban forestry and parks staff tired of juggling spreadsheets, GIS files, and separate grant trackers just to submit one progress report.
- Nonprofits and community tree‑planting groups managing multiple funders who need transparent, defensible data to maintain trust and renew support.
- Cities and counties preparing for state, federal, or IRA‑funded urban forestry grants who want a proven model for aligning software, field data collection, and reporting requirements.
How this case study helps you fund tree planting
- Shows how centralizing grant data in TreePlotter INVENTORY turns slow, error‑prone reporting into a fast, repeatable process that frees staff to focus on community engagement and planting events.
- Illustrates how map‑based reporting supports equity‑driven work, making it easy to demonstrate canopy gains in priority neighborhoods and relate projects to frameworks like the 3‑30‑300 rule.
- Highlights real quotes and results from Openlands’ forestry team so you can share this PDF with leadership, IT, or grant partners as a concrete example of what modern grant management can look like.
As Openlands Senior Forestry Program Manager Tom Ebeling says: “Being able to export a perfectly accurate planting report in minutes takes all of the tedium out of creating a good grant report and allows us to focus on the narrative portions that really highlight the importance of our work” “
Open the PDF to see the full Openlands mini case study, step‑by‑step screenshots, and example outcomes, and use it as a blueprint for transforming your own grant reporting with TreePlotter.—book a demo today.
“Being able to export a perfectly accurate planting report in minutes takes all of the tedium out of creating a good grant report and allows us to focus on the narrative portions that really highlight the importance of our work”
-Tom Ebeling, Senior Forestry Program Manager, Openlands