The Treetops Grant Program supports a range of projects, including open space stewardship, environmental action, organizational development, health and wellness, youth engagement, arts and culture, and urban tree care and planting.
Donor Name: City Parks Foundation
State: New York
City: New York City
Borough: Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Staten Island and Queens
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 10/15/2025
Size of the Grant: $10,000 to $100,000
Grant Duration: 2 Years
Details:
The NYC Green Fund Treetops Grant Program provides funding for organizations with annual operating budgets between $175,000 and $2.5 million that program, steward, and advocate for parks and open spaces across NYC’s five boroughs.
Areas of Support
Applicants may apply for funding in at least one and up to three of the following:
- Stewardship: Community-oriented care of open spaces, such as volunteer service projects;
- Examples: planting and maintaining a native flower garden, maintaining a dog run, organizing a series of beach cleanups.
- Environmental action: Educational and awareness-building programs that provide people with the skills to take responsible actions to protect the environment;
- Examples: hosting a series of programming such as teach-ins on the impacts of shore erosion, holding a forum on air quality, or organizing a training to mobilize local park champions.
- Organizational development: Support the organization’s ability to thrive, including activities incurring a one-time expense such as training, strategic planning, marketing, communications, financial management, HR systems, and transition or succession planning;
- Examples: hosting conflict resolution training; purchasing accounting software; developing a 5-year plan; convening partners for a shared staff training day.
- Youth engagement: Job training for high school students and/ or talent development programs to support young adults (18- 24) entering the workforce;
- Examples: supporting youth through paid internships, developing a mentorship program with STEM professionals.
- Health and wellness: Activities that promote physical, mental, and emotional health for park users, such as exercise, community connections, or meditation;
- Examples: yoga series in the park, a free basketball league, ongoing nature walks, or convening community members for a wellness series in the park.
- Arts and culture: Ongoing arts and community-oriented cultural programming in an open space. (Note that one-off performances are not eligible, only multi-day series.)
- Examples: a series of public theater performances, a summer movie night series, ongoing arts and crafts making workshops, or a multi-day music festival.
- Urban Forest Grants brought to you by Con Edison: Activities that promote urban canopy health, such as tree planting, tree stewardship (this can include events), tree guard installation, tree rescue, and educational events.
- Examples: tree planting or tree bed clean-ups; coordinating with NYC Parks Tree Time to plant trees; hosting a series of tree care education workshops.
Funding Information
Organizations with annual operating budgets between $175,000 and $2,500,000 may be awarded one- or two-year grants of up to $50,000 annually.
Eligible Expenses
Eligible expenses include:
- Staffing costs, including fringe benefits (full-time/part-time/ seasonal/ internships/ apprenticeships/ etc.)
- Consultants, contractors, or professional fees
- Programming costs for ongoing arts programs or a series
- Equipment and supplies
- Marketing and outreach costs
- Impact assessment costs.
Eligibility Criteria
- Organizations with demonstrated experience working in NYC’s publicly owned and accessible open spaces, with annual operating budgets in the previous fiscal year between $175,000 and $2,500,000, are eligible to apply. Examples include but are not limited to:
- Parks or open space stewardship-focused organizations
- Open space programming- focused organizations
- Organizations that advocate for open space improvements
- Organizations offering green workforce development
- The applicant or applicant’s fiscal sponsor must be exempt from federal taxation as a public charity as described in sections 509(a)(1), (2), (3), or (4) and Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
For more information, visit City Parks Foundation.
