A foundation that began in a borrowed pickup truck.
A decade of climate work, built one watershed at a time. Here’s how we got here, what we believe, and who is doing it.
Five principles, written in soil.
Lead from the land
The communities tending the land — through generations of care, ceremony, and sometimes resistance — are the ones holding the soil together. Our job is to follow their lead. Not to set agendas, not to “build capacity,” not to graduate them off our funding. To listen, to fund, and to step out of the way.
Fund without strings
Three quarters of every dollar moves directly to community-led projects. No application longer than three pages. No reporting requirements that take more time than the work itself. We publish our entire grant portfolio every spring — wins, losses, and the things we got wrong.
Center Indigenous science
Indigenous land managers have stewarded watersheds for thousands of years. Their knowledge is not a “complement” to Western ecology — it is its own complete and rigorous tradition. We hire from it, fund it, teach it, and try, slowly, to learn from it.
It started where most things start: a question nobody could answer.
In the spring of 2014, six volunteers — a botanist, two teachers, a salmon biologist, a tribal forester, and a journalism student with a borrowed truck — kept showing up at the same disused logging road outside Coos Bay, Oregon.
Twelve years later, that watershed is the longest-running riparian recovery site in the lower 48. The journalism student became our co-founder. The pickup truck still runs. And the original question has become our operating principle: timelines are political. Trust the people who have been waiting longest.
Want to work with us, fund us, or have us speak?
Drop us a line. We answer everything within one business day.
A small team, mostly in the field.
Most of our team comes from partner communities. We pay everyone — including board members. Our salary range is published.
Maya Tenkiller
Cherokee descent. Botanist. Started Living Roots with a clipboard and a question.
Jacob Reed
Former journalism student. Still writes our annual report longhand.
Naima Wabasha
Anishinaabe Land Defenders alum. Leads our community grants portfolio.
Theodore Adler
Built the curriculum that 4,200 educators are now teaching.