Mission

The Watershed Project's mission is to inspire San Francisco Bay Area communities to understand, appreciate, and protect our local watersheds.

Our Vision

We all are connected through the San Francisco Bay Area watershed, where water connects us from neighborhoods upstream down to the bay and ocean. The Watershed Project envisions a future where the value of that connection is widely shared in our communities; where we all take pride in caring for and enjoying our shared watershed and its abundant resources.

We envision a future where everyone in our communities has equitable access to a healthy environment that provides clean air and water. Along with our many community and local group partners, through educating, community organizing, restoring creeks, shorelines, and native plant communities, and implementing vital green infrastructure projects, The Watershed Project is committed to building environmental resiliency and equity in the San Francisco Bay Area.

We all have the power to protect our local watersheds. Exercise your power - join us!

Learn more about us in our 2018-2019 Annual Report

Last year annual report: 2017-2018 Annual Report

Watch our 20th Anniversary video

Who We Are - For staff bios please click here.

The Watershed Project staff is composed of a passionate group of educators, nature lovers, facilitators, artists, and problem-solvers who implement our mission by always taking a collaborative approach in decision-making. In order to provide capacity for the communities with whom we work and to catalyze community action, we understand that a collaborative approach is the only equitable way.

Internally, we’re a cohesive team who genuinely enjoy working with one another and celebrating our differences as much as we truly enjoy working with community members. We’re experts in San Francisco Bay and Pacific Ocean ecosystems, biology, and habitat and plant communities, though we are constantly learning along the way. We possess all kinds of eclectic knowledge. We’re community organizers who build partnerships and manage large-scale green infrastructure projects and urban forestry initiatives, who take pride in our accomplishments while acknowledging we can never accomplish these projects alone. We value and encourage community science as a tool, and are leaders in curriculum design and environmental education who consciously create room for the next generation of leaders.

Where We Work

We work throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, primarily in Contra Costa, Alameda, and San Francisco Counties. Since 1997, we have trained some 7,000 educators in place-based environmental education, and have served some 30,000 students, and 50,000 volunteers. We’ve chosen to work to protect and educate about the San Francisco Bay Area because we love it! It’s a region of unparalleled beauty and significance and we are motivated to protect it and to share its wonders with kids and adults of all ages through education, green infrastructure, and numerous opportunities to volunteer for activities that promote a healthy watershed and equitable access to green spaces and neighborhood beautification.

How We Work

We help people realize they are part of a living community—the web of organisms that inhabit the larger San Francisco Bay watershed and depend on it for clean soil, air, and water. The Watershed Project’s services intersect awareness and action, education and stewardship. Our goal is to catalyze increasing individual awareness and stewardship of the environment by promoting stronger human relationships with the natural world that’s here within the city.