Practice Foundation

Practice Foundation is an environmental nonprofit that works to advance alternative land-based practices. Our mission is to champion grass-roots projects that contribute to the health and well-being of people, their communities, and the environment.

Support the 2025 Practice Grant fundraising campaign

Download the 2025 Practice Grant Application

Our primary selection criteria include a demonstration of feasibility, a clear method or practice, a committed client or partner, and an available project site. We are looking for applied research and design ideas that are "shovel ready" and need additional funding to be realized. 

The Practice Grant is a project grant given in support of work defined in the proposal. We are not able to fund indirect costs including ongoing overhead and administration that support an organization’s general operation.

One of the primary objectives of the Practice Grant is to develop a more expansive and inclusive community of landscape designers, cultivators and builders by funding the work of individuals and groups currently outside of conventional professional practice. With this is mind, please reach out with any questions; we are happy to discuss your application and are open to considering substitutions to application requirements. We provide support through all phases, including the application.

To apply please download the application form above and submit the completed application to [email protected]

The 2024 Selection Jury included: Aron Chang (the Water Leaders Institute, co-founder and member of Civic Studio), Horatio Joyce (Director of Programs & Education at The Garden Conservancy), and Stacy Passmore (Principal, Co-Founder of Superbloom). 

Anormalidad Gardens

Anormalidad Gardens

Austin, Texas, USA

Anormalidad Gardens is a community collaborative creating direct access to perennial agriculture and crop trees in their neighborhood and home in East Austin, Texas. Working together, Anormalidad Gardens help nurture otherwise neglected and long-abandoned patches of land by planting and tending to food forests, a form of mutual support that fosters public connection and personal interdependence. The saying is, “We must eat now and later,” so annuals and canopy trees are planted on the same day, setting in motion a decentralized food system for years to come. The 2024 Practice Grant will advance a series of experimental and non-aggressive practices to remove crabgrass and other spontaneous species through sheet mulching, as well as provide in-kind support for expansion.

The Anormalidad Gardens exist within a broader project, Anormalidad Cooperative, that addressed displacement and resource disparity to otherwise marginalized residents.

The 2023 Selection Jury included: Jenny Evans (Sanibel Captiva Conservation Foundation, Florida Association of Native Nurseries), John Koepke (Landscape Architect and Professor Emeritus at the University of Minnesota College of Design), Thaïsa Way (Director of Garden & Landscape Studies at Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Professor Emerita at the University of Washington in the College of Built Environments). 

Press Release.

San Bruno Mountain Watch + Test Plot

Chris Chou, Yoni Carnice and Jen Toy

Daly City, California, USA

On Ticky Tacky Hillsides works within San Bruno Mountain Park to increase access to an underserved side of the mountain through long-term landscape stewardship. The project will be designed, installed, and maintained with the neighboring community, prioritizing the unique cultural values of diverse  residents. The plan includes hiring a ‘Stewardship Fellow’, along with providing guidelines for experimental planting, species management, multi-lingual signage, accessible seating, and public design workshops events. The project is a collaboration between San Bruno Mountain Watch (Chris Chou and Yoni Carnice), an organization that leads community-based ecological restoration programs, and Test Plot (Jen Toy), a land-based practice that celebrates the labor involved in caring for the land.

OTIS Fresh Farm

Mabel Gladly and Pooj Rav

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Cultivating the Commons: Fenceless Farming, expands the efforts at OTIS Fresh Farm to engage neighbors and retain accessibility of a busy community thoroughfare. In lieu of fencing, the design will install diverse, pollinator-friendly bioswales to create a buffer along the heavily trafficked urban edge. This increases efficiency for on-going maintenance and grades the remaining land to establish a farmstand and community meeting place. The bioswales are also part of an applied research project to test, document, and share guidelines for the use of Midwest friendly grains as a native grain cover crop. OTIS Fresh LWCA is a cooperatively run and trans-owned farm on Chicago's south side that grows vegetables and herbs sold through their CSA program. The co-owners in the workers cooperative are Mabel, the founder of Grow-Op Chicago, and Pooj, an environmental chemist and community organizer.

More on the Award Winners...

Bernard Singleton + Janelle Dunlap, North Carolina USA
Alkebu-Lan Botanical Gardens is an orchard composed of drought tolerant and low maintenance African crops, situated at Nebedaye Farms. The project focuses on the link between the health of the soil and the health of the supporting community, by increasing awareness and experience with undervalued edible plants. Singleton is a passionate farmer, gardener and co-owner of Nebedaye Farms, committed to introducing people to the land through the foods of the African diaspora. Dunlap is a social advocacy artist and the resident beekeeper at Nebedaye Farms. 

Civic Studio, Louisiana USA
Seeds + Beats expands a meadow planting at the New Orleans Mosquito, Rodent, and Termite Control Board in the Gentilly neighborhood by designing on site in alliance with the adjacent residential community. The project takes collaboration seriously, by engaging hands-on, in situ design, sidestepping costly construction documents, and acknowledging the inability for professional standards to solely meet community needs in the public realm. Aron Chang is an urban designer, co-lead for the Water Leaders Institute, and a co-founder and member of Civic Studio, a design collective focused on multi-disciplinary projects that support learning and dialog on critical civic issues.

Ariel Page + Guy Dobyns, Washington USA
Mulch/Terrace/Live is an applied research project that introduces novel forms of terracing to re-establish plants across clear cut, formerly forested land in the Pacific Northwest. Long-term stewardship of the land includes the process of documenting management practices including steps to controlling aggressive species with minimally invasive methods, approaches to low-input soil building, with demonstrated alternatives to annual cultivation with the introduction of seedlings. Page is a restoration gardener, working primarily with perennial edible plants through her company Planetary Garden Care. Dobyns is a hiking guide, member of the Conservation Futures Committee in Jefferson County, and co-founder of the Many Trees Project.

Mulching/Terracing/Living is an applied research project that introduces novel forms of terracing to re-establish plants across clear cut, formerly forested land in the Pacific Northwest. Long-term stewardship of the land includes the process of documenting management practices including steps to controlling aggressive species with minimally invasive methods, approaches to low-input soil building, with demonstrated alternatives to annual cultivation with the introduction of seedlings. 

This manual describes techniques for clearing invasive species, remediating soil on a clearcut slope, and encouraging the development of food-bearing terraces through slow processes of observing, mulching, planting, and observing again. At its simplest, it is a technical manual for developing food forests in a degraded clearcut slope in the Pacific Northwest, and the techniques described are site-based and specific.

Donate & Support

Thank you to our many anonymous donors and the following sponsors: 

The Practice Grant is an initiative of the Practice Foundation and is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3).                 

 EIN: 85-4128040

The Practice Foundation is a nonprofit regranting organization committed to opening access and expanding approaches to the design of the living environment.  It is the mission of Practice Foundation to support land-based practices rooted in diverse communities, spaces of injustice and across rural and remote regions. As landscape designers, architects, gardeners, and academics we initiated the Practice Foundation because we identified a gap between the needs of emerging landscape designers and makers, and their access to opportunities for project development and implementation.

We believe in the value of practice itself, the measure of daily rituals and the reprise of community action. Some of the smallest, dedicated actions accumulate as powerful tools in the face of rapid climate change, loss in biodiversity, and unchecked development.