Accelerating Global Reforestation

Clare Dubois is Founder and CEO of TreeSisters, a women-led movement that has funded the planting of over 11 million tropical trees. TreeSisters is a tropical reforestation organisation and social movement working towards normalizing a culture of reciprocity with nature. The aim of both Clare and TreeSisters is to make it as normal to give back to nature as it currently is to take nature for granted, supporting the transition of humanity from a consumer species to a restorer species by blending gender equality, consciousness shift, activism, and ecological restoration. Clare worked internationally for over two decades coaching business leaders and facilitating group behavior change processes in multiple sectors before turning towards environmentalism. Known for her direct, catalytic energy, her inspirational speaking and her holistic approach to collective transformation, Clare lives her life as a walking invitation to anyone ready to step up on behalf of the planet.

The systems driving climate change are rooted in dominance over nature and normalized 'convenient' consumption without thought for consequence. Recognizing the links between the domination of nature and of women, TreeSisters focuses on women's empowerment. As the world’s primary consumers, women have the capacity to constructively drive markets and public awareness. Restoring tropical forests is crucial for avoiding dangerous warming as the world decarbonises, protecting biodiversity, and maintaining the hydrological cycles of our world. Our focus on women and trees ultimately serves all. 

Our project aims to significantly expand our social reach to scale up our proven model of grassroots funded tropical tree planting in order to reach one billion trees annually. 

TreeSisters is an awakener and a measurable ecological solution. We focus on inner and outer transformation, holding space for a new human identity as a restorer species through normalized care for nature.

Gender equality and climate change are cross-cutting issues. Progress on both is necessary to achieve all of The Global Goals. Protecting tropical forests is vital for avoiding dangerous temperature rise. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, forests, agriculture and other land uses account for around 23 percent of global human-induced greenhouse gas emissions.  

TreeSisters recognizes the links between gender inequality, oppression and environmental degradation. Unhealthy patriarchal and capitalist systems have led to exploitation and domination of all women, people of color and the environment. The disempowerment of women and people of color under these systems is detrimental to their health and wellbeing and is a barrier to achieving success on poverty alleviation and sustainable development. 

There is a lack of awareness, compassion, and individual responsibility that enables and drives the problems we are working to solve. 

TreeSisters sees the need for: a shift in human consciousness that will normalize reciprocity with the Earth, a grassroots movement to plant trees, and feminine empowerment that includes greater emphasis on supporting black, indigenous, and people of color.

Overconsumption of resources must be balanced with restoration and regeneration if we are to survive. 

TreeSisters seeks to address the mindless consumption and apathy that are drivers of deforestation and climate change as well as to rebalance overconsumption and degradation with restoration and healing. We are doing this by empowering women to recognize themselves as agents of change and educating them around the need for tropical reforestation to cool the planet. We are creating tools and spaces to help women grow resilience, audacity, community and leadership. For more information about our resources, please visit: https://treesisters.org/grow-yourself.

Our organisation campaigns to raise awareness and generosity toward the trees. We collate monthly contributions from our donors and direct funds to our planting partners who use those funds to employ local people to grow, plant, protect, monitor and report on saplings as they grow into mature forests. Our projects are community-led and support the livelihoods of local and indigenous peoples. They use native species, foster local knowledge and skills, and promote women's participation, which leads to their improved socioeconomic status. There are additional social and environmental co-benefits of our tree planting projects, such as greater access to education, creation of micro-enterprises and clean water. For our Tree Strategy, please visit https://treesisters.org/about/tree-strategy.

TreeSisters impacts two communities: women in developed countries whose consumption contributes more towards climate change, and people in developing nations who face poverty, ecological devastation and are at the coal face of climate change. We work with the former to increase ecological awareness and empower behavior change, including generating funding for the latter to reforest their lands. 

Women in developed countries are drawn to TreeSisters because we are a path to climate action that provides meaning and relevance at this time. They get to make a difference in their own lives and for the world. 

Our donors give monthly to planting projects that are alleviating poverty and supporting women and communities through steady employment. Across the projects we fund, the percentage of women employed ranges from 50-90 percent. Our projects are community-led and needs-assessments are completed by our planting partners. 

We offer resources to support women in stepping up with their own creativity and power with resources such as a range of courses, meditations, and an inspiring series of interviews with Indigenous leaders. 

Our Groves project is a global web of Nature-based women’s circles coming together for the trees, funding reforestation and building resilience in the face of climate disaster. 

TreeSisters works towards all three dimensions of the Elevate Prize. We are building awareness among western women and empowering and inspiring action that reduces ecological impact and directly drives forest restoration through the reallocation of personal funds every month. We are mobilizing community-led tropical restoration to address climate change through a women-led social movement inspiring shared responsibility to restore forest ecosystems. We direct funding towards the marginalized, poor and often invisible people struggling at the coal face of climate change, resource plunder and ecological destruction. 

The idea began in India working for a massive agroforestry initiative called Project GreenHands. As volunteer UK coordinator I was charged with raising funds for tropical reforestation, but my interest was their social strategy that mobilized a caste culture to overcome social barriers to work together to reforest the state of Tamil Nadu. I wondered how our world might be mobilized to overcome systemic inequalities and disconnection with nature to collectively reforest all appropriate available land in the face of climate change. 

In 2010, after three years volunteering, I was headed to a communications meeting to hand over my seven-step strategy for a reforestation revolution when I skidded on black ice and crashed into a tree. The tree literally saved me from going over an edge, much like reforestation could for humanity in the face of climate change. Sitting in the car, the whole concept for TreeSisters literally arrived in a highly detailed download of purpose and function. I reached out to allies, and together we started to construct the very beginnings of the frameworks that would underpin a global movement. At the end of 2011 we formed a company, at the end of 2012 the charity was formed.

I love the natural world more than I have words to express. Nature is sacred to me; miraculous in her complexity, breathtaking in her systems and balance, generous in the extreme, and utterly taken for granted. I also am deeply impacted by how the feminine nature of women is profoundly held back from millennia of subjugation, and how the majority of us are only partially expressing the depth of our gifts in this world. Women and nature share a common history of exploitation and degradation; what has been done to one has been done to the other. I am as passionate about the restoration of ecological health for a viable future, as I am about an empowered global culture of women whose leadership directly contributes to the restoration of humanity's relationship with nature so that we can ensure the perpetuation of life on this planet, by taking appropriately scaled and generous actions.

I am as passionate about water as I am about trees, and they are intimately connected. Tropical forests drive the hydrological cycles of our world. Losing them will ultimately render our planet uninhabitable. Tree loss already accounts for a 50% reduction in rainfall globally.

I have always struggled to understand why our world ‘works’ the way it does. Fascination with psychology, healing and consciousness formed the bedrock of my own journey and consistent investigation into what experiences would generate lasting changes in behavior. I wanted to understand why people behaved the way they did, discover how to tap into the deeper truth of our foundational relationship with the natural world, and ultimately how to let the nature that we are, guide us back into right relationship with living systems.

I bring a very out-of-the-box way of looking at issues and dealing holistically with them from the perspective of our humanity, emotional fragility and the roots of behaviors themselves. I look at what needs to happen to change default behavior patterns personally and globally, including the rebalancing of gender. 

For the last 10 years I have experimented in countless ways to discover how to reach beyond climate fear, complacency, apathy and indifference to touch the part of people that deeply loves the natural world and will take action on behalf of it. I have built a global following rooted in my willingness to publicly fall over and get back up again, time and time again--including people in both my failures and successes to model that having a go is what matters, rather than the illusion of perfection. Within TreeSisters, we call our work an experiment because if it’s an experiment you can’t fail. Passion, perseverance, stubbornness and courage really count! 

Four years ago, I decided that I was no longer a suitable CEO for TreeSisters. I didn't believe that I had enough experience to deal with a fast-growing global charity. I'm wired as a servant leader to do what works best for the whole. I chose to step down and elevate another team member into that role. It didn’t work. In fact, it was devastating to the organisation at the time.

I look for the gold in any breakdown. By sitting with a total willingness to learn and come through to a place of mutual growth, I found a way to bring the situation to an empowered place of organisational development. I was able to move beyond blocked pathways of communication and personal accusations that I didn’t relate to and left me feeling profoundly attacked, isolated and misunderstood. Ultimately, I took my confusion to core team members who reflected back to me that my leadership was vital for the organisation so I offered myself back to the Board and they chose to reinstate me. Since that time, I have doubled the team, and we've funded nine of our 11.6 million trees. 

Last year I worked on a concept to normalize gatherings or festivals embedding trees into tickets, so that the very act of ‘gathering’ would grow a forest. One particular festival, 'Boom Town' decided to play the game, and they invited me to get up on stage in front of over 35,000 people, to inspire and engage them.

Although increasingly recognized as a global environmental leader and gifted communicator, I have a known, acute fear of public speaking. I have been known to vomit before getting on stage. Stepping out in front of a sea of people so huge I could not see either side was terrifying, but I called them into climate leadership and also invited everyone to raise their arms so that they could experience themselves as a global forest. That moment, of those thousands of people with their arms in the air, was captured in a photograph that went viral and caused a wave of courage in action. I was told by many, that when they saw what lengths I would go to awaken people to their connection with the trees despite my fear, they started to question their own action - or lack of action. 

TreeSisters is unique in its holistic and feminine approach to catalyzing lasting behavior change.

The mission, culture, teachings and approaches of TreeSisters are rooted in the sacred geometry of 5 element acupuncture, applied to consciousness and behavior. We use the logic of an ancient system for whole system health creation to address current behavioral imbalance (such as inactivity in the face of climate change, domination over nature, and gender inequality) and create holistic interventions for lasting change. We work with our humanness without shaming or blaming, invite a new human story/identity that includes and uplifts everyone, and offer pathways to measurable ecological impact through shared ownership of a nature-based solution that directly addresses climate change. 

Our long-game is the emergence of a humanity that puts the viability of future generations, ecological protection and restoration above all else. To get there, we need to understand and address the drivers of planetary emergency: inherited cultural conditioning, patriarchal world views rooted in separation, unexamined assumptions and the emotional fragility that holds everything dysfunctional in place. 

We see outer change as a result of inner change. Radical acceptance, inclusivity, compassion and mutual encouragement in combination with an absence of judgment and competition provides the conditions within which awakening can happen. These are conditions that give rise to behavior change. When we feel safe, it is easier to see ourselves, recognize what is stuck and then find the impetus to change.

We are already achieving significant impact on multiple behavioral and ecological fronts. 

TreeSisters solution for limiting average global temperature rise and eradicating gender inequality is a grassroots movement to change humanity’s relationship with nature.  For decades, the UN has enshrined principles recognizing the link between women’s empowerment, poverty alleviation and environmental sustainability. Our mission is to reforest the tropics and empower women. We undertake a number of activities to achieve that: raising funds for reforestation, online courses and community building. Those activities lead to measurable outcomes of more funding of tropical trees, women stepping into environmental leadership, restoring water cycles and biodiversity, reducing poverty, and the improved socioeconomic status of women through our planting projects. We have comprehensive data from our planting partners about positive ecological and socio-economic impacts in the regions where our projects are located. 

Through our consciousness shift approach, we have developed a pathway that has proven to successfully shift apathy into activism, overwhelm into action, insecurity into creativity, isolation into mutuality, climate fear into hope, and awareness into funds for trees. From surveys and interviews of participants from our ongoing ‘Inner Journey’ course (150,000 participants since 2017), we have data that clearly shows that supporting and encouraging women inspires local action. 

Our five strategic objectives are:

1. Build a mutually supportive global network of diverse treesisters that 'owns' our mission.

2. Inspire and support feminine leadership towards shifting consciousness to catalyze a movement of ecological restoration.

3. Raise and channel funding into tropical reforestation and protection.

4. Develop partnerships to accelerate reforestation and deliver on our mission.

5. Become sector leaders in global reforestation and feminine leadership.

For each objective, TreeSisters selects key performance indicators to track our targets on a monthly basis in line with five-year goals. 

The activities in support of the strategic objectives lead to a greater level of awareness of the need for and benefits of tropical forest preservation. In the short term, we expect to see increased investments in tree planting and the livelihoods of local and indigenous peoples, alongside more women coming together in community. In the long-term, we hope to shift humanity to a restorer species with restoration embedded into every financial transaction.

TreeSisters campaigning, education and women’s work serves a large global community. We have over 265,000 people following the TreeSisters Facebook Page, over 6,100 Followers on the TreeSisters Twitter Account and over 17,400 Followers on the TreeSisters Instagram Page. More than 6,000 people from over 100 countries are part of our online community, the Nest. Our online courses have served over 17,000 people over 6 years, with on average 300-500+ signing up per course. Approximately 300 women attend online Full Moon calls monthly, and between 150-400 attend monthly online Indigenous Wisdom calls. We have over 4,000 monthly donors who are able to give back to nature through our ethical and thoroughly vetted planting projects. 

In the first two years of the Groves project we have engaged with over 1,000 treesisters who are exploring the possibility of creating local women’s circles. So far there have been over 150 Groves in over 30 different countries registered.

The planting projects funded by TreeSisters are employing at least 300 people across 10 projects in 8 countries. Eden Reforestation, whom we plant with in Madagascar (2 projects), Mozambique, Nepal, and West Papua, targets a minimum 60% of their labor force to be female and works toward training and recruiting female managers to reach a goal of 25% women. This employment also directly benefits local communities by reducing poverty and generating economic activity. 

Because of the impacts of COVID-19, our one- and five-year projections are being revisited. 

Within the next five years we seek to normalize human identity as a ‘restorer species’ rather than a consumer species--so that it’s part of the vernacular, it’s understood, aspired to and worked towards consciously. To enable this, we are working towards measurable goals, including: reaching 20 million trees funded by the end of 2021, and 100 million funded at the end of 5 years; 45,000 people accessing TreeSisters behavior change materials through our online community and courses; and, mobilising our network to step into leadership and take local action towards ecological restoration. 

We aim to achieve these goals by expanding our donor base through strategic campaign marketing, which drives the expansion of our global reach, and also by galvanising our network into local action through tailored restoration programs and material. All of these goals have short-term social and environmental outcomes and long-term positive impacts on climate change. 

These goals are currently under review because of the uncertainty and impacts of COVID-19. 

This isn’t just about planting trees. It’s about how humans relate to one another and to Earth. It’s about planting indigenous species that strengthen biodiversity and prevent extinction. It’s about protecting and enhancing livelihoods. 

This is about supporting everyone to recognize, claim and then action their unique roles in the manifestation of the new human identity and story as restorers of our world. We can do this by collaborating with celebrities, storytellers, musicians, youth and activists--those who will shape and tell the new story for human identity.

COVID-19 has brought financial instability at a time when TreeSisters has greater relevance and needs to scale. We were born for this exact gap in 'business as usual' and yet the threat of recession has undercut major traction we developed with corporates and event organizers in our work to embed trees into financial transactions. It also is undercutting the grassroots philanthropy that we depend upon. Climate change related financial instability will only increase from here. 

Meanwhile, huge corporate players are suddenly consuming the tree planting capacity of many reforestation organisations that smaller charities such as ourselves depend upon to plant trees. Our organisation is vital for ensuring planting is done ethically and holistically and to focus the general publics' attention on collective responsibility. In order to scale up quickly, we need to expand our social reach. To do this, and to continue operating and growing, we require adequate funding for staff, infrastructure, and marketing.

Other challenges this year include legal and technical growth curves as we form two new branches of TreeSisters (U.S. and Australia) and the reality of growing our online global presence in a world that just migrated online as a result of COVID, and that increasingly is becoming much more competitive. 

A current challenge that we hope shifts quickly over the next five years is that we have not fit easily into classic funding systems that tend towards silos rather than holistic solutions (women or trees, not women and trees - social or ecological, not social and...).

TreeSisters operates from radical generosity rather than competition. We look to share, to uplift others, be transparent and honest. We work hard and are diligent. Our work is inspirational and hope inducing. This has built a culture of trust that has served us hugely over the years when we've hit difficulties. People 'feel' our integrity and commitment, are loyal to us and want to help when we ask.

No matter what happens to the economy, certain businesses will still thrive and the public will be looking to them to continually clean up their activities and do more ecologically. We are a holistic solution and can serve the increasingly complex issues faced by teams and business itself, including developing deliverables based on our social change model that could be implemented as part of tree partnerships, thus securing further revenues.

If we lose current tree partners to larger corporates, then we'll need to create a different model. We won't be alone, so increased collaboration will be the path forward. We will adapt.

We are also in the process of optimizing our web presence (we've had substantial technical issues) that will help us conduct a successful outreach strategy for partnerships with aligned networks that could greatly expand our reach and thus our donor base.

We are an ongoing call for philanthropy to change, and for more holistic, responsive funds commensurate with the scale of ecological crisis. Securing our U.S. nonprofit status will greatly enhance our capacity to receive U.S. funding.

In summary, our business model has been focused primarily on normalizing reciprocity with nature, which translates into donors giving a percentage of income towards forest restoration (planetary cooling). 

• 80% of grassroots donations that come in from the general public (monthly or one-off) go directly towards tropical tree planting (unless stated as unrestricted); 

• 15% contributes towards our consciousness shift and women’s work through key activities, including education and awareness, course development and delivery, webinars and calls, local treesister Groves development and support, and global collaborative work within the forest sector; and, 

• 5% contributes towards all the other charity’s core costs, including governance, infrastructure and fundraising.

TreeSisters operates from radical generosity and a culture within which we provide avenues of connection, deepening and support before asking for action or donation. The shift in consciousness work we deliver is open to anyone including individuals, institutions and business organisations who take up the invitation to participate from a range of free services (podcasts, audio meditation tools, online courses, and webinars) and this also acts to expand our reach. In addition, our corporate policy invites organisations to shift their own business models towards one of reciprocity and opens the door to dialogue.

Paid courses empower the network and generate organisational revenue.

We invite everyone to give monthly to forest restoration, through the diverse portfolio of tree planting projects that we develop, curate and report upon. Our tree planting partners, local communities, the forests and the earth all become beneficiaries of this model of reciprocity.

Over the first seven years TreeSisters was funded through grassroots giving, larger philanthropic gifts, and a very small percentage of grants.  

When TreeSisters reaches approximately 26,000 monthly grassroots donors, the organisation would be fully self-sustaining through the 15% of donor income generated for our charitable activities. Over the last year, however, we have looked to increase reach, speed of delivery and impact by developing a corporate partnership stream. Aligned corporates expand our reach and impact by opening up their existing, diverse customer networks to consumer choices that ultimately plant tropical trees. Hotels and cosmetics companies, foods and course providers, ticketing agencies and festivals are already embedding trees into financial transactions, simultaneously increasing consumer and corporate awareness of the market value of 'doing good'. Despite COVID-19, businesses will increasingly be required to clean up, protect and restore nature, so this funding stream will grow.

We are further exploring the diversification of our revenue streams that will continue to be composed of grassroots monthly funding (as above) and increased donor retention, additional income earned through increasing our online course delivery, educational partnerships and affiliate schemes with other educators and Apps, increased traction through philanthropic gifts and grants, partnerships with small, medium and large business embedding trees into products and services through our Trees for Transactions and Catalysts program and an exploration into legacy funds. Securing several major corporate partners with multi-year commitments, and audacious, far reaching social and ecological impact goals, will be a game changer for us financially.

We need to grow fast both in terms of social reach and ecological impact given the escalating pace of climate change. Funding is vital for team growth and infrastructure development. The opportunity to work with minds that sit outside us and can look in, see what we haven't seen, bring perspectives, wisdom and experience that could quantum shift us, in combination with connection with aligned contacts and influencers would be a game changer. We are at an organisational growth threshold right now on all fronts. It's an ultimate moment for a radical whole systems reboot that could happen with the comprehensiveness of Elevate’s offering. 

We need support with our messaging to become more mainstream, reach a much wider market and inspire collective generosity towards the global forest. Tailored media - again from outside looking in, could only diversify our reach, plus you'll want us to succeed and be looking for the avenues of greatest leverage, which is a dream for an underfunded nonprofit. This grant is not just funds, it's a conscious injection of awake support, looking to leverage all pathways to amplification. We need that, if we are going to take the gold that we have in terms of 10 years of experimentation of what reaches people, and barriers to behavior change - and create a version of TreeSisters that can really deliver an inspirational pathway to ecologically restorative climate action for millions. 

And, your support with the nuts and bolts of international expansion would be invaluable!

Our partnership strategy is rooted in growth (mutual and personal) for all ships to rise. We want our services to help whomever we partner with to greatly increase their own social and ecological impact, inspiring them to consciously position themselves as agents of further change by examining their internal and external networks as avenues of education, enrollment and action (giving back) that benefits the trees.   

Partnerships with major funding bodies, would allow us to scale through team expansion, infrastructure development and marketing. Partnerships with existing aligned social, women’s, ecological, media and business networks (and their company customer bases) can also massively expand our reach, effectiveness and capacity to spread the invitation and activity of reciprocity with nature. Our goal is to form self-strengthening, dynamic networks that utilize our values and tools to inspire generosity, collaboration and infectious pride through their own audacious goals and delivery of many trees planted.