Urban Forestry Building Bridges Initiative – Sep 15

Posted by Tree Research and Education Endowment Fund on August 26, 2025

TREE Fund invites LOIs for Bob Skiera Memorial Fund Building Bridges Initiative grant program

The Tree Research and Education Endowment Fund (TREE Fund) aims to support the scientific discovery and dissemination of new knowledge in the fields of arboriculture (the science of cultivating and managing trees in a landscape) and urban forestry.

The fund invites applications for its Bob Skiera Memorial Fund Building Bridges Initiative and John P. White Grant Program. Skiera was an urban forestry pioneer, known for his ability to communicate the needs and benefits of the urban forest and helped build bridges of trust and cooperation between urban foresters and other urban planning and management professionals. He was a past president of both the International Society of Arboriculture and the Wisconsin Arborist Association, served as a Milwaukee City forester, and is a member of the Wisconsin Forestry Hall of Fame. John White was an arborist and urban forest influencer in Florida. He loved trees and the community that was connecting with trees. He knew how to build up the relationships of the tree community to those who had great impacts on those trees.

Established jointly by TREE Fund, the Skiera Family, Wisconsin Arborist Association, and the International Society of Arboriculture, the Bob Skiera Memorial Fund provides financial support for the Building Bridges Initiative, which is intended to help arborists and urban foresters communicate the value of trees and urban forests through engagement via collaborative research and other projects with public works officials, risk assessment professionals, civil engineers, wildlife researchers, soil scientists, and others. The maximum award value of grants under the initiative is $30,000, with $25,000 provided annually by the Bob Skiera Memorial Fund and $5,000 provided annually by the John White Memorial Fund.

The 2025 Building Bridges Initiative Grant(s) will be focused on research to facilitate or engage interactions between urban forest managers, arborists, and other professionals committed to maximizing value/use of the urban forest resource. Suggested areas of investigation (this list is not all-inclusive) might include quantitative and/or qualitative analysis of urban forest benefits to humans and communities; policy formation and program implementation; nature-based Solutions; and ecosystem services.

TREE Fund welcomes research proposals and applications from a wide range of academic and technical disciplines of both a qualitative and quantitative nature.

Letters of intent are due September 15, 2025, and selected applicants will be invited to submit a full proposal by October 1, 2025.

For complete program guidelines and application instructions, see the Tree Research and Education Endowment Fund website.

Deadline: September 15, 2025 (Letters of Inquiry)