STEW-MAP and Assessment Project

United States Department of Agriculture

Stewardship Mapping and
Assessment Project: A Framework
for Understanding CommunityBased Environmental Stewardship

Forest Service

Northern Research Station

General Technical Report NRS-156

January 2016

Abstract
The Stewardship Mapping and Assessment Project (STEW-MAP) is designed to answer
who, where, why, and how environmental stewardship groups are caring for our
urbanized landscapes. This report is intended to be a guide for those who wish to
start STEW-MAP in their own city. It contains step-by-step directions for how to plan
and implement a STEW-MAP project. STEW-MAP is both an empirical study of a city’s
or region’s civic environmental stewardship resources and a publicly available online
database to help support environmental stewardship broadly in these cities. The project
adds a social layer of information to biophysical and urban geographic information
on green infrastructure in cities. STEW-MAP highlights existing stewardship gaps and
overlaps in order to strengthen organizational capacities, enhance citizen monitoring,
promote broader public engagement with on-the-ground environmental work, and build
effective partnerships among stakeholders involved in urban sustainability.

Quality Assurance
This publication conforms to the Northern Research Station’s Quality Assurance
Implementation Plan which requires technical and policy review for all scientific
publications produced or funded by the Station. The process included a blind technical
review by at least two reviewers, who were selected by the Assistant Director for Research
and unknown to the author. This review policy promotes the Forest Service guiding
principles of using the best scientific knowledge, striving for quality and excellence,
maintaining high ethical and professional standards, and being responsible and
accountable for what we do.

Cover Photos
Clockwise from top left: community gardeners at plant giveaway in New York City. Top
right: volunteers wheel woodchips during a Chicago Wilderness Corporate Council Day of
Service, photo courtesy of Chicago Wilderness. Center right: steward of a 9/11 memorial
garden in the streetscape. Lower right: front yard gardener in Brooklyn, NY. Lower left:
volunteers at a MillionTreesNYC planting, photo courtesy of Malcolm Pinckney, NYC
Parks. Center left: participants learn about urban bird behavior in a Loyola Marymount
University urban ecology professional development workshop in Los Angeles, photo by
Michele Romolini. All other photos by U.S. Forest Service.

The use of trade, firm, or corporation names in this publication is for the information
and convenience of the reader. Such use does not constitute an official endorsement or
approval by the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the Forest Service of any product or
service to the exclusion of others that may be suitable.

Stewardship Mapping and
Assessment Project:
A Framework for Understanding
Community-Based Environmental
Stewardship
The Authors
ERIKA S. SVENDSEN is a research social scientist and team leader with the Northern Research
Station of the U.S. Forest Service, based in New York, NY.
LINDSAY K. CAMPBELL is a research social scientist with the Northern Research Station of the
U.S. Forest Service, based in New York, NY.
DANA R. FISHER is a professor of sociology and Director of the Program for Society and the
Environment at University of Maryland, based in College Park, MD.
JAMES J.T. CONNOLLY is an assistant professor of Public Policy and Political Science at
Northeastern University, based in Boston, MA.
MICHELLE L. JOHNSON is an interdisciplinary scientist with the Northern Research Station of
the U.S. Forest Service, based in New York, NY.
NANCY F. SONTI is an ecologist with the Northern Research Station of the U.S. Forest Service,
based in Baltimore, MD.
DEXTER H. LOCKE is a Ph.D. student in geography at Clark University, based in Worcester, MA.
LYNNE M. WESTPHAL is a research social scientist and Project Leader with the Northern
Research Station of the U.S. Forest Service, based in Evanston, IL.
CHERIE LEBLANC FISHER is a social scientist with the Northern Research Station of the U.S.
Forest Service, based in Evanston, IL.
J. MORGAN GROVE is a research social scientist and team leader with the Northern Research
Station of the U.S. Forest Service, based in Baltimore, MD.
MICHELE ROMOLINI is a postdoctoral fellow and part-time faculty at Loyola Marymount
University, based in Los Angeles, CA.
DALE J. BLAHNA is a research social scientist and team leader with the Pacific Northwest
Research Station of the U.S. Forest Service, based in Seattle, WA.
KATHLEEN L. WOLF is a research social scientist with College of the Environment, University of
Washington and has a joint appointment with the Pacific Northwest Research Station of the
U.S. Forest Service, based in Seattle, WA.

Northern Research Station General Technical Report NRS-156

Manuscript received for publication 10 July 2015
Published by
U.S. FOREST SERVICE
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NEWTOWN SQUARE PA 19073
January 2016

For additional copies:
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Email: nrspubs@fs.fed.us

CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.......................................................................................................................................1
Introduction..........................................................................................................................................................2
What is Stewardship and Why Is It Important?.........................................................................................5
Cities as Social-Ecological Systems..........................................................................................................5
Stewardship Organizations........................................................................................................................5
Stewardship Turf: Spatial Analysis...........................................................................................................6
Stewardship Networks.................................................................................................................................7
Project Planning and Design...........................................................................................................................8
Planning the Project.....................................................................................................................................8
Survey Preparation........................................................................................................................................9
Data Collection from Stewardship Groups........................................................................................ 15
Data Clean-up and Analysis.................................................................................................................... 18
Ongoing Data Management................................................................................................................... 20
Synthesis: Using STEW-MAP to Answer Your Questions.................................................................... 21
How many civic stewardship groups are in my city?..................................................................... 21
What are the organizational characteristics of civic stewardship groups?............................ 22
What is the primary focus of stewardship groups?........................................................................ 22
What environmental sites do civic environmental organizations steward?.......................... 23
Where does environmental stewardship occur?............................................................................. 24
How can we characterize the urban environmental stewardship network?......................... 25
Social-Ecological Questions.................................................................................................................... 27
Public Applications and Visualization.................................................................................................. 28
Lessons Learned............................................................................................................................................... 28
Have GIS Expertise on Your Team.......................................................................................................... 29
Establish the Population that You are Studying so that You Can Determine Response
Rate.................................................................................................................................................................. 29
Clearly Communicate Your Definition of Stewardship.................................................................. 29
Expanding the Tool..................................................................................................................................... 29
Literature Cited................................................................................................................................................. 30
Appendix 1: Project Teams and Websites................................................................................................ 36
Appendix 2: Survey Protocols...................................................................................................................... 39
Appendix 3: New York City Survey Invitation Materials...................................................................128
Appendix 4: STEW-MAP Fact Sheet.........................................................................................................130

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Stewardship Mapping and Assessment Project (STEW-MAP) is a U.S. Forest
Service national research program designed to answer the questions: Who are the active
environmental stewardship groups in my area and where, why, and how are they caring for the
land?
STEW-MAP studies a city’s or region’s environmental stewardship regime, creating
publicly available maps and databases to help support community development.
The project adds a social layer of information to biophysical information on green
infrastructure in metropolitan areas.
STEW-MAP captures environmental stewardship through a combination of methods that
includes an organizational survey to identify organizational characteristics, mapping the
geographic area of influence, and depicting the social networks with other civic, private,
and governmental organizations.
STEW-MAP defines a “stewardship group” as a civic organization or group that works
to conserve, manage, monitor, advocate for, and/or educate the public about their local
environments.

Where has STEW-MAP been implemented?

Initially a New York City project, STEW-MAP has grown into a multi-city research
program. To date, the project has been replicated in Baltimore, the Chicago region, and
Seattle. Studies are underway in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and San Juan, PR. Atlanta,
Boston, and Washington, D.C., are also interested in conducting STEW-MAP studies.
The original New York City STEW-MAP was developed by a team of Forest Service
and university researchers working with dozens of municipal agencies and citywide
environmental nonprofits who identified a need to create a common database and map.

Why is STEW-MAP important?

Long-term community-based natural resource stewardship can help support and maintain
our investment in green infrastructure and urban restoration projects. STEW-MAP
databases and interactive maps enable the public, municipal agencies, and nonprofits to
visualize where and how hundreds of civic environmental stewardship groups are working
throughout a city or region. Custom downloads of STEW‐MAP data have been used by
local government and civic organizations in support of policymaking and natural resource
management activities. Network analyses of these groups show the connections between
civic environmental actors and identify important stewardship nodes within the network.
Analysis of where stewardship is or is not taking place highlights opportunities or issues to
address in meeting local conservation goals.

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INTRODUCTION
The Stewardship Mapping and Assessment Project (STEW-MAP) is a U.S. Forest Service
national research program designed to answer the questions: Who are the active environmental
stewardship groups in my area and where, why, and how are they caring for the land?
STEW-MAP uses respondent survey data both to empirically study a city’s or region’s civic
environmental stewardship regime and to create publicly available online resources (maps
and databases) to help support community development. The project adds a social layer
of information to biophysical and urban geographic information on green infrastructure
in metropolitan areas. STEW-MAP highlights existing stewardship gaps and overlaps
in order to strengthen organizational capacities, enhance citizen monitoring, promote
broader public engagement with on-the-ground environmental work, and build effective
partnerships among stakeholders involved in urban sustainability. As funding support for
green infrastructure fluctuates, it is important to cultivate long-term, community-based
natural resource stewardship because it can maintain a consistency
and coherence to natural resource management. STEW-MAP creates
The Stewardship Mapping
a framework to connect potentially fragmented stewardship groups
and Assessment Project
and to measure, monitor, and maximize the contribution of our civic
(STEW-MAP) is a
resources. This has become increasingly important in an urbanizing
world where many cities have launched sustainability initiatives.
U.S. Forest Service

national research program.

STEW-MAP defines a “stewardship group” as a civic organization
or group that works to conserve, manage, monitor, advocate for, and/
or educate the public about their local environments. This work includes efforts that involve
water, forests, land, air, waste, toxics, and energy. Many civic stewardship groups work within,
alongside, or independent of public agencies and private businesses in managing urban places.
To date, STEW-MAP researchers have collected information from thousands of local
stewardship groups. These groups include neighborhood block associations, kayak clubs,
tree planting groups, community gardeners, regional environmental coalitions, nonprofit
educational institutions, and museums. Initially a New York City project, STEW-MAP
has grown into a multi-city research program. To date, the project has been replicated by
U.S. Forest Service researchers in Baltimore, the Chicago region, and Seattle. Studies are
underway in Los Angeles and Philadelphia. Other cities, including San Juan, Puerto Rico;
Atlanta; Boston; and Washington, D.C., are also interested in conducting STEW-MAP
studies. The original New York City (NYC) STEW-MAP was developed by a team of Forest
Service and university researchers working with dozens of municipal agencies and citywide
environmental nonprofits who identified a need to create a common database and map.
Other STEW-MAP initiatives have continued this emphasis on partnerships: see appendix 1
for a list of all partners involved in STEW-MAP to date.

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What Does STEW-MAP Show?
Stewardship maps can tell you about the presence,
capacity, geographic turf, and social networks of
environmental stewardship groups in a given city
or region (Fig 1). For the first time, these social
infrastructure data are treated as part of green
infrastructure asset mapping. For example, the
interactive mapping website developed in NYC
currently displays data for hundreds of groups
citywide alongside other open space data layers.
Chicago’s STEW-MAP data are also available online
at stewmap.cnt.org, allowing stewardship groups to
find others working near them and/or working on
similar issues. Other STEW-MAP projects continue
to expand the NYC model and have created new
maps and resources for their cities.

Why is STEW-MAP Important?
STEW-MAP can highlight existing stewardship
gaps and overlaps (Fig. 2) in order to strengthen
organizational capacities, enhance citizen monitoring,
promote broader civic engagement with on-theground environmental projects, and build effective
partnerships among stakeholders involved in urban
sustainability. Long-term community-based natural
resource stewardship can help support and maintain
investments in green infrastructure and urban
restoration projects. To maximize these benefits,
STEW-MAP creates a framework to connect
potentially fragmented stewardship groups with the
ultimate goal of optimizing the contribution of our
civic organizations towards urban natural resources
stewardship.
STEW-MAP databases and interactive maps enable
the public, municipal agencies, and nonprofits
to visualize where and how hundreds of civic
environmental stewardship groups are working
throughout a city or region, which informs natural
resource management, policymaking, and public
outreach. Custom downloads of STEW‐MAP
data have been used by local government and civic
organizations in support of policymaking and natural
resource management activities. Network analyses
of these groups for each city or region shows the

Figure 1.—Map created to visualize social infrastructure by
showing the location of civic stewardship group offices in New
York City.

Figure 2.—Map created for natural resource managers of
stewardship groups proximate to Flushing Meadows Park in
Queens, NY.

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connections between civic environmental actors and identifies important stewardship nodes
within the network. Analysis of where stewardship is or is not taking place in a city or region
highlights opportunities or issues to address in meeting local conservation goals.

Who can use STEW-MAP?
STEW-MAP is a tool for natural resource managers, funders, policymakers, educators,
stewardship groups, and the public. For example, managers in NYC have queried STEWMAP to find stewardship groups working near specific forest restoration projects run by
MillionTreesNYC, a public-private tree-planting initiative. Funders or community organizers can
also identify areas with the largest presence of stewardship groups, given organization size and
focus area. Policymakers wishing to disseminate policy information can select the most connected
groups from the STEW-MAP database using social network analysis. Members of the public
who want to know who is working in a particular neighborhood or who can provide technical
resources for a project can search the database, which displays results as a list or on a map.

What makes STEW-MAP unique?
At present, no natural resource agency or organization is collecting and distributing
comprehensive civic stewardship data at the local level. STEW-MAP aims to fill this gap.
Four features make STEW-MAP unique. First, STEW-MAP uses a broad definition of
stewardship—conserving, managing, caring for, monitoring, advocating for, and educating the
public about local environments—and invites participation from all types of environmental
stewards, not just those who are formally trained, work with nonprofit groups, or focus on a
specific type of stewardship activity. Second, STEW-MAP collects very specific geographic
data about where stewardship groups work (i.e., stewardship polygons, not points) which is
important for coordinating management of open spaces and
the delivery of ecosystem services from natural areas. Third,
STEW-MAP is
STEW-MAP collects social network data from respondents
unique in that it collects
in order to characterize the flow of information, funding,
and distributes civic
and collaboration among stewardship groups in a city or
region. Once network, geospatial, and organizational data
stewardship data.
are established, they can then be studied over time to reveal
important changes or patterns in your stewardship community.
Finally, the STEW-MAP survey and related data analysis are scientifically rigorous and are
guided and informed by an extensive literature review on urban environmental stewardship.

What is in this report?
This report is intended to be a guide for those who wish to start STEW-MAP in their own
city. First, we present a brief conceptual introduction, grounded in literature about socialecological systems, stewardship, and civic environmentalism. Second, we offer guidance for
how to apply a stewardship framework in your own area of interest and implement a STEWMAP project. Third, the results section provides research findings and public applications
from the several cities that have completed STEW-MAP projects to date: New York City,
Baltimore, Chicago, Seattle, and Philadelphia. The conclusions section describes lessons learned
by the original STEW-MAP cohort to inform future cities’ efforts. The appendixes list project
partners (appendix 1) and provide a full set of survey protocols (appendix 2) and outreach
materials (appendixes 3 and 4).
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WHAT IS STEWARDSHIP AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
Cities as Social-Ecological Systems
As of 2010, over three-quarters of the U.S. population and half of the world’s population live in
cities (UN 2010). Increasing urbanization contributes to significant consumption of resources,
sprawling land use patterns, loss of native species, and reduced ecosystem services (Folke et
al. 1997, McKinney 2002). However, dense urban areas can also be a source of
environmental solutions through dense settlement patterns, information flow, and
Urban areas
social innovation (Bettencourt and West 2011, Glaeser and Kahn 2008, Grimm et
can be a source
al. 2008, Grove 2009, Owen 2009).

of environmental
solutions through
dense settlement
patterns, information
flow, and social
innovation.

Making measurable improvements in the environment and the quality of people’s
lives requires innovative research to understand the complex interactions among
components of an urban system. One framework used to facilitate such studies is
the combination of ecological and social theories and perspectives into the study
of social-ecological systems. Our thinking about integrated social and ecological
systems emerged from the field of social ecology and, in particular, the two urban
long-term ecological research (LTER) sites, one in Baltimore, MD (USA), the
other in Phoenix, AZ (USA). Historically, theories and models from ecology have treated
humans as outside of the ecosystem. Newer frameworks of social-ecological systems and
coupled human and natural systems consider the components as fundamentally intertwined
(Liu et al. 2007, Pickett et al. 1997, Pickett and Grove 2009). The Human Ecosystem
Framework examines critical resources that include biophysical, socioeconomic, and cultural
resources. It also examines the flows between critical resources and the social system, which
includes institutions, norms, and cycles of change (Machlis et al. 1997). The coupled human
and natural systems framework draws upon concepts from complexity theory such as emergent
properties, vulnerability, thresholds, and resilience to examine how human and natural systems
interact across time and space (Liu et al. 2007). Ostrom and others have expanded upon
the institutional aspects of social-ecological systems by integrating them with Institutional
Analysis and Development concepts (Anderies and Ostrom 2004). Emerging from these
different streams of thought about social and ecological systems is an attention to time, space,
and scale, specifically, the governance of cities, including how individuals and organizations
(public, private, and civic) work in networks to create and manage the urban environment
through acts of environmental stewardship.

Stewardship Organizations
Urban environmental stewards conserve, manage, monitor, and advocate for the local
environment; they also educate the public about the local environment (Fisher et al. 2007).
Individuals form groups to care for their local environment for many reasons. STEW-MAP
is primarily interested in the type of stewardship that is often voluntary and conducted for
altruistic reasons (Bramston et al. 2011, Geist and Galatowitsch 1999, Head and Muir 2006,
Stevens 1996, Westphal 1993). These types of groups are critical as parks departments and
other land management and natural resources agencies are forced to “do more with less” as they
compete for public funds alongside other essential agencies and worthwhile expenditures. At
the same time, open space in most cities and urbanized areas is heterogeneous, resulting in a
high demand for specialized stewardship activities that are tailored to particular neighborhood
and/or site types including parks, gardens, farms, bioswales, greenways, and green roofs.
5

Research on ”civic stewardship” focuses on how locally based groups across the United States
have responded to public problems by working along with, and outside of, government
agencies and the private business sector (see particularly Fisher et al. 2012, Fisher et al. 2015,
John 1994, Sirianni 2006, Sirianni and Friedland 2001, Svendsen and Campbell 2008). Most
environmental stewardship today consists of this type of collaborative, site-specific work.
Urban stewards operate in urban parks and forest preserves (Cranz 1982, Cranz and Boland
2004, Gobster 2007, Gobster 2000, Rosenzweig and Blackmar 1992, Stevens 1996), urban
gardens (Lawson 2005), urban greenways (Gobster and Westphal 2004, Svendsen 2010),
and even brownfields (Westphal et al. 2010). Diverse groups have taken action to manage
ecosystems, protect human and ecosystem health, and educate broader publics (Boyte 2004,
Boyte 1999, Sirianni and Friedland 2001). Boyte, for example, notes a shift in the
role of the public as citizens, whereby “people [see] themselves as the co-creators
Environmental
of democracy, not simply as customers or clients, voters, protestors, or volunteers”
stewardship is a leading
(Boyte 2004, p. 5). In particular, citizens have become involved in politics and
tool for communities
decisionmaking through their actual work.
Environmental stewardship has emerged as a leading tool for communities to
contribute to the sustainability of their local environments and the resilience of their
communities (Svendsen et al. 2014). In the report “Everyday Choices: Opportunities
for Environmental Stewardship,” the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s
Innovation Action Council begins: “We believe environmental stewardship offers
great potential for solving some of our most challenging problems and that it can
help galvanize collaborations with a broader range of stakeholders” (US EPA 2005: i).

to contribute to the
sustainability of their
local environments and
the resilience of their
communities.

With roots that go back to the founding of the country, civic environmental stewardship today
occurs at a range of scales and in a variety of forms. Civic stewards include the neighborhood
block club that clears a vacant lot one garbage bagful at a time in order to create a community
garden space, the environmental justice group that protests the coal-fired power plant
polluting in their neighborhood, and large alliances like Chicago Wilderness and other
members of the Metropolitan Greenspaces Alliance that look at regional-scale environmental
issues. Civic stewardship groups work both alongside and independent of public agencies and
private businesses in managing urban landscapes (Connolly et al. 2013). Local environmental
groups have a diversity of organizational structures (e.g., Andrews and Edwards 2005, Salazar
1996, see also Brulle 2000). One goal of STEW-MAP is to assess the differences in the
organizational structure and degree of professionalization of local environmental groups
within an urban context (see Fisher et al. 2012).

Stewardship Turf: Spatial Analysis
The spatial patterns of where stewardship organizations work may be a function of
organizational structure, governance, built environment, and/or ecosystem structure, among
other factors. Analysis of these spatial patterns can include exploratory, descriptive, and
statistical measures of the relationship between geographic entities (O’Sullivan and Unwin
2010). Because many disciplines generate geographic data, spatial analysis has the potential
to serve as a point of integration—a common language of sorts—across social and ecological
research (Liu et al. 2007). As an example, STEW-MAP’s methods enable the comparison
of stewardship groups with vegetation change, finding that increases in urban vegetation are
correlated with higher numbers of stewardship groups (Locke et al. 2014, Romolini et al.
2013). It can also be used to assess environmental justice related issues in a city (Westphal
6

et al. 2014). Incorporating space into analyses enables identification of the areas of active
stewardship. Those areas can be further classified according to the issues upon which
organizations focus, such as water access, park maintenance, or garden management.

Stewardship Networks
Identifying the social networks of stewardship groups is fundamental to understanding how
resources, materials, information, and knowledge flow through a stewardship system. Social
Network Analysis (SNA) is a quantitative method rooted in graph theory that provides a
way to visualize and analyze complex networks (Connolly et al. 2015, Wasserman and Faust
1994). A number of fields have employed SNA in the recent past and have applied it to a
variety of topics, including organizations (Baldassarri and Diani 2007, Laumann and Knoke
1987, Leifeld and Haunss 2012), social media (Eagle et al. 2009, Lewis et al. 2012), and
the political arena (Fisher et al. 2011, 2013; Knoke 1990; Park et al. 2011). In much of this
work, SNA is used descriptively, as a way of mapping actors, issues, opinions, information,
and cooperation, as well as the intersection of these. Previous work has focused on who
participates in given networks, and has served as a powerful tool to orient future research on
specific areas or actors in the network. Recent innovations in SNA have also made it possible
to predict participation in the network, including centrality, influence, and cooperation
(Lusher et al. 2012, Rand et al. 2011). In other words, these projects use SNA to determine
who the most popular or influential actors or ideas are in a network, and what attributes
predict their centrality.
Some SNA research is based on highly structured analyses of “complete networks,” wherein
all participants in a network are enumerated and surveyed, such that every tie between
every actor is documented, until a complete network matrix is collected. Other SNA
focuses on unbounded networks where not all potential members are identified and limited
in advance. SNA can be applied qualitatively, through examination of “ego networks”—
the sets of ties closely linked to a set of respondents (called “egos”), as a way to begin to
visualize a component of the network that one is studying. The limitation of the latter is that
researchers cannot use many of the powerful quantitative tools to understand the structure
and characteristics of the total network, because they do not know the nature of ties from
un-surveyed members of the network (Hanneman and Riddle 2005). Ego networks do,
however, elucidate the relations and ties of the respondents in one’s study, demonstrate the
relative positioning of respondents, and give a sense of the local networks surrounding these
respondents (Burt 2007, Marsden 1990, Scott 2000, Wellman 1979). Methods for using
SNA to visualize, describe, and model social networks quantitatively and qualitatively are
advancing rapidly and represent the most fluid areas of stewardship mapping. One of the key
benefits to engaging with SNA for the study of stewardship is to gain a sense of those groups
that are highly connected to other groups (nodes) and those that are working in isolation or
with very few contacts for information and materials (isolates).
Scholars have used network analysis to examine a broad set of social and natural science
questions. As Rocheleau and Roth (2007) argue, networks have served as metaphors, models,
and theoretical tools within this research that has examined topics including the social
networks of environmental stakeholders (Prell et al. 2009); communication patterns and
resource exchange (Crona and Bodin 2006); links between social networks and resilience
to climate change (Newman and Dale 2004); and organizational networks of urban civic
environmental organizations (Ernstson et al. 2008). This line of inquiry is well established
7

for studies that examine inter-organizational dynamics. Literature in sociology and political
science, for example, has looked at organizational alliances (Ansell 2003); ties among
organizations that share members (Carroll and Ratner 1996, Cornwell and Harrison 2004);
governance networks (Connolly et al. 2013, 2014); and the presence, structure, and effects
of “civic networks”—which are defined as “the web of collaborative ties and overlapping
memberships between participatory organizations, formally independent of the state, acting
on behalf of collective and public interests” (Baldassari and Diani 2007: 736).

PROJECT PLANNING AND DESIGN
This section presents an introduction to how you might assess stewardship activities in your
area of interest. At each stage, we present how STEW-MAP was initially implemented
in NYC and then provide additional examples of how it was tailored to other cities. These
variations were the result of differences in available data, resources, and research questions
across cities.

Planning the Project
As with any major research or assessment project, it is important to “pencil out” the goals,
objectives, necessary resources, expected deliverables, and expected timeline.

Project Lead

STEW-MAP projects have typically been executed by partnerships that include agency
scientists, nonprofit organizations, university researchers and technical staff, and local
government staff.
Using the protocols provided in this guide, a locally based project lead could be either a
researcher or other program staff member. He or she needs to have the capacity or collaborate
with others who have the capacity to manage a multi-phased project, to build relationships
with stewardship partners, to organize databases, to administer a survey and associated
communications, and to oversee the development of products (both research products and
applications). However, it is crucial that they be locally based in order to conduct face-to-face
meetings and presentations.

Stewardship Partners

An important precursor to building the population of stewardship groups is outreach to local
umbrella groups, organizations that may support other civic organizations. These lead public
and nonprofit agencies may provide your team with lists of their contacts that will ultimately
become your sampling population. By engaging these partners in the process of designing
STEW-MAP in their own city, they may become invested in the long-term success of the
project. In addition, building the scope of the project collaboratively will ensure their voices
are heard, since they are some of the ultimate “clients” of STEW-MAP.

Costs

The principal costs of a STEW-MAP project include:
• Salary for project personnel to design and implement the survey, including online
survey development and management

8

• Printing and postage for paper surveys and outreach materials (postcards, posters, etc.)
if applicable
• Incentives or prizes for participants (or these may be donated in-kind by project
partners–for example, museum passes)

• Analysis of the survey data, including any software used in the analysis (statistical,
geographic, and network analysis all require different skill sets and software)
• Staff time to check or enter stewardship polygons and to clean all survey and
geographic data
• Web design and hosting fees for online applications

Project Timeline

While each iteration of STEW-MAP is different depending on local conditions, a rough
timeline is as follows:
• Six months to determine the sampling population and database before administering
the survey
• Six months to collect survey data

• One year to conduct data clean-up, analyze basic descriptive statistics, and develop
reports and maps for local partners
• One or more years to develop scholarly research papers or agency reports

Survey Preparation
Determining the Population

The project focuses on civic organizations, including both formal nonprofits and informal
community groups that serve any of the following stewardship functions: conserving,
managing, monitoring, advocating for the local environment, or educating their friends,
neighbors, public officials, or the general public about the local environment. Previous studies
of local environmentalism have found that national directories of non-profit groups represent
local groups inadequately (Andrews and Edwards 2005, Kempton et al. 2001, see also Brulle
et al. 2007), so it was necessary to compile a list of local stewardship groups at this stage.
To develop the New York City sample of civic stewardship organizations, all public agencies
and non-profits operating at the citywide or borough-wide scale on issues related to the
environment and natural resource management were approached with a request for their lists
of organizational partners. Using multiple sources to compile the list of organizations reduces
the likelihood that there are biases in the data based on any particular source (see particularly
Brulle et al. 2007). A snowball sampling method was also used, whereby each of these largescale data providers was asked to suggest additional potential data providers within the city,
until saturation was reached (Fisher et al. 2012). This approach was applied to capture the core
network of stewardship groups that are connected to the citywide environment and natural
resource management community.
In other cities, sample development was handled slightly differently. In Chicago,
announcement of the survey and invitation to participate were sent through existing
networks of environmentally oriented groups and alliances including the Chicago Wilderness
membership list, regional meetings, and other newsletters. Because of the high level of
9

Network Participants

Initial surveyed
population

Respondents

Nonrespondents
(from initial
population)

Nonrespondents
(unique)

Initial
surveyed
population

Unique Nonrespondents

Enhanced
Population
Figure 3.—Missing data reconstruction process used to create enhanced population in Baltimore and Seattle.
Created by Michele Romolini, used with permission.

networking among local environmentally oriented groups through Chicago Wilderness,
and because of the very large geographic area we were covering, Chicago did not use the
snowball approach to developing a master list of known environmental groups. This decision
had two consequences: (1) Chicago cannot report a known response rate; and (2) because
of the convenience sample, Chicago is unable to make statistically valid inferences from the
stewardship information we have collected to date and are confined to mostly descriptive
statistics and general analysis. Others implementing STEW-MAP projects will need to weigh
these concerns against the logistic challenges of conducting a census in a large metropolitan
region (Westphal et al. 2014).
In the Baltimore STEW-MAP project, a snowball sampling method similar to the New
York City approach was used. In Seattle, a population data set was created until saturation
was reached, within the extent of the city boundaries and metro King County. Recent EPA
listings of salmon species as endangered had prompted government support of stewardship
as one recovery strategy, thus agencies and civic groups initiated a multi-year relationship.
Requests were made to local agencies for access to contact lists of partnering organizations. A
similar request was made to several key nonprofits that were known to be highly networked
in the urban natural resources community. These lists were compiled, then organizations were
“vetted” by web searches to learn about their suitability for inclusion in the study (based on
activities location and focus), to confirm contact information, and to glean additional groups
from project reports and indications of local partnerships.
Finally, in both Seattle and Baltimore, additional steps were taken after data collection to
develop an “enhanced population” through analyzing the social network data. See: “Data
Analysis and/Social Network data” and Figure 3.

Constructing the Sampling Frame

Once the individual population databases were gathered in New York City, several criteria
were applied when constructing the sampling frame:
• Location: groups outside of the five boroughs of New York City were removed,
although we did include groups located in New York City whose reach was regional,
national, or international
10

Table 1.—Criteria for including organizations and groups in the STEW-MAP population
data sets, by city
City

Extent

Organizational sectors

Complete
addresses

New York

City of New York
(5 boroughs)

Only civic actors

Yes

Chicago

Chicago Wilderness
Region (4 state area)

Civic actors, private and
government included

Email sufficient

Baltimore

City of Baltimore

Civic actors, private and
government included

Email sufficient

Seattle

Seattle and King County

Civic actors, private and
government included

Email sufficient

• Organization status: individuals without a group affiliation were removed

• Civil society (or civic) actors: we excluded all public agencies, private businesses,
and quasi-governmental entities such as local community boards from the survey
responses

• Complete addresses: groups with incomplete mailing information were removed from
the sample
Other cities slightly modified these criteria (Table 1). In Baltimore and Seattle, local and
county agencies were considered stewardship groups. Additionally, the STEW-MAP survey
in these cities was Web-based, so the essential contact information was a current organization
email address. In Seattle, the population data collection focused on the predetermined
sampling area of metro King County (that includes the city’s jurisdiction), an area of 2,307
square miles (5,975 km²).
In Chicago, the sampling focus was the Chicago Wilderness region. This includes
northeastern Illinois, northwest Indiana, a small section of southeast Wisconsin, and a sliver
of southwest Michigan. The focus in Chicago’s STEW-MAP was twofold: to compare civic
engagement with the other STEW-MAP cities, and to support the implementation of the
Green Infrastructure Vision and other work of Chicago Wilderness. Therefore, if stewards
contributed their information but were not a civic group, they were kept in the database but
marked as non-civic so that any comparisons with other STEW-MAP databases would be
made with comparable data. In this way, the Chicago STEW-MAP project was able to meet
multiple objectives.

Database Design

When collecting STEW-MAP data, certain database protocols should be used, including
unique identifiers and one-to-one relationships between sampled stewardship groups and
survey responses. Unique identifiers, or unique codes, should be assigned to stewardship
groups to ensure accurate tracking of groups. Automatically generated identifiers are
preferable, in order to avoid human error. Identifiers should be information-less; they are used
to facilitate queries and joins in a relational database. In addition to unique identifiers for each
organization, a unique “survey response ID” should also be assigned to each survey that comes
in. Unique identifiers for both organization and surveys will make it easy to identify which
versions of the survey to keep when organizations contribute more than one response.
11

In order to merge duplicate listings across different data providers, groups can be matched
by organization name, contact name, and address. There is some possibility for error in this
process because informal groups tend to change names frequently. In some cases, groups are
listed under different names by different data providers. However, every attempt should be
made to reconcile these duplicates and name changes. For instance, in New York City, starting
with an initial population of 4,788 groups, data clean-up resulted in a final population of
2,796 groups.
As survey responses come in, organizations identified as partners in the social network
questions should also receive unique identifiers and may be added to the full list of
stewardship groups. However, these additional organizations will not be used when
calculating response rates, as they would not have received the survey.

IRB and OMB Review

Typically, research that is publicly funded and involves collecting data from individuals or
social groups is required to be reviewed by institutional review boards (IRBs). In addition
to IRB review, any research involving data collection from people outside of federal service
that is done by a federal agency is subject to review by the U.S. Office of Management and
Budget (OMB). These reviews address ethical concerns about personal information disclosure,
potential for harm to respondents, and the confidentiality of any responses provided by
survey respondents. Most universities and medical research institutions have IRBs, and some
larger local government or state agencies may conduct reviews. A review typically involves
presenting a fairly detailed research plan and allowing for time to respond to clarifying
questions from the reviewers. If a city agency or NGO is conducting the data collection
and considers itself exempt from this process, it is important to study and understand the
confidentiality and ethics of conducting such studies by working in conjunction with an
academic or federal research partner.
The STEW-MAP survey was approved for local projects by the institutional review boards
at Columbia University (New York City), the University of Vermont (Baltimore), The Field
Museum (Chicago), the University of Washington (Seattle), and University of Maryland
(Philadelphia). The follow-up interview protocol for leaders of key organizations has
previously been used only in New York City and it was approved by Columbia University’s
IRB.
The main survey has been accepted by OMB and is included in appendix 2.

Confidentiality

The issue of confidentiality needs to be considered and addressed for STEW-MAP
participants even though the survey does not request personal or sensitive information.
Thus, the survey includes a question that allows groups to opt in or out of the public online
stewardship database.
In Chicago, some stewardship groups were unexpectedly wary about having their contact
information and other survey responses displayed on the project’s Website and maps. To keep
this concern from discouraging participation in the survey, the Chicago project team added
this additional explanation: “In other cities, this database allows stewards who share interests
to find each other and collaborate if they wish.” Consequently, 74 groups (about 20 percent)
opted out of having their information displayed. On its Website and maps, the project team
12

also limited each group’s information to their name, basic contact information, territory or
territories, and what they work on (a list of topics). This opt-out option helped increase survey
participation but it also limited the usefulness of the project’s maps and Website since 74
groups’ information was excluded.

Survey Implementation

Survey protocols and methods used for collecting stewardship data varied as STEW-MAP
was tested and evolved in new settings.
In New York City, the STEW-MAP survey was administered in both Web and mail formats,
with a standardized recruitment text (see appendixes 3 and 4), over an initial period of about
6 months. Where possible, email was the preferred method of contact. If an organization
did not have an email address or the email address was determined to be invalid (i.e.,
“bounceback” messages were received), organizations were then contacted via the U.S. Postal
Service. In New York City, all organizations received reminders: up to three reminders at
intervals of 2 weeks via email, and one postcard reminder after 1 month by mail (see appendix
3). All organizations with a valid phone number in the database received follow-up phone
call reminders over the course of the 6 month survey window. In addition, a description of the
study was included in local newsletters and listservs, including GrowNYC’s (then Council on
the Environment of New York City) newsletter and the New Yorkers for Parks “e-blast.” New
York City did not provide direct incentives for participation, beyond visibility on a public map.
In Chicago, the STEW-MAP survey was completed largely online (http://stewmap.cnt.
org). No surveys were mailed to stewardship organizations, but occasionally hard copies were
provided at meetings to be completed and handed back at the meeting. Similar to New York,
the survey was pretested and refined to ensure that it was easy to use. Primary adjustments
to the Chicago survey involved the online mapping tool. Stewardship groups were asked to
describe in words where they steward (like in the NYC survey) but there was also an online
mapping tool. This proved to be complicated for some to use, and several adjustments were
made, including adding a prominent option where stewards could select “draw my map for
me.”
The Chicago survey was launched at the Chicago Wilderness Congress, a biannual gathering
of conservation groups from the broad Chicago metro region. The survey was announced
through Chicago Wilderness e-newsletters, through Center for Neighborhood Technology
e-blasts and e-newsletters, and through both face to face and electronic distribution to a wide
array of environmentally oriented groups (e.g., The Field Museum’s New Allies for Nature
and Culture, the Energy Action Network, Audubon). Initial response rates were low, and so
to boost the response rate, modest incentives with a deadline for entering data to the site were
added. All contributing stewards who completed useable surveys by the deadline were eligible
for drawings for a $150 gift card to Home Depot; three separate $50 gift cards or a $50
donation to the respondent’s organization; or 10 awards of family four-packs of passes to The
Field Museum. Other key organizations across the region were asked to email their contacts
on behalf of STEW-MAP to encourage their participation.
The Seattle and Baltimore STEW-MAP teams made contact with organizations to invite
them to complete the online survey. The protocol for the survey process included: an initial
email to introduce the study and to request updated contact information; an email with the
survey link and instructions; and two to three reminder emails for 3 months during which the
13

survey remained open. An additional targeted follow-up was conducted six months after the
survey closed to ensure responses from several key informants.
Options for a STEW-MAP survey include a single data collection period, or a rolling,
ongoing data collection. Additional data collection requires continued data entry and support.
If a finite collection period is selected, it is also possible to repeat the STEW-MAP survey
for a given city at regular intervals, every 5 or 10 years for example, in order to capture new
stewardship groups or those who were missed in the first survey.

Response Rates and Nonresponse Bias

Because the STEW-MAP respondent population are nongovernment organizations (NGOs)
and community-based organizations (CBOs), a response group known to have some of the
lowest response rates (Hager et al. 2003), those conducting STEW-MAP surveys should
aim for the highest possible response rate but expect a response rate below 50 percent. While
a number of groups will be interested in promoting themselves along with others in the
community to bring awareness to their efforts via STEW-MAP, it may not be sufficient to
ensure a high response rate. Response rates in STEW-MAP to date have ranged from just
under 20 percent to nearly 50 percent. Therefore, we need to consider techniques to enhance
response rates and assess any response bias in STEW-MAP data.
In-person administration of surveys has been shown to increase response rates, but is a costly
and time consuming approach that is unlikely to be feasible for most STEW-MAP projects
(Allred and Ross-Davis 2011). Offering an incentive is a tested technique that can increase
response rates (Bosnjak and Tuten 2003, Singer and Ye 2013). An incentive could be a transit
card, a gift card for stewardship supplies, or voucher for a visit to a city botanic garden, zoo, or
museum. Incentives can be administered as a drawing amongst respondents to both increase
responses and reduce costs for implementation of the STEW-MAP survey.
Response rates may also be boosted by offering a shortened version of the survey to those who
have not yet responded when the initial survey period is drawing to a close. This version of the
survey can include only the “core” questions about the organization’s structure and stewardship
work without the social network questions or mapping section. People who complete the
10-minute version will be counted as respondents.
While STEW-MAP data will not necessarily be generalized to the general population or
to all stewardship groups in a city or region, nonresponse bias must still be evaluated if the
STEW-MAP project is to be scientifically rigorous (Groves 2006). STEW-MAP investigates
groups and organizations, not individuals or households, and it produces geographic data.
Therefore, investigations into potential response bias need to take these factors into account.
Possible approaches to investigating for bias include:
• Assessing the geographic distribution of stewardship territories reported. This
includes investigating areas with little reported stewardship via Web searches, through
knowledge of local STEW-MAP partners, and via GIS review (e.g., finding evidence
of community gardens in Google Earth).
• Comparing survey response rates to census data by category of groups, including
whether stewardship is the primary or secondary focus of the group, type of
stewardship activities, race/ethnic and/or economic background of the stewards, and
scale of stewardship activities (neighborhood to regional).
14

• Comparing first wave respondents to later respondents on types of stewardship they
do, site types that they work on, primary focus, number of staff, percent time on
stewardship, etc. While this is a weak test of nonresponse bias, it may point out issues
to investigate further through other means.
• Administering a nonrespondent survey after the initial survey period ends. This can
be a very short version of the survey that includes only a few key questions about
types of stewardship the groups work on and the group’s legal or organizational
status (e.g. 501(c)(3) organization versus informal community group. Responses from
the nonrespondent survey need to be compared to responses from all respondents
returning the full version of the survey to check for significant differences. In many
instances, nonrespondents do not even wish to participate in an abbreviated survey,
making this a sometimes difficult method to check for nonresponse bias.
Any evidence of nonresponse bias should be discussed in reports or publications
that use the data, and kept in mind when interpreting results and making
recommendations based on the data.

Data Collection from Stewardship Groups
STEW-MAP collects three main types of data about stewardship networks in a city or
region:
• Descriptive information about stewardship groups, their organizational structure, and
activities
• Geographic data about stewarded sites and territories

• Social network data about how groups or organizations are tied to others either by
sector or through funding, information exchanges, and partnerships
These different types of data are each analyzed differently, using distinct software and
approaches, requiring the research team to have varied skill sets and familiarity with multiple
social science disciplines. Additional information about the data collection, structure, and key
decisions follows.

Descriptive Information about Stewardship Groups’ Structures and Activities

The bulk of the survey questions collect information about what the stewardship groups
work on and their internal structure (Table 2). Responses to these questions yield descriptive
information about the scope and variability of mission of the groups doing stewardship
across a city or region, and they may be compared with data from other STEW-MAP project
regions. These questions are generally easy for the respondents to answer and are valuable in
analysis as they can be queried, cross tabulated, and aggregated to answer a range of specific
questions about responding organizations.

Geographic Data on Stewardship Turf

Stewardship happens at multiple spatial scales across a city or region. Some stewardship
activities, such as monitoring or restoration, will be site-specific although the sites may range
in size from a building rooftop to a many-thousand-acre nature preserve. Other activities,
including education or advocacy, may be carried out in a broader area—for example, across a
particular neighborhood or citywide.

15

Table 2.—Information collected by all STEW-MAP surveys
Variable collected
Contact information (name, mailing, Website, phone number)
General stewardship activities (conserve, care, restore, monitor, advocate, educate)
Legal designation
Organization activities
Primary organizational focus (arts, environment, public health, seniors, youth, etc.)
Types of environmental stewardship (water, land, building)
Mission statement
Text on why organization thinks stewardship is important
Description of stewardship turf/geography
Property ownership
Year founded
Staff capacity
Volunteer hours
Estimated annual budget
Services provided
Collaborating groups (programs, advice, funding)
Open-ended comments

In the geographic section of the survey, STEW-MAP invites participants to describe in
words the sites they work on (turf ). In New York City, Baltimore, and Seattle, turf maps were
prepared by the research team, as they interpreted written descriptions into GIS features.
In the Chicago region, a mapping tool was embedded within the online survey to invite
respondents to draw their stewardship turfs. Optimally each responding organization should
be able to check the accuracy of the polygon(s) drawn for its organization.
In all of the STEW-MAP projects to date, whether administered online or on paper, lookup tables of geographies (such as names of public parks, neighborhoods, cities, boroughs, or
counties) were provided in order to standardize responses and potentially save respondents
some time if they work across many sites or jurisdictions (appendix 2). In Baltimore and
Seattle, respondents were provided with a list of neighborhoods and asked to select the ones
where they work. Links were provided to an online map of the boundaries representing those
areas with the names clearly labeled. Having neighborhood-level data can also assist as a
location check when creating polygons.
Actual mapping of the stewardship turf presents a number of challenges both for the
respondents and for the research team. If no mapping tool is provided to respondents, the
research team will need to use the text descriptions provided on the survey. Respondents may
use locally known site names that are unfamiliar to the research team and are not readily
researched online. When a mapping tool is provided for respondents to use, it needs to be
carefully designed since respondents will have varying levels of familiarity and comfort with
mapping tools. It also needs to have clear instructions and easily understandable base maps
or aerial photos that provide landmarks like streets and buildings to help users identify where
they are on the map. Project participants may require assistance to map their own sites and
territories accurately. In many cases, even a well-designed mapping tool is too technical,
and the research team should expect to do a lot of the mapping themselves on behalf of
16

The first STEW-MAP survey was pretested in one New York City neighborhood.
After receiving a response rate of only 5 percent in this pretest, the survey was
refined, shortened, and redesigned, and follow-up outreach phone calls were
added to the procedures. The final survey was composed of 20 questions, most of
which were in a close-ended format. This initial instrument was slightly adapted
for use in other cities. The standardized version of the survey was created for the
OMB review process; that version is now approved for public use throughout the
United States by federal researchers and their collaborators.

respondents and to clean up polygons drawn by respondents. However, larger professionalized
organizations may have GIS data of their sites or properties. Providing the option of
supplying existing GIS data should be included in any STEW-MAP survey.
In summary, across the cities, STEW-MAP teams have also used the following techniques to
collect and display stewardship boundary or turf data:
• Ask for written descriptions of turf used by project staff to draw polygons. This is
time intensive.

• Ask respondents to choose a particular geography from a set list (check boxes). This
takes the least amount of time but limits the project’s ability to display small sites and
previously unknown spatial turfs.
• Allow users to upload GIS files. This depends upon respondents’ familiarity with GIS
and assumes the GIS files are accurate.
• Builds an online mapping tool that is accessible and easy to use. This is the ideal
solution and one that might become an option for all in future applications of
STEW-MAP.

Social Network Data

Another dimension of STEW-MAP analysis is to discover how stewardship groups are
connected to each other in a city or region. These social network questions have been asked
in two different ways in order to explore different sub-questions: (1) asking which groups
partner with other groups by sector (e.g., nonprofit organizations, government agencies,
businesses) in order to explore network and hybrid governance; and (2) asking which groups
partner with other groups on projects and programs and how funding and information flow
across the network.
The New York City survey approached the social network questions by focusing on the types
of organizations by sector with which each responding group worked. The questions asked
respondents to list up to three “business groups,” up to three “civic or community groups,”
up to three “government agencies,” and up to three “school groups” for a total of 12 response
slots across the four categories, without characterizing what was given or exchanged in these
relationships. The Philadelphia study later expanded on this approach by allowing respondents
to identify an unlimited number of network partners in each sector. Allowing respondents to
identify unlimited partners is the preferred method in social network analysis for generating
the most robust networks.
17

By contrast, the Baltimore, Chicago, and Seattle surveys had five networking questions
asking which other organizations the responding organization: received information, advice,
or expertise from; provided information, advice, or expertise to; received funding from; and
provided funding to. A fifth question asked for the names of partnerships or coalitions that
the group or organization belonged to. This allows for separate network analyses of funding
and information and also provides information about the direction in which these resources
flow. Ten response slots were provided for each question so each organization could name
up to a total of 50 responses across the five categories. In practice, responding groups often
named the same organizations multiple times across the five questions.
The OMB version of the survey combines both of these approaches to ask a series of
questions about network partners and flows through the network. After discussion and mutual
learning across the investigators from the different cities, this OMB version was created as
a way to explore both sets of research questions and is currently being implemented in the
San Juan, Puerto Rico, STEW-MAP study. See appendix 2 for all survey protocols to see the
different ways that network questions were asked by sector (New York City and Philadelphia)
and by flows through the network (Baltimore, Seattle, and Chicago).
In a closed network where all of the possible groups or organizations are known, an
alternative way of soliciting responses is to list all of the possible organizations and ask
respondents with which ones their group or organization works. However, this is not
practical for STEW-MAP, as the list of known organizations may number in the hundreds
or thousands. One elegant solution for electronic surveys is to say that respondents can list as
many organizations as they wish for each category, but provide only one empty response field
at a time, adding additional fields one at a time as each is filled in by the respondent. Limiting
responses by giving a numbered table is seen as limiting the network and is discouraged. It is
critical to structure network questions to allow respondents to identify unlimited partners (as
in the Philadelphia case) and word questions consistently to allow for comparative analysis.

Data Clean-up and Analysis
Dealing with Duplicates and Incomplete Surveys

Clean-up can include duplicate replies, incomplete responses, and repackaging data into
formats compatible with GIS and social network software. Once data are received and
entered, there is likely to be a substantial amount of clean-up required. If duplicate replies are
received from one organization, the most complete version is used. If both are complete, the
survey that comes in earliest is used.

Open-ended Questions

Any open-ended questions used in the survey require clean-up and may require qualitative
coding. These responses can be analyzed and coded thematically via an open, emergent coding
approach or via deductive coding, where a set of codes are created a priori (See, for example,
Bradshaw and Stratford 2005, Dunn 2005). For example, an open-ended question asks groups
to provide their mission statement, which can be analyzed to examine the primary focus, as
well as the ways in which environmental stewardship is nested in other types of community
concerns (such as seniors, youth, and neighborhood safety). New methods are emerging for
analyzing qualitative data with computer algorithms, such as with computer assisted coding
systems; these methods could be applied to such open-ended data.

18

Geographic Data on Stewardship Turf

Cleaning up geographic data applies to surveys with online mapping tools, such as Chicago
STEW-MAP. Chicago STEW-MAP’s online mapping tool embedded in the survey had
mixed results. While the tool was well designed, it was difficult for many stewards to use.
Therefore, Chicago STEW-MAP staff spent considerable time cleaning up the GIS data and
verifying geographies with stewards. In Chicago, the team contacted those who requested that
their map be drawn for them; the map drawn by the research team was sent to the respondent
for verification and correction as needed. This step was also taken when it looked like stewards
had attempted to use the online mapping tool but had difficulties (i.e., the resulting polygon
was a very strange shape).
Geographic data from the survey provide visual representations of stewardship sites and
territories, such as maps with stewarded polygons shaded. The surveys in Baltimore and Seattle
provided easily visualized counts of groups per neighborhood. These data can be integrated
with other spatially explicit data like demographic data and environmental conditions using
a GIS. Both coarse- and fine-grained analysis of the geographic data can show stewardship
hotspots or areas where many stewardship groups are working near each other, overlaps of
sites or territories where multiple groups are working, and gaps where no stewarded sites or
territories were identified. However, analysis of the geographic data can be technically complex
and presents a number of challenges. For example, the kind of gap analysis just mentioned
needs to be undertaken with caution since lack of stewardship in one area may only indicate
that no stewardship groups working in that area participated in the survey.
Map data can be used for analytic queries by a science team; they can also be used for an
online public display about organizations. A technical challenge is to provide the geographic
data online in a way that someone from the general public can query and understand it, given
the abundance of organizations and overlapping nature of urban environmental stewardship.
Those familiar with digital mapping and GIS may be able to create their own custom maps
using an online tool, but many lay people do not have these skills. Static maps can be prepared
and added to a display web site as a map gallery, and they may complement more sophisticated
online maps. Each STEW-MAP project team needs to weigh the complexity of providing a
publicly accessible interactive mapping tool against the expected utility of that tool in their
city or region.

Social Network Data

Preparation of organization network data after survey responses are received often requires
extensive clean-up. Responses to the New York City survey underwent substantial quality
assurance/quality control (QA/QC) from their raw state in order to prepare the data for
analysis:
• Standardization: Names of organizations were standardized with a common spelling.
Any organizational partners (“alters”) identified beyond the top three in each sector
were excluded.
• Error Checking: Any answers that were mischaracterized (e.g., calling “the Parks
Department” a civic group) were recoded to the appropriate sector. Any responses
that could not be identified to a specific organization (e.g., “churches,” “community
boards”) were recoded as “GENERAL” and were excluded.
• Formatting: Data were entered into a Microsoft® Excel database that was then
imported into the software UCINET (Borgatti et al. 2002).

19

Missing data, where a survey respondent does not provide a response, can be problematic
in social network analysis, as this type of analysis is very sensitive to such missing data
(Kossinets 2006). For Baltimore and Seattle data, missing data points in social networks were
imputed using a reconstruction approach. Reconstruction involves replacing a missing tie
using the value reported by the responding actor in the dyad (Stork and Richards 1992); that
is, if respondent A reports providing information (outgoing tie) to nonrespondent B, then B
is populated with an incoming tie from A. Imputation procedures have been used in social
science survey research to replace the missing values of a nonrespondent with the values of a
donor actor from the same data set (see Andridge and Little 2010 for a review), and can be
applied in social network studies to populate the ties of nonresponding actors (Burt 1987).
Since the network questions were open-ended in Baltimore and Seattle, a nonresponding
organization could be from the original surveyed population or a “unique” organization
not previously identified. Internet research was conducted to include only those unique
organizations working within the city boundaries of Baltimore or Seattle. The unique
organizations were added to the original population to create an enhanced total population.
This process provided a more complete view of the stewardship population in each city. Of
the enhanced population, the respondents plus those nominated were considered to comprise
the active stewardship network in each city, and thus network analysis was conducted on these
networks (see Fig. 1).
At the time of this writing, Chicago STEW-MAP social network data had been cleaned, but
analysis is still underway. As with other cities, the Chicago SNA data needed to be cleaned
to standardize organization names. The Chicago data cleaning process included many lumpor-split decisions as well. In total, there were 1,830 unique responses to the SNA questions
including spelling variations and typographical errors; when cleaned up and consolidated,
there were 942 unique organizations and categories such as “local schools.”

Ongoing Data Management
It is important to consider eventual data use, display, and management early in the STEWMAP project design process. The combination of data formats and collaborative access can
make data management complex. Looking across the collaborators and eventual data users, it
is important to consider how the survey data and geospatial analysis products will be stored
and managed.
There are several major data products and processes from a STEW-MAP project:
• Organization list: The complete database of organizations that is the basis for
sampling, project outreach, and additional follow-up research.

• Survey data: The data set resulting from group and organization responses, having
high potential for near- and long-term analytics.

• Geospatial analysis: The process of converting (by way of specialized software and
personnel skills) the reported organization territories to a data set that includes both
geospatial and attribute information.
• Public display: The public presentation of results.

Considerations include the processing, server, and display needs when comparing groups’
activity maps, as well as social network displays. Surrounding all of these data sets and
20

products are some key questions, including where data will be hosted. Preparation of
metadata, or the careful notation of the source and structure of any data file, is a valuable best
practice. Decisions should also be made about data storage, backup, and security (as some
survey information may be deemed confidential per IRB review). Due to the rich content of
a STEW-MAP project, there are inevitable follow-up requests for use of a data set. What
might be appropriate data sharing policies so that there is an adequate log of data use and
acknowledgment in publication? Developing a protocol for data sharing is an important step
in this process.
The New York City team partnered with two groups to conduct spatial analysis and build
public applications. The University of Vermont Spatial Analysis Lab helped build the
geodatabase and assisted in creating the polygon turfs. The CUNY Mapping Service displays
the STEW-MAP layer on the public GIS site, www.oasisnyc.net, providing ongoing hosting
of the data. Technicians on staff with the Forest Service provided the QA/QC and assist with
inquiries and requests to query the geodatabase to share with managers.
For Baltimore, data has been stored on Forest Service staff computers and has not yet
been prepared for public display. In Chicago, where stewardship groups create their own
stewardship turfs online, data is included in the associated online map after a review by a
project staff person. Spatial data is managed by the Center for Neighborhood Technology
and by The Field Museum, while Forest Service staff handle survey results and social network
analyses. The Seattle team partnered with the University of Washington’s Remote Sensing
and Geospatial Analysis Lab for data management. While multiple scientists and students
have been working on the project, primary storage of data sets and the files for public display
are on the university’s servers. In addition, products, such as conference presentations and
publications, are shared by non-Forest Service entities using a secure, cloud-based server that
enable individuals from multiple institutional settings to access materials.

SYNTHESIS: USING STEW-MAP TO ANSWER YOUR
QUESTIONS
STEW-MAP survey data can be analyzed in a number of ways, driven by research questions,
policy needs, and funding opportunities. Here we present just some of the questions that have
been asked of STEW-MAP data.

How many civic stewardship groups are in my city?
The number of stewardship groups identified depends on the approach to determining the
population. Repeating STEW-MAP longitudinally will strengthen understanding of whether
and how civic stewardship groups persist over time. Overall, 506 groups participated in the
stewardship survey of New York City, representing a response rate of 18.3 percent. This
response rate is within the common range for mail-in and Internet surveys of organizations
(for a full discussion, see Hager et al. 2003). Smaller cities should expect fewer groups—
STEW-MAP Baltimore results contain 163 groups (26.9 percent response rate) and STEWMAP Seattle contains 144 groups (25.4 percent response rate). STEW-MAP Chicago
contains 369 groups (including a 49 percent response rate among Chicago Wilderness’ 255
member organizations). Lacking data on nonrespondents, however, we are unable to examine
potential response bias in our data set. In New York City, we examined the data for spatial

21

distribution by borough. The response rate was relatively consistent across the five boroughs of
New York City, showing no particular borough bias.

What are the organizational characteristics of civic stewardship
groups?
For New York City, a professionalism index was created using the survey responses
to questions about each group’s paid staff and annual budget (see Staggenborg 1988).
Contingency tables were used to compare the professionalization score to a number of
organizational characteristics, including 501(c)(3) status and year founded. Slightly more
than half of all the participating civic stewardship groups reported having 501(c)(3) tax
status and most of those organizations scored medium to high on the professionalization
index. Additionally, most of the older groups founded prior to 1970 scored high on the
index, while an overwhelming majority of groups founded since 1990 scored low on the
professionalization index (Fisher et al. 2012). In Baltimore and Seattle, approximately 80
percent of responding groups were nonprofit institutions. In Chicago, 48 percent of all
responding groups had formal 501(c)(3) status and over 60 percent of the 266 participating
civic groups scored low on the professionalization index as defined by the NYC team.

What is the primary focus of stewardship groups?
The New York City study found that civic stewardship groups span a range of focus areas.
While solely environmentally focused groups were the most common, we also found that
education, community improvement, and youth groups were common (Fig. 4). Additional
information about the way in which environmental issues and community concerns are
intertwined can be gleaned from coding mission statements to better understand how
stewardship helps to satisfy a group’s core mission.
Environment
Education
Community improvement
Youth
Arts, culture
Recreation and sports
Seniors
Development
Public health
Housing
Human services
Animal related
Employment/Job related
Research in science, technoogy, and social science
Transporation related
Crime, criminal justice
Legal services, civil rights
Religion related
International foreign affairs, and national security
Private grantmaking foundation
0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

% respondents

Figure 4.—Primary focus of stewardship groups’ work in New York City.

22

50%

60%

70%

Conducting in-depth interviews with select organizations can also reveal how a group’s focus
area may have shifted over time in response to socio-demographic shifts, urban development,
and politics. Knowing more about the motivations for stewardship by nontraditional
environmental organizations is critical to our understanding of stewardship as a larger socialecological system.

What environmental sites do civic environmental organizations
steward?
Stewardship groups work across a range of physical site types, which can vary from city
to city. In New York City, the most common sites for stewardship were parks, community
gardens, and street trees (Fig. 5). The majority of groups that reported working on green
buildings scored medium or high on the professionalization index, while groups that worked
on community gardens scored low on the professionalization index (Fisher et al. 2012). In
Baltimore, commonly stewarded areas were community gardens, vacant lots, parks, public
rights-of-way (ROW), planters, school yards, stormwater features, public gardens, and
watersheds. In the Chicago Wilderness region, the most commonly stewarded site types
were prairie, forest/woodland, community garden, wetland, and park. In Seattle, the most
commonly stewarded site types were parks, watersheds, streams, wetlands, public rights-ofway, greenways, and shoreline. Across these cities we find a similar mix of site types but with
interesting distinctions related to geography (e.g., prairies in Chicago region). Also, in some
cases, sites are attractive to community groups because stewards have been actively recruited
by land managers (e.g., street trees and parks) and/or the sites are accessible and in the public
domain, but there is no active stewardship happening by the city or the state (e.g., vacant lots).

Park
Community garden
Street tree
Waterfront
Natural
Public ROW
Apartment grounds
Watershed
Stream
Flowerbox
Front/back yard
School yard
Vacant
Green building
Greenway
Botanical garden
Playfield
Courtyard
Urban farm
Rooftop
Dog run
0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

% respondents

Figure 5.—Site type on which stewardship groups work in New York City.

23

Figure 6.—Map of civic stewardship groups in New York City.

Figure 7.—Map of New York City’s parks and community gardens.

Where does environmental stewardship occur?
Because the STEW-MAP survey asks respondents to characterize the area where they work,
the data can be used to visualize stewardship coverage across a city or metropolitan area, such
as where there are neighborhood gaps in stewardship and where groups overlap. In New York
City, the team mapped stewardship group addresses (Fig. 6).These data can be compared to
the distribution of green space in New York City (Fig. 7).
We can also explore which neighborhoods have many stewardship groups and which have
relatively few. We can refine the hot and cold spot analysis by including the intensity of
stewardship efforts. This can give a more nuanced understanding of the nature of stewardship
across a region or city. Researchers in New York City found a density of groups in locations
with the least amount of green space, suggesting that the demand for these spaces to be
restored is high. Figure 8 shows the same set of stewardship groups, but displays their selfreported geographic turf, aggregated to the neighborhood tabulation area (NTA). This figure
shows of the number of stewardship groups by neighborhood across New York City, areas
with higher numbers of stewardship organizations in darker green and neighborhoods with
smaller numbers in light green.
STEW-MAP data can also be used in conjunction with U.S. Census data to analyze
stewardship’s socio-demographic patterns. The Chicago team analyzed stewardship data to see
if the patterns of stewardship supported or challenged the often-held belief that stewardship
activities are primarily done by white and middle class people. Initial analysis indicated that
stewardship in Chicago may not be a predominantly white, middle class activity. Most areas
24

Number of Stewardship
Organizations

Figure 8.—Intensity of stewardship turfs in New York City.

of the city, including areas that were majority black, Hispanic, or white, had at least one
stewardship organization claiming it as their stewardship territory, and a look at one low
income, diverse neighborhood showed most stewardship was from within the community
(Westphal et al. 2014).

How can we characterize the urban environmental stewardship
network?
Organizational network analyses have been completed for New York City, Baltimore, and
Seattle (Connolly et al. 2013, 2014; Romolini 2013). These analyses explore who is connected
to whom in a city’s stewardship network. In terms of network analysis, this means identifying
who is central to the network and who is peripheral. UCINET software was used to explore
stewardship network centrality and density.
In New York City, prominent actors with a high number of ties and important network
positions were identified. Thus, all organizations that were more than two standard deviations
away from the mean in terms of both in-degree ties and betweenness were identified as
“bridge organizations,” or brokers. These organizations have a number of other organizations
connecting with them by exchanging knowledge, materials, labor, and financial resources.
As network theory predicts, these organizations are playing a crucial role in sharing
information and resources in order to coordinate action across the network. These groups
help bridge across sectors (public/private) and scales (citywide/neighborhood) in the complex
management of urban environments (Connolly et al. 2013).
25

Figure 9.—New York City civic-to-civic network.

New York City’s civic-to-civic network is much more decentralized and polycentric than
the civic-to-public network, demonstrating different functions within the social-ecological
system for these networks, and highlighting the importance of the most connected “bridge
organizations” (Fig. 9). Examination of the civic-to-civic network identified that groups are
clustered according to the types of sites that they steward in the urban environment. The civic
stewardship network also includes clusters of groups with broad civic missions that extend
beyond environmental stewardship. Figure 10 shows the civic-to-government network, which
is 28.4 percent centralized compared to the 3.28 percent centralization in the civic-to-civic
network. The difference between these measures demonstrates that civic stewardship groups
coordinate activities amongst themselves across diffuse small-scale clusters seen in the civicto-civic network, and then tend to focus those activities at the citywide level via connections
with government agencies.
The stewardship network is also organized according to ecological function and geography.
The stewardship network evolved over three different periods, 1970 to 1990, 1990 to
2000, and 2000 to present, leading to the development of a hybrid governance structure of
government along with civic and business sectors managing ecosystem services in the city.
These data show that the social and spatial structure of these networks matter for urban
environmental stewardship outcomes (Connolly et al. 2014).
Baltimore and Seattle were analyzed using the same methods; each city’s information network
was examined for measures of centralization and centrality. Baltimore’s network exhibited 18
percent centralization, which was five times the centralization found in Seattle. Interestingly,
in Baltimore, analysis of the types of centrality revealed that organizations that held the
most ties (degree centrality) were not the same as those most often found in bridging roles
(betweenness centrality). These two network measures are considered to be proxies for activity
and influence; therefore, the most active members of Baltimore’s network were not always the
26

Figure 10.—New York City civic-to-public network.

most influential. This is an important point as we think about who makes decisions in any
given community and how groups that are making contributions with labor and time are (or
are not) part of that process of deliberative democracy.

Social-Ecological Questions
Other questions examined with STEW-MAP are socio-ecological in nature. In New York
City, the density of stewardship groups has been compared to vegetation change (derived
from Landsat satellite data) and urban development (change in building footprint) from 2000
to 2010. Most neighborhoods lost vegetation during the study period. Neighborhoods that
gained vegetation tended to have, on average, more stewardship groups. We contextualize
the ways in which stewardship groups led to the observed decadal- and neighborhood-scale
changes in urban vegetation cover (Locke et al. 2014).
In Chicago, this detailed assessment of who is stewarding where is being compared to the
Chicago Wilderness Green Infrastructure Vision in order to see where there might be
synergies to build upon in conserving land and water of significant conservation issues as well
as where there may be stewardship “deserts.” Further research would be needed to understand
the reasons behind the absence of stewardship, starting with verifying that stewardship was,
indeed, absent from the area and not just from the database.
In Baltimore and Seattle, social network and spatial regression analyses were conducted
to explore relationships among variations in land cover and network measures at the
neighborhood level. Both the number of organizations and the number of ties between
them correlated significantly and negatively with the percentage of tree canopy in Baltimore
neighborhoods. There was no correlation between the number of organizations or their
network characteristics and the abundance of tree canopy in Seattle (Romolini et al. 2013).
27

STEW-MAP in Action:
Baltimore Federal Urban Waters Partnership
Following a presentation on STEW-MAP, federal and local participants in Baltimore’s
Federal Urban Waters Partnership became interested in utilizing STEW-MAP data to
facilitate their work.
Network management and monitoring were highlighted as important activities of
the Baltimore Federal Urban Waters Partnership, and STEW-MAP data will become an
integral part of this effort.
A recent Federal Urban Waters Partnership meeting served as the forum for a focus
group on how STEW-MAP could best serve Baltimore stewardship organizations.
The most common responses:
• Increase opportunities & capacities for collaboration
• Improve flows of and access to information and expertise
• Identify areas where work is not occurring
Federal Urban Waters Partnership subcommittees on mapping and networks will
work together to develop tools powered by STEW-MAP data.

Public Applications and Visualization
Equally important to the scientific findings provided by a STEW-MAP study are the
applications and visualizations of urban environmental stewardship that can be made publicly
available. Data providers and other core partners in a STEW-MAP project may be presented
with initial findings from the study and can provide valuable feedback since they are often
the land managers, educators, and advocates of the urban environment who will find the data
useful in their everyday operations.
Once a STEW-MAP database is finalized, queries may be conducted as requested by natural
resource agencies and nonprofits. For example, it is possible to conduct a spatial query for all
groups in a certain neighborhood, in a county, or within a certain radius of a park. Queries
may also be run for groups of a certain type—for example, all groups who work on street
trees. If the database is made publicly available, it is possible to build search functions so
that anyone can search for a group by name, organization type, or geographic location (for
example, see http://www.oasisnyc.net/stewardship/stewardshipsearch.aspx or http://stewmap.
cnt.org). Finally, individual agencies as well as researchers can integrate the STEW-MAP
data with other spatial data sets, including maps of parks, trees, or other green infrastructure
in order to answer questions about the role of stewardship in the urban landscape.

LESSONS LEARNED
It is important to cultivate long-term, community-based natural resource stewardship for
a wide variety of reasons including to foster innovation, to strengthen democratic practices
through civic engagement, and to nurture a life-long respect and understanding of nature
from busy city streets to suburban woodlots to our national forests and grasslands. STEWMAP creates a framework to connect and strengthen the capacity of stewardship groups and
to measure, monitor, and maximize the contribution of our civic resources.

28

With the proper planning and data management framework, STEW-MAP can produce
valuable data about the landscape of environmental stewardship within any given locality
or across a particular theme. Implementation of the project can also strengthen connections
between core research partners and local civic or government data providers. In implementing
STEW-MAP several times, we have learned some lessons key to success.

Have GIS Expertise on Your Team
The mapping component of STEW-MAP has the potential to provide some of the most
interesting and useful visual representations of the data, but collecting and displaying accurate
geographic information on stewarded sites and turfs is a challenge. Early involvement of a
project partner with strong GIS, database development, and geographic data visualization skills
is critical.

Establish the Population that You are Studying so that You Can
Determine Response Rate
In the Chicago region, prior to beginning the survey, the researchers chose not to create a
population dataset of stewardship groups and organizations. This presented some challenges
during data analysis and made it impossible to know how many groups across the region
had not participated. For future projects, we strongly recommend establishing a population
dataset ahead of time in order to strengthen the scientific rigor of the data analysis and track
participation (see the Determining the Population subsection, page 9). After the population
data set is determined to be complete (via saturation), additional groups may still be identified
(and invited to participate) as the data collection progresses.

Clearly Communicate Your Definition of Stewardship
STEW-MAP’s broad definition of stewardship actively tries to include a range of work done
on behalf of local environments, some of which may not be considered stewardship under more
narrow definitions. For example, community gardening, vacant lot or beach clean-ups, and
activism or advocacy focused on toxics, trash, or brownfields may be considered non-traditional
stewardship activities but they are counted as stewardship in STEW-MAP. The STEW-MAP
definition is intended to include stewardship done on a very small scale that, when aggregated
with other small-scale stewardship, can have noticeable impacts on a neighborhood or a city.
It is important to communicate the project’s definition of stewardship to intended survey
participants, decision makers, and other project stakeholders so that they understand what the
project is assessing. In the Chicago Wilderness-region, the term “steward” is specifically used
for people who have completed special training to serve as forest preserve site stewards. In
carrying out the project, project leaders needed to be sure to explain that they were trying to
collect data on more than just forest preserve-focused sites and activities.

Expanding the Tool
Representing the world of environmental stewardship using STEW-MAP requires the
collection, management, and visualization of large amounts of data. In this era of rapidly
changing technologies and open-source solutions, there are more options than ever before in
how to build numeric and geospatial databases. Multiple cities have now completed projects,
with the iterations producing a clearer picture of project needs.
29

The Forest Service is now designing a multi-city platform for displaying and storing STEWMAP data as an interactive, Web-based spatial database that will include links to additional
data sources from STEW-MAP and related research partnerships.
For the latest information on STEW-MAP and who to contact for questions and assistance,
visit: http://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/urban/monitoring/stew-map/. This site will continue to be
updated over time as visitors can access online data sets, protocols, GIS maps, and network
models, as well as findings from STEW-MAP and STEW-MAP-related projects from
around the world.

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A response to Tompkins and Adger. Ecology and Society. 10(1): Resp. 2. http://www.
ecologyandsociety.org/vol10/iss1/resp2. (accessed May 1, 2015).

33

O’Sullivan, D.; Unwin, D. 2010. Geographic information analysis. 2nd ed. Hoboken, NJ: John
Wiley and Sons. 432 p.
Owen, D. 2009. Green metropolis: why living smaller, living closer, and driving less are the
keys to sustainability. New York, NY: Riverhead Books. 368 p.
Park, H.W.; Barnett, G.A.; Chung, C.J. 2011. Structural changes in the 2003-2009 global
hyperlink network. Global Networks. 11(4): 522-542.
Pickett, S.T.A.; Burch, W.R., Jr.; Dalton, S.; Foresman, T.W.; Rowntree, R. 1997. A conceptual
framework for the study of human ecosystems in urban areas. Urban Ecosystems. 1(4): 185199.
Pickett, S.T.A.; Grove, J.M. 2009. Urban ecosystems: What would Tansley do? Urban
Ecosystems. 12: 1-8.
Prell, C.; Hubacek, K.; Reed, M. 2009. Stakeholder analysis and social network analysis in
natural resource management. Society and Natural Resources. 22: 501-518.
Rand, David G.; Arbesman, Samuel; Christakis, Nicholas A. 2011. Dynamic social networks
promote cooperation in experiments with humans. Proceedings of the National Academy of
Science. 108(48): 19193-19198.
Rocheleau, D.; Roth, R. 2007. Rooted networks, relational webs and powers of connection:
Rethinking human and political ecologies. Geoforum. 38(3): 433-437.
Romolini, M. 2013. Governance of 21st century sustainable cities: examining stewardship
networks in Baltimore & Seattle. Burlington, VT: University of Vermont, Rubenstein School
of Environment and Natural Resources. Ph.D. dissertation.
Romolini, M.; Grove, J.M.; Locke, D.H. 2013. Assessing and comparing relationships between
urban environmental stewardship networks and land cover in Baltimore and Seattle.
Landscape and Urban Planning. 120: 190-207.
Rosenzweig, R.; Blackmar, E. 1992. The park and the people: a social history of Central Park.
Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 640 p.
Salazar, D.J. 1996. The mainstream-grassroots divide in the environmental movement:
environmental groups in Washington State. Social Science Quarterly. 77(3): 626-643.
Scott, J. 2000. Social network analysis: A handbook. 2nd ed. London, England, UK; and Beverly
Hills, CA: Sage Publications. 208 p.
Singer. E.; Ye, C. 2013. The use and effects of incentives in surveys. Annals of the American
Academy of Political and Social Science. 645(2): 112-141.
Sirianni, C. 2006. Can a federal regulator become a civic enabler? Watersheds at the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency. National Civic Review. 95(3): 17-34.
Sirianni, C.; Friedland, L. 2001. Civic innovation in America. Berkeley, CA: University of
California Press. 383 p.

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Staggenborg, S. 1988. The consequences of professionalization and formalization in the prochoice movement. American Sociological Review. 53(4): 585-606.
Stevens, W.K. 1996. Miracle under the oaks: the revival of nature in America. New York: Pocket
Books. 352 p.
Stork, D.; Richards, W.D. 1992. Nonrespondents in communication network studies. Group
Organizational Management. 17: 193-209.
Svendsen, E.S. 2010. Civic environmental stewardship as a form of governance in New York
City. New York, NY: Columbia University, Department of Urban Planning. Ph.D. dissertation.
Svendsen, E.S.; Baine, G.; Northridge, M.; Campbell, L.K.; Metcalfe, S. 2014. Recognizing
resilience. American Journal of Public Health. 104(4): 1-3.
Svendsen, E.S.; Campbell, L.K. 2008. Urban ecological stewardship: understanding the
structure, function, and network of community-based urban land management. Cities and
the Environment. 1 (1): 1-31.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 2005. Everyday choices: opportunities for
environmental stewardship. Washington, DC: U.S.Environmental Protection Agency,
Innovation Action Council. 19 p. http://yosemite.epa.gov/sab/sabproduct.nsf/A48A2016D19
8ED2B8525718B00523145/$File/eec_sustainability_briefing_doc_06_13_15_06_everyday_
choices.pdf (Accessed May 1, 2015).
Wasserman, S.; Faust, K. 1994. Social network analysis: methods and applications. Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press. 827 p.
Wellman, B. 1979. The community question: the intimate networks of East Yorkers. American
Journal of Sociology. 85(5): 1201-1231.
Westphal, L.M. 1993. Why trees? Urban forestry volunteers values and motivations. In:
Gobster, P., ed. Managing urban and high-use recreation settings. Gen. Tech. Rep. NC-163. St.
Paul, MN: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, North Central Research Station:
19-23.
Westphal, L.M.; Gobster, P.H.; Gross, M. 2010. Models for renaturing brownfield areas. In:
Hall, M., ed. Restoration and history: the search for a usable environmental past. New York,
NY: Routledge: 208-217.
Westphal, L.M.; Davis, A.Y.; Copp, C.; Ross, L.M.; Bouman, M.J.; Fisher, C.L.; Johnston, M.K.;
Lambruschi, M.; Hasle, E. 2014. Characteristics of stewardship in the Chicago Wilderness
Region. Cities and the Environment (CATE). 7(1): Art 3. http://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/
cate/vol7/iss1/3 (accessed May 1, 2015).

35

APPENDIX 1: PROJECT TEAMS AND WEBSITES
Below is a complete list of research teams at the U.S. Forest Service and project partners, by city.

USDA Forest Service
Website: http://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/urban/monitoring/stew-map/
This site will continue to be updated over time as visitors can access online data sets,
protocols, GIS maps, and network models, as well as findings from STEW-MAP and
STEW-MAP-related projects from around the world.
USDA Forest Service research team:
Dale J. Blahna, Seattle
Lindsay K. Campbell, New York City
Cherie LeBlanc Fisher, Chicago
J. Morgan Grove, Baltimore
Michelle L. Johnson, New York City
Dexter H. Locke, Clark University
Sarah Low, Philadelphia
Jarlath O’Neil-Dunne, University of Vermont Spatial Analysis Lab
Sonya Sachdeva, Chicago
Erika S. Svendsen, New York City and Philadelphia
Lynne M. Westphal, Chicago
Kathleen L. Wolf, Seattle

New York City
Websites:
http://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/nyc/focus/stewardship_mapping/
http://www.oasisnyc.net/stewardship/stewardshipsearch.aspx
Research Collaborators:
Dana R. Fisher, Program for Society and the Environment at the University of Maryland
James J.T. Connolly, Northeastern University
Technical Support:
Jarlath O’Neil-Dunne, University of Vermont Spatial Analysis Lab
Steve Romalewski, Center for Urban Research at the CUNY Graduate Center
Christy Spielman, Center for Urban Research at the CUNY Graduate Center

36

Local Partners:
American Littoral Society, Northeast Chapter
Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Citizens Committee for New York City
Grow NYC
Horticultural Society of New York
Hudson River Foundation – NYC Environmental Fund
Million Trees NYC
New York City Department of Parks and Recreation GreenThumb Program
New York City Housing Authority
New York City Soil and Water Conservation District
New York-New Jersey Harbor Estuary Program
New York Restoration Project
Open Accessible Space Information System (OASIS)
Partnerships for Parks
Trees New York
Trust for Public Land
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 2
Wave Hill

Baltimore
Website: http://www.beslter.org/frame4-page_3d_28.html
Collaborators:
Michele Romolini, Loyola Marymount University Center for Urban Resilience
Parks and People Foundation
Tree Baltimore
Citizens Planning and Housing Association
Baltimore Office of Sustainability
Blue Water Baltimore
Baltimore Ecosystem Study
Baltimore Green Space

37

Chicago
Website: http://stewmap.cnt.org/
Collaborators:
Center for Neighborhood Technology
The Field Museum
Chicago Wilderness

Seattle
Website: http://depts.washington.edu/stewmap/
Collaborators:
Michele Romolini, Loyola Marymount University Center for Urban Resilience
Tim Nyerges, Oliver Bazinet, and Caitlin Singer, University of Washington College of the
Environment
Weston Brinkley, Forterra / Street Sounds Ecology
City of Seattle Parks and Recreation
EarthCorps

Philadelphia
Website:
http://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/philadelphia/
http://www.drfisher.umd.edu/
Collaborators:
Dana R. Fisher, Program for Society and the Environment at the University of Maryland
City of Philadelphia Mayor’s Office of Sustainability
Pennsylvania Horticultural Society
Philadelphia Parks and Recreation
Philly STAKE

38

APPENDIX 2: SURVEY PROTOCOLS
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approved survey protocol
USDA Forest Service

OMB 0596-0240
EXP. 08/31/2018

Welcome to the STEW-MAP survey!

Burden Statement
PAPERWORK REDUCTION and PRIVACY ACT STATEMENTS: According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, an agency may
not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to a collection of information unless it displays a valid OMB
control number. Response to this request is voluntary. No action may be taken against for refusing to supply the information
requested. The permanent data will be anonymous.
BURDEN ESTIMATE STATEMENT: Public reporting burden for this form is estimated to be 30 minutes per completed response.
Direct comments regarding the burden estimate or any other aspect of this form to: Survey contact Name, full address and
email address.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) prohibits discrimination in all its programs and activities on
the basis of race, color, national origin, gender, religion, age, disability, political beliefs, sexual
orientation, and marital or family status. (Not all prohibited bases apply to all programs.) Persons with
disabilities who require alternative means for communication of program information (Braille, large print,
audiotape, etc.) should contact USDA’s TARGET Center at 202-720-2600 (voice and TDD).
To file a complaint of discrimination, write USDA, Director, Office of Civil Rights, 1400 Independence
Avenue, SW, Washington, DC 20250-9410 or call (800) 795-3272 (voice) or (202) 720-6382 (TDD).
USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer.

The Stewardship Mapping and Assessment Project or STEW-MAP is collecting information about civic
groups and organizations that do environmental stewardship work in your region.
STEW-MAP uses the following definition of stewardship:
Stewardship is conserving, managing, caring for, monitoring, advocating for, and
educating the public about local environments. This may include planting trees,
restoring a prairie, advocating for open space preservation, gardening in a
schoolyard, cleaning up a vacant lot, or many other kinds of activities.
By completing this survey, you will be helping potential volunteers, public agencies, funders, and
other stewards find your group and learn about what it does. You will also be able to learn about
other stewardship groups in your region.
Your participation is completely voluntary. Your personal contact information will not be made public
or used for any other purposes than by the research team to contact you if there are any questions
about information you provide on the survey.
If you wish to have your organization’s basic contact information and the place(s) you work displayed
on the stewardship map for the region, you will have an opportunity to let us know in section two of
this survey. All of the information you provide will help us to visually display the network of
stewardship activities in your region.
Please use the following URL to start the survey.
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SURVEY URL Here

However, if you would prefer paper version or to complete the survey over the telephone, please
contact XXX.
STEW-MAP projects have already been done in Baltimore, Chicago, New York City, Philadelphia,
and Seattle. Please visit www.stewmap.net to learn more.

Thank you for your time and participation!

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EXP. 08/31/2018
STEW-MAP Survey

Section 1: Contact information
Your personal information will remain anonymous and we will not share the identifying information
below with anyone outside of the research team. We may contact you if we have questions about
information you provide on this survey.
Your Name:
Your Phone Number: (

_)

-

Your E-mail:

Section 2: Contact Information for your group or organization
If you are affiliated with more than one group or organization (from now on, we’ll just say “group” to
keep things simple), please fill out the survey for each one. If you are not able to answer all of the
questions, please reach out to someone else in your group and ask them to fill out the survey.
Group Name:

(required)

Website (if available):
Mailing Address:
(with city/state/zip)
Group E-mail:
Group Phone Number: (

)

-

Does your group wish to be on the online stewardship map?
The information associated with your group on the map will be limited to group name, website, mailing
address, group email, and group phone number – plus your stewardship territory, which will be
addressed later in the survey.
Yes

No

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USDA Forest Service

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Section 3: General stewardship activities
Does your group do any of the following? Please select all that apply.

□ Conserve or preserve the local environment?
□ Take care of a place in the local environment (for example, a community garden, a block of
street trees, an empty lot, a riverbank, a schoolyard, a forest preserve)?

□ Restore or transform local habitat (e.g., daylighting a stream, brownfield to prairie
restorations)?

□ Monitor the quality of the local environment? This can include monitoring air or water quality,
dumping, or species monitoring.

□ Advocate for the local environment?
□ Educate the public about the local environment?
[In the electronic version of the survey, if none of the above are selected, a pop-up appears that says
“Thank you for your interest in filling out this survey. Your group's work does not meet our
definition of environmental stewardship so we have no further questions. If you feel you have
gotten this in error, please go back to the survey and continue.”]

Section 4: Basic information about your group
What is your group's legal designation?
Please choose the most appropriate response.

□ 501(c)(3) (or has applied)
□ 501 (c)(4) (or has applied)
□ Community group without 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4) status (for example, a community garden
group or block club)

□ Local government agency
□ State government agency
□ Federal government agency
□ Public administration district
□ Private firm, for-profit business
□ Other – please specify:

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What does your group work on?
Please choose all that apply.

□ Public health (including mental health, crisis intervention, health care)
□ Education
□ Transportation
□ Housing and shelter
□ Community improvement and capacity building
□ Environment (including gardening, climate change, forestry, ecological restoration, water
and air protection, and land management)

□ Toxics/pollution related
□ Animal related
□ Human services (including day care, family services)
□ Youth
□ Economic development
□ Employment, job related
□ Legal services, civil rights
□ Arts, culture, creative practices
□ Recreation and sports (including birding and fishing)
□ Crime, criminal justice
□ International, foreign affairs, and national security
□ Research in science and/or technology
□ Faith-based activities
□ Power/electricity generation
□ Energy Efficiency
□ Private grant making foundation
□ Seniors
□ Food
□ Other – please specify:

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USDA Forest Service

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If you had to choose just one activity, what would you say is your group's primary focus?
Please choose one.

□ Public health (including mental health, crisis intervention, health care)
□ Education
□ Transportation
□ Housing and shelter
□ Community improvement and capacity building
□ Environment (including gardening, forestry, ecological restoration, water and air
protection, and land management)

□ Toxics/pollution related
□ Animal related
□ Human services (including day care, family services)
□ Youth
□ Economic development
□ Employment, job related
□ Legal services, civil rights
□ Arts, culture, creative practices
□ Recreation and sports (including birding and fishing)
□ Crime, criminal justice
□ International, foreign affairs, and national security
□ Research in science and/or technology
□ Faith-based activities
□ Power/electricity generation
□ Energy Efficiency
□ Private grant making foundation
□ Seniors
□ Food
□ Other – please specify:

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Section 5: Your group's stewardship activities
Considering all of the programs, activities, and services your group works on, what percentage of your
group's effort has been for environmental stewardship during the past year?
Please select one.
☐0-19%
☐20-39%
☐40-59%
☐60-79%
☐80-100%

What type(s) of setting has your group physically done stewardship work in within the past year?
Please choose all that apply.
Water & Water-Related

□ Watershed / Sewershed
□ Stream / River / Canal
□ Waterfront / Beach / Shoreline
□ Wetland
□ Other
Land
Natural / Restoration Area

□ Prairie
□ Forest/Woodland
□ Park
□ Community Garden
□ Urban farm
□ Playing field / Ball field / playground?
□ Dog run or dog park
□ Botanical Garden/Arboretum
□ Trails / Bike paths / Greenway / Rail-trail
□ Public Right of Way (Street ends, roadside, traffic island, greenstreet)
□ Street Tree
Building

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□ Residential building grounds (apartment courtyard, back yard, etc.)
□ Vacant land/Vacant lot
□ School yard or grounds; outdoor classroom
□ Grounds of public building other than school (e.g. city hall, library, hospital)
□ Courtyard / Atrium / Plaza
□ Flower box / Planter
□ Rain gardens, rain barrels, permeable pavement, bioswales
□ Green buildings
□ Rooftop
□ Brownfield property
□ Recreation center
□ Other – please specify:
Please tell us in your own words why your group thinks stewardship work is important.

Section 6: Where your group does stewardship
Please describe in detail the boundaries of where your group has physically done stewardship work
within the past year. You can list multiple locations.
Examples: "On Main Street, between Maple and Crestview" —"the empty lot at 456 Broad Street " –
"Jenkins Park" – "Northeast corner of the Lincoln Savanna" —"The Mary R. Stewart Nature Preserve" —
“City of Elm Grove” – "ZIP code XXXXX" —"The West Side neighborhood in Madison" —"Washington
County" —"the Green River Watershed" —"Statewide in Indiana"

Does your group have a Geographic Information System (GIS) file showing the boundaries of where
you have done stewardship work within the past year that you would like to provide? Your GIS file will
be used to accurately show your stewardship sites or territory on the online stewardship map. If you
check ‘yes,’ the research team will contact you to get the file.

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□ Yes

OMB 0596-0240
EXP. 08/31/2018

☐ No

Who owns the property or properties on which your group has physically done stewardship work
within the past year?
Please choose all that apply.

□ Federal government
□ State government
□ County government
□ City/Local government
□ Other government (e.g. Port Authority)
□ Individual
□ Corporation (including joint ventures, real estate investment groups)
□ Nonprofit
□ Don't know
□ Other – please specify:

Who is the owner of the primary property or properties on which your group has done stewardship
work within the past year?
Please choose one.

□ Federal government
□ State government
□ County government
□ City/Local government
□ Other government (e.g. Port Authority)
□ Individual
□ Corporation (including joint ventures, real estate investment groups)
□ Nonprofit
□ Don't know
Other – please specify:

Section 7: The structure of your group
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What year was your group founded?
Note: for national or regional groups/organizations please tell us the approximate year your chapter was
founded.

Approximately how many of the following does your group have?
Note: for national groups/organizations please provide regional information.
Full-time Staff:
Part-time Staff:
Members:
Regular Volunteers:
Note: regular volunteers are those who routinely volunteer in your group's activities. This is different
from volunteers who may come out for a single work day.
For those volunteers who come out occasionally, please estimate the total number of hours they
contribute per month.
Hours:

What is your group's estimated annual budget for the current year?
☐ Prefer not to answer

$

What is your primary funding source?
Please select one.
□ Government agencies
□ Foundations
□ Endowment
□ Individual memberships
□ Fees/program income
□ Corporate giving/sponsorship
Other:

Section 8: Organizational Services
What types of services does your group provide?
Please select all that apply.

□ Educational curricula
□ Legal resources
□ Buildings/facilities
□ Plant materials/equipment
□ Technical assistance
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□ Labor (volunteers/students/interns)
□ Grants
□ Community organizing
□ Computing / internet
□ Public relations/outreach
□ Data
□ Other:
How does your group share information with the public?
Please select all that apply.

□ N/A, we don’t share information
□ National media
□ Local media
□ Direct mailing / newsletters
□ Door-to-door outreach
□ Flyers / signs
□ Website
□ Listserv
□ Blog
□ National conferences/meetings
□ Regional conferences/meetings
□ City conferences/meetings
□ Neighborhood-based conferences/meetings
□ Radio
□ TV
Other:

Section 9: Stewardship Networking
Please tell us about your group's relationship to other groups/organizations. Please list one group per
box, additional boxes will appear if you need them.
Please list groups/organizations with which you regularly collaborate on stewardship or
environment-focused projects or programs. These may be community-based groups, nonprofits,
private companies, faith-based organizations, etc. You can list as many as you wish.

[On the electronic version of the survey, additional entry slots will continue to appear as the existing
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ones fill up until the respondent has listed as many organizations as they wish.]
Please list groups that you go to for advice, data, or expertise related to stewardship or
environmental issues. You can list as many as you wish.

[On the electronic version of the survey, additional entry slots will continue to appear as the existing
ones fill up until the respondent has listed as many organizations as they wish.]
Please list groups/organizations/agencies you have gotten funding from in the last two years. You
can list as many as you wish.

[On the electronic version of the survey, additional entry slots will continue to appear as the existing
ones fill up until the respondent has listed as many organizations as they wish.]

Section 10: Final Section
Is there anything else you would like to tell us about your group or this survey?

This concludes the STEW-MAP survey.
Thank you for your participation.

Page 12 of 12

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OMB Survey

10-minute version of OMB-approved protocol
USDA Forest Service

OMB 0596-0240
EXP. 08/31/2018

Welcome to the STEW-MAP survey!

Burden Statement
PAPERWORK REDUCTION and PRIVACY ACT STATEMENTS: According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, an agency may
not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to a collection of information unless it displays a valid OMB
control number. Response to this request is voluntary. No action may be taken against for refusing to supply the information
requested. The permanent data will be anonymous.
BURDEN ESTIMATE STATEMENT: Public reporting burden for this form is estimated to be 10 minutes per completed response.
Direct comments regarding the burden estimate or any other aspect of this form to: Survey contact Name , full address and
email address.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) prohibits discrimination in all its programs and activities on
the basis of race, color, national origin, gender, religion, age, disability, political beliefs, sexual
orientation, and marital or family status. (Not all prohibited bases apply to all programs.) Persons with
disabilities who require alternative means for communication of program information (Braille, large print,
audiotape, etc.) should contact USDA’s TARGET Center at 202-720-2600 (voice and TDD).
To file a complaint of discrimination, write USDA, Director, Office of Civil Rights, 1400 Independence
Avenue, SW, Washington, DC 20250-9410 or call (800) 795-3272 (voice) or (202) 720-6382 (TDD).
USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer.

The Stewardship Mapping and Assessment Project or STEW-MAP is collecting information about civic
groups and organizations that do environmental stewardship work in your region.
STEW-MAP uses the following definition of stewardship:
Stewardship is the conserving, managing, caring for, monitoring, advocating for, and
educating the public about local environments. This may include planting trees,
restoring a prairie, advocating for open space preservation, gardening in a
schoolyard, cleaning up a vacant lot, or many other kinds of activities.
By completing this survey, you will be helping potential volunteers, public agencies, funders, and
other stewards find your group and learn about what it does. You will also be able to learn about
other stewardship groups in your region.
Your participation is completely voluntary. Your personal contact information will not be made public
or used for any other purposes than by the research team to contact you if there are any questions
about information you provide on the survey.
Please use the following URL to start the survey.
SURVEY URL Here
If you would prefer paper version or to complete the survey over the telephone, please contact XXX.
STEW-MAP projects have already been done in Baltimore, Chicago, New York City, Philadelphia, and
Page 1 of 9

OMB Survey

51

USDA Forest Service

OMB 0596-0240
EXP. 08/31/2018

Seattle. Please visit www.stewmap.net to learn more.

Thank you for your time and participation!

Page 2 of 9

52

OMB Survey

USDA Forest Service

OMB 0596-0240
EXP. 08/31/2018
STEW-MAP Survey

Section 1: Contact information
Your personal information will remain anonymous and we will not share the identifying information
below with anyone outside of the research team. We may contact you if we have questions about
information you provide on this survey.
Your Name:
Your Phone Number: (

_)

-

Your E-mail:

Section 2: Basic Information about your group or organization
If you are affiliated with more than one group or organization (from now on we’ll just say “group” to
keep things simple), please fill out the survey for each group. If you are not able to answer all of the
questions, please reach out to someone else in your group and ask them to fill out the survey.
Group Name:

(required)

Website (if available):
Mailing Address:
(with city/state/zip)
Does your group wish to be on the online stewardship map?
The information associated with your group on the map will be limited to group name, website, mailing
address, group email, and group phone number – plus your stewardship territory, which will be
addressed later in the survey.
Yes

No

Page 3 of 9

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USDA Forest Service

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EXP. 08/31/2018

Section 3: General Stewardship Activities
Does your group do any of the following? Please select all that apply.

□ Conserve or preserve the local environment?
□ Take care of a place in the local environment (for example, a community garden, a block of
street trees, an empty lot, a riverbank, a schoolyard, a forest preserve)?

□ Restore or transform local habitat (e.g., daylighting a stream, brownfield to prairie
restorations)?

□ Monitor the quality of the local environment? This can include monitoring air or water quality,
dumping, or species monitoring.

□ Advocate for the local environment?
□ Educate the public about the local environment?
[In the electronic version of the survey, if none of the above are selected, a pop-up appears that says
“Thank you for your interest in filling out this survey. Your group's work does not meet our
definition of environmental stewardship so we have no further questions. If you feel you have
gotten this in error, please go back to the survey and continue.”]

Section 4: Basic information about your group
What is your group's legal designation?
Please choose the most appropriate response.

□ 501(c)(3) (or has applied)
□ 501 (c)(4) (or has applied)
□ Community group without 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4) status (for example, a community garden
group or block club)

□ Local government agency
□ State government agency
□ Federal government agency
□ Public administration district
□ Private firm, for-profit business
□ Other – please specify:

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If you had to choose just one activity, what would you say is your group's primary focus?
Please choose one.

□ Public health (including mental health, crisis intervention, health care)
□ Education
□ Transportation
□ Housing and shelter
□ Community improvement and capacity building
□ Environment (including gardening, forestry, ecological restoration, water and air
protection, and land management)

□ Toxics/pollution related
□ Animal related
□ Human services (including day care, family services)
□ Youth
□ Economic development
□ Employment, job related
□ Legal services, civil rights
□ Arts, culture, creative practices
□ Recreation and sports (including birding and fishing)
□ Crime, criminal justice
□ International, foreign affairs, and national security
□ Research in science and/or technology
□ Faith-based activities
□ Power/electricity generation
□ Energy Efficiency
□ Private grant making foundation
□ Seniors
□ Food
□ Other – please specify:

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Section 5: Your group's stewardship activities
Considering all of the programs, activities, and services your group works on, what percentage of your
group's effort has been for environmental stewardship during the past year?
Please select one.
☐0-19%
☐20-39%
☐40-59%
☐60-79%
☐80-100%

What type(s) of setting has your group physically done stewardship work on within the past year?
Please choose all that apply.
Water & Water-Related

□ Watershed / Sewershed
□ Stream / River / Canal
□ Waterfront / Beach / Shoreline
□ Wetland
□ Other
Land
Natural / Restoration Area

□ Prairie
□ Forest/Woodland
□ Park
□ Community Garden
□ Urban farm
□ Playing field / Ball field / playground?
□ Dog run or dog park
□ Botanical Garden/Arboretum
□ Trails / Bike paths / Greenway / Rail-trail
□ Public Right of Way (Street ends, roadside, traffic island, greenstreet)
□ Street Tree
Building

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□ Residential building grounds (apartment courtyard, back yard, etc.)
□ Vacant land/Vacant lot
□ School yard or grounds; outdoor classroom
□ Grounds of public building other than school (e.g. city hall, library, hospital)
□ Courtyard / Atrium / Plaza
□ Flower box / Planter
□ Rain gardens, rain barrels, permeable pavement, bioswales
□ Green buildings
□ Rooftop
□ Brownfield property
□ Recreation center
□ Other – please specify:

Section 6: Where your group/organization does stewardship
Please describe in detail the boundaries of where your group has physically done stewardship work
within the past year. You can list multiple locations.
Examples: "On Main Street, between Maple and Crestview" —"the empty lot at 456 Broad Street " –
"Jenkins Park" – "Northeast corner of the Lincoln Savanna" —"The Mary R. Stewart Nature Preserve" —
“City of Elm Grove” – "ZIP code XXXXX" —"The West Side neighborhood in Madison" —"Washington
County" —"the Green River Watershed" —"Statewide in Indiana"

Does your group have a Geographic Information System (GIS) file showing the boundaries of where
you have done stewardship work within the past year that you would like to provide? Your GIS file will
be used to accurately show your stewardship sites or territory on the online stewardship map. If you
check ‘yes,’ the research team will contact you to get the file.

□ Yes

☐ No

Section 7: The structure of your group/organization
What year was your group founded?
Note: for national or regional groups/organizations please tell us the approximate year your chapter was
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founded.

Approximately how many of the following does your group have?
Note: for national groups/organizations please provide regional information.
Full-time Staff:
Part-time Staff:

What is your group's estimated annual budget for the current year?
☐ Prefer not to answer

$

What is your primary funding source?
Please select one.
□ Government agencies
□ Foundations
□ Endowment
□ Individual memberships
□ Fees/program income
□ Corporate giving/sponsorship
Other:

Section 8: Organizational Services
What types of services does your group provide?
Please select all that apply.

□ Educational curricula
□ Legal resources
□ Buildings/facilities
□ Plant materials/equipment
□ Technical assistance
□ Labor (volunteers/students/interns)
□ Grants
□ Community organizing
□ Computing / internet
□ Public relations/outreach
□ Data
□ Other:

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Section 9: Final Section
Is there anything else you would like to tell us about your group or this survey?

This concludes the STEW-MAP survey.
Thank you for your participation.

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2-minute version of OMB-approved protocol
USDA Forest Service

OMB 0596-0240
EXP. 08/31/2018

Welcome to the STEW-MAP survey!

Burden Statement
PAPERWORK REDUCTION and PRIVACY ACT STATEMENTS: According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, an agency may
not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to a collection of information unless it displays a valid OMB
control number. Response to this request is voluntary. No action may be taken against for refusing to supply the information
requested. The permanent data will be anonymous.
BURDEN ESTIMATE STATEMENT: Public reporting burden for this form is estimated to be 1 minute per completed response.
Direct comments regarding the burden estimate or any other aspect of this form to: Survey contact Name, full address and
email address.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) prohibits discrimination in all its programs and activities on
the basis of race, color, national origin, gender, religion, age, disability, political beliefs, sexual
orientation, and marital or family status. (Not all prohibited bases apply to all programs.) Persons with
disabilities who require alternative means for communication of program information (Braille, large print,
audiotape, etc.) should contact USDA’s TARGET Center at 202-720-2600 (voice and TDD).
To file a complaint of discrimination, write USDA, Director, Office of Civil Rights, 1400 Independence
Avenue, SW, Washington, DC 20250-9410 or call (800) 795-3272 (voice) or (202) 720-6382 (TDD).
USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer.

The Stewardship Mapping and Assessment Project or STEW-MAP is collecting information about civic
groups and organizations that do environmental stewardship work in your region.
By completing this survey, you will be helping potential volunteers, public agencies, funders, and
other stewards find your group and learn about what it does. You will also be able to learn about
other stewardship groups in your region. Your participation is completely voluntary.
Please use the following URL to start the survey.
SURVEY URL Here
STEW-MAP projects have already been done in Baltimore, Chicago, New York City, Philadelphia,
and Seattle. Please visit www.stewmap.net to learn more.

Thank you for your time and participation!

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STEW-MAP Survey

Section 1: Basic Information about your group or organization
Group Name:

(required)

Zip code of mailing address:

Section 2: General Stewardship Activities
Does your group do any of the following? Please select all that apply.
□ Conserve or preserve the local environment?
□ Take care of a place in the local environment (for example, a community garden, a block of
street trees, an empty lot, a riverbank, a schoolyard, a forest preserve)?

□ Restore or transform local habitat (e.g., daylighting a stream, brownfield to prairie
restorations)?

□ Monitor the quality of the local environment? This can include monitoring air or water quality,
dumping, or species monitoring.

□ Advocate for the local environment?
□ Educate the public about the local environment?
[In the electronic version of the survey, if none of the above are selected, a pop-up appears that says
“Thank you for your interest in filling out this survey. Your group's work does not meet our
definition of environmental stewardship so we have no further questions. If you feel you have
gotten this in error, please go back to the survey and continue.”]

Section 3: Basic information about your group/organization
What is your group's legal designation?
Please choose the most appropriate response.

□ 501(c)(3) (or has applied)
□ 501 (c)(4) (or has applied)
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□ Community group without 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4) status (for example, a community garden
group or block club)

□ Local government agency
□ State government agency
□ Federal government agency
□ Public administration district
□ Private firm, for-profit business
□ Other – please specify:

If you had to choose just one activity, what would you say is your group's primary focus?
Please choose one.

□ Public health (including mental health, crisis intervention, health care)
□ Education
□ Transportation
□ Housing and shelter
□ Community improvement and capacity building
□ Environment (including gardening, forestry, ecological restoration, water and air protection,
and land management)

□ Toxics/pollution related
□ Animal related
□ Human services (including day care, family services)
□ Youth
□ Economic development
□ Employment, job related
□ Legal services, civil rights
□ Arts, culture, creative practices
□ Recreation and sports (including birding and fishing)
□ Crime, criminal justice
□ International, foreign affairs, and national security
□ Research in science and/or technology
□ Faith-based activities
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□ Power/electricity generation
□ Energy Efficiency
□ Private grant making foundation
□ Seniors
□ Food
□ Other – please specify:

What year was your group founded?
Note: for national or regional groups/organizations please tell us the approximate year your chapter was
founded.
This concludes the STEW-MAP survey.
Thank you for your participation.

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OMB-approved correspondence for STEW-MAP

The following are examples of outreach correspondences to use with the STEW-MAP project.
Outreach needs to be customized based on how the person’s contact information is obtained.
In some cases, partner organizations would actually send the letter or email on behalf of the
STEW-MAP research team. This is done so that the letter is received from an organization with
which the recipient already has a relationship. It also allows some customization based on
characteristics of the recipients (for example, an organization that supports local community
gardening efforts might customize the text for gardeners). In all cases, these customizations
would be only minor wording changes.

Introductory Postcard or Email
Dear Eco-Steward:
If you are a gardener, park advocate, beach cleaner, environmentalist, eco-educator, or community
organizer – we need your help to put your group on the map!
We are in the process of developing the first-ever comprehensive map of civic stewardship groups
working throughout the city. The Stewardship Mapping and Assessment Project (STEW-MAP) will create
a publicly available database and map of stewardship groups. Right now we are starting with you.
Don’t let your hard work go unrecognized.
Over the next year, researchers from the US Forest Service and [other main project partners] will work
to collect information about where and how environmental stewards are working throughout the city.
Please look forward to receiving a survey from us within the next two weeks. The survey will arrive
through your email, however if you would prefer to receive a paper copy of the survey, please contact
us at: [CONTACT INFORMATION].
We are excited to invite you to participate in this important and ground-breaking project. Once you
receive the survey we are asking that you take the time to complete and return it as soon as you
possibly can.
Para una versión en español, favor de email: [email address]

Sincerely,
The STEW-MAP team
OMB Control Number: 0596-0240

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OMB Control Number: 0596-0240

Email or Letter with Survey Link

Dear [Partnership or Coalition] Member(s)
About two weeks ago you received a [postcard or email] asking you to participate in the Stewardship
Mapping and Assessment Project (STEW-MAP). Today we are sending you the URL so that you can
complete the survey as soon as possible.
Survey URL here
If your group does any work on behalf of the environment (community gardening, ecological
restoration, monitoring, advocacy, environmental education, or other activities), we want to hear from
you! The information in this survey will be used by our STEW-MAP team to develop a publicly available,
online database of stewardship organizations working on environmental projects throughout the city.
This will be the first of its kind in this city – and we are starting with you.
Once open, the survey will take about 30 minutes to complete. This is completely voluntary and you are
not required to respond to a collection of information from a federal agency unless it displays a
currently valid OMB Control Number. The Control Number for this collection is: 0596-0240. All
responses are completely anonymous and we will never publicly connect your organization with any
responses. If you are not able to finish the survey at one time, you can start now and complete as much
as you can. You can save your work and return later. We would like to have your survey completed
within the next two weeks.
If you have any questions about this survey or would like more information, please contact a member of
the STEW-MAP team at (email address here).

Sincerely,

STEW-MAP Team

OMB Control Number: 0596-0240

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Follow-up email for someone who hasn’t completed the survey after 2 weeks:
Dear Eco-Steward,
This is such a busy time of year for everyone who cares about the environment. We understand how
valuable your time is and hope that you can find about 30 minutes to complete the STEW-MAP survey
for your group.
We need information from groups like yours so that we can get a well-rounded picture of who is doing
environmental stewardship work in our city. The survey can be found at:
[Survey URL]
If you are not able to finish the survey at one time, you can start now and complete as much as you can.
You can save your work and return later.
Thank you in advance for contributing to the STEW-MAP project by completing the survey. Please
contact us if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
[STEW-MAP team]
[contact information]

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Optional follow-up, thank you message for someone who filled out the survey but said no to being on
the online map
Hello [Partnership or Coalition] Member(s)
On behalf of the Stewardship Mapping and Assessment Project, I would like to thank you for completing
the Stew-MAP survey for your organization. At one point in the survey, you indicated that you did not
wish to be included on the stewardship map. If you have reconsidered and would like to add your
organization to the map, please log back into your survey and you will be able to view or update your
previous responses. If you would like to log back in, please use the following steps:
1. Use the following link to access the survey [URL Here]
2. In the box, at the bottom of the welcome page enter your email address exactly as you
provided it on the survey (the email used to send you this note)
3. Click the “Continue” button
4. On the next screen, click on the link for your organization
5. Use the navigation buttons at the bottom of each page until you reach the following question
“Does your group/organization wish to be on the online stewardship map?"
Click "Yes” and your group will be added to the online map.
Please do not hesitate to be in touch if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Signature
Email address

OMB Control Number: 0596-0240

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Optional follow-up, thank you message for someone who started to fill out the survey but did not
complete it
Hello, XXX. Thank you for starting the Stew-MAP survey for [group name]. You can see yourself on the
online stewardship map at [URL]. We know that your time is valuable and hope that you can find the
time to complete the survey in the next few weeks. We need information from groups like yours so that
we can get a well-rounded picture of who is doing environmental stewardship work in our city.
Please follow these steps to log back into the survey to answer skipped questions or update your
previous responses:
1. Go to the bottom of the welcome page [URL]
2. In the box, enter your email address exactly as you provided it on the survey (the email used
to send you this note)
3. Click the “Continue” button
4. Click on the link for your organization on the next screen
5. Page through the survey using the navigation buttons at the bottom of each page.
Please do not hesitate to be in touch if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Signature
Email address

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OMB-approved Census Interview Guide
Target Respondents: large stewardship organizations, environmental coalition or
umbrella groups, and local government agencies.
Paperwork Reduction Act Statement
According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, an agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not
required to respond to a collection of information unless it displays a valid OMB control number. The valid OMB
control number for this information collection is 0596-0240. This information will be used to conduct an assessment of
environmental stewardship activities in this community. The time required to complete this information collection is
estimated to average 15 minutes per response, including the time forlocatingand sharing pertinent contact lists with us.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) prohibits discrimination in all its programs and activities on the basis of
race, color, national origin, gender, religion, age, disability, political beliefs, sexual orientation, and marital or family
status. (Not all prohibited bases apply to all programs.) Persons with disabilities who require alternative means for
communication of program information (Braille, large print, audiotape, etc.) should contact USDA’s TARGET Center
at 202-720-2600 (voice and TDD).
To file a complaint of discrimination, write USDA, Director, Office of Civil Rights, 1400 Independence Avenue, SW,
Washington, DC 20250-9410 or call (800) 795-3272 (voice) or (202) 720-6382 (TDD). USDA is an equal opportunity
provider and employer.

Script:
Hello, I am contacting you on behalf of the STEW-MAP project which is assessing
environmental stewardship work in this region.
[At this point, we will convey the gist of the PRA Statement and USDA Discrimination
Statement above. We will offer a written version of both if requested.]
We are compiling a contact list of stewardship groups and organizations. We will only
use this information to contact stewardship groups to participate in the STEW-MAP
survey. Any format that is easiest for you will work for us (for example, fax, hard copy,
digital file).
Would you please share your list of local stewardship group contacts for us to use as part
of the STEW-MAP project?
Thank you for helping us with this project.

[Most people contacted for this information will already know about STEW-MAP from
past conversations and/or may be partners on the project. However, if the person should
ask for more information about STEW-MAP before answering the question about sharing
their contact lists, we will use the following script:]
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STEW-MAP Background
As you know, civic environmental stewards across the United States are involved in
activities like planting trees, organizing community gardens, offering classes, leading
conservation efforts, monitoring plants and animals, and cleaning up nearby parks or
natural areas. In urban areas, effective management of parks, public forests, natural areas,
parkways, and other public open spaces increasingly relies on the work of civic
environmental stewardship groups and coalitions.
At present, no natural resource agency or organization is collecting and sharing
comprehensive environmental stewardship data at the local level. STEW-MAP (the
Stewardship Mapping and Assessment Project) aims to fill this gap. There are three
phases to STEW-MAP:


Phase One is a census of stewardship groups in the target city or region –
essentially putting together a master list of known stewardship groups. That is
what we are asking for from you.



Phase Two is a survey which will be distributed to all of the organizations
identified in Phase One to collect information about what they work on, how their
group is structured, where they work, and what other groups they collaborate
with.



Phase Three is follow-up interviews with key longstanding organizations
identified during Phase Two to collect more detailed information about their
stewardship histories and experiences.

The information collected via STEW-MAP will help natural resource decision makers,
land managers, and stewards themselves understand the extent and distribution of local
civic environmental stewardship across a city or metropolitan region. This information
can be used to guide local resource allocation decisions and policies regarding care of
forests and other natural resources.

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OMB-approved Follow-up Interview Protocol
Target Respondents: leaders at key environmental hub organizations as identified in the
social network section of the STEW-MAP survey. Specific organizations will be selected
based on being named the most frequently by other groups in responses to the social
network questions.
Paperwork Reduction Act Statement
According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, an agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not
required to respond to a collection of information unless it displays a valid OMB control number. The valid OMB
control number for this information collection is 0596-0240. The time required to complete this information collection
is estimated to average 1 hour, which includes participating in a one-on-one interview about your organization’s
history of environmental stewardship work.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) prohibits discrimination in all its programs and activities on the basis of
race, color, national origin, gender, religion, age, disability, political beliefs, sexual orientation, and marital or family
status. (Not all prohibited bases apply to all programs.) Persons with disabilities who require alternative means for
communication of program information (Braille, large print, audiotape, etc.) should contact USDA’s TARGET Center
at 202-720-2600 (voice and TDD).
To file a complaint of discrimination, write USDA, Director, Office of Civil Rights, 1400 Independence Avenue, SW,
Washington, DC 20250-9410 or call (800) 795-3272 (voice) or (202) 720-6382 (TDD). USDA is an equal opportunity
provider and employer.

Script:
We are asking 10 people from this city to participate in interviews about local environmental
stewardship work. You were chosen because other environmental stewards consider your
organization to be a leader in the local environmental stewardship community. By participating in
this interview, you will be involved in a research study about the ways that your organization is
working to conserve, manage, monitor, advocate for and educate the public about the local
environment. During the interview, we will ask you about your organization and how it has
historically worked to steward the environment. Your participation is voluntary. If you feel
uncomfortable at any time, feel free to stop the interview.
[At this point, we will convey the gist of the PRA Statement and USDA Discrimination Statement
above. We will offer a written version of both if requested.]
Although the interview will ask for your name and contact information, all personal identifying
information will be substituted with randomly generated identification codes once the study is
completed. The code sheet that will link your name and contact information to your interview
will be kept in a locked file cabinet. If you have comments regarding the conduct of this research
or questions about your rights as a research participant, you should contact _____________ [fill
in specific information for each STEW-MAP project].
If at any time you have questions or comments regarding the interview or the overall project,
please feel free to contact the project researchers, _______________ [fill in specific information
for each STEW-MAP project].

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For all of the following questions, please consider the programs of your organization that deal
directly with environmental stewardship.
Please state your name, your position and how long you have been working/volunteering with
[use organization name].
1. What year was your organization founded? Can you tell me the story of its founding?
(Who, where, how?) Have there been any major milestones in your organization’s
history? Has the work of your organization changed since the time of its founding? If so,
in what way?
2. Can you describe the area where your group physically worked when your organization
was founded? If it has changed at all over time, can you describe the ways it has changed
(and why)?
3. Does your organization have individual members? If so, please explain what members
do (if there are many types of “membership” please explain how members are distributed
across these different types). Has membership in your organization changed since the
organization was founded? If so, how?
4. Are there particular government policies or programs that have historically shaped your
organization’s work to a large extent (e.g. dedicated funding, administrative practices or
partnerships, laws that affect your work)? Can you provide examples?
5. Do you work with specific civic organizations, community organizations and non-profits
around the city? Who and how? (Follow up regarding resources and formal
agreements.) Have your connections to these groups changed over time? If so, how?
6. Do you work with specific government agencies in the city? Who and how? (Follow up
regarding resources and formal agreements.) Have your connections to these groups
changed over time? If so, how?
7. Do you work with specific business groups and/or businesses around the city? Who and
how? (Follow up regarding resources and formal agreements.) Have your connections to
these groups changed over time? If so, how?
8. Have you had any challenges – or experienced constraints to your stewardship efforts – in
working with particular organizations, individuals, or entities over the years? If so, please
tell me more about this. Has your relationship to these groups or individuals changed
over time? If so, how?
9. Is there anyone else that you think I should speak with about environmental efforts in this
city [or area or region] over the last 25 years?
10. Would you be willing to be contacted again for follow-up questions? If so, please
confirm your email address.

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Appendix 2: continued
Survey protocol for New York City

stew-map:
The Citywide
Stewardship Census

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73

The intent of this study is to understand environmental
stewardship in New York City. We define stewardship
as the act of conserving, managing, monitoring,
advocating for, and educating the public about their
local environments.
In this assessment we ask questions about your
organization, who you work with, where you work,
what you do, and how you do it. It should take about
15-20 minutes to complete.
Based on the information we collect, we will develop
maps to show how people work together to
improve the urban environment of New York City.
Thank you for participating in this effort.

organizational contact information

This identifying information
is confidential. We will not
share your name, personal
email, personal phone
number, or other identifying
information with anyone.

organization name:
web site (if available):
mailing address:
address:
city

state

zip

respondent name:
key contact name:
organization email:
respondent email:
organization phone:

respondent phone:

stew-map: The Citywide Stewardship Census

74 New York City Survey

does your organization wish to be listed in a public, online
stewardship database?
* yes * no

section i

1.

does your group aim to conserve the local environment?
* yes
* no

Tell us about your
group’s environmental
stewardship activities

2.

does your group manage some area of the local environment?

section ii
Tell us about us about what
your organization does

* yes

* no

3.

does your group monitor the quality of the local environment?
* yes
* no

4.

does your group advocate for the local environment?
* yes
* no

5.

does your group aim to educate the public about the local
environment?
* yes
* no

6.

what is your group’s primary focus? (Please select all that apply)
* public health (Including Mental Health, Crisis Intervention, Health Care)

* education
* housing and shelter
* community improvement and capacity building
* environment (Including Gardening, Forestry, Water And Air Protection)
* animal related
* human services (Including Day Care, Family Services)
* employment, job related
* legal services, civil rights
* arts, culture
* recreation and sports (Including Birding And Angling)
* crime, criminal justice
* international, foreign affairs, and national security
* research in science, technology, and social sciences
* religion related
* private grantmaking foundation
* seniors
* youth
* transportation related
* development (Including Business, Community, Real Estate)
* other:
7.

what is your group’s mission statement? (200 words or less please.)

8.

what year was your organization founded?

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75

9.

at which types of sites does your group physically work?
(Please circle all that apply)
water

watershed/sewershed
stream/river/canal
waterfront/beach/
shoreline

building

land

“natural”/
restoration area

green building

park
community garden

courtyard/atrium/
plaza

vacant land

front yard / back yard

playing field/ballfield

school yard

dog run

apartment grounds

rooftop

street tree
botanical garden
greenway/rail-trail
flower box/planter
public right of way
(e.g. street ends, roadside,
traffic island, greenstreet)

urban farm
10.

my organization: (Please check and fill in all that apply.)
* is a 501(c)(3)
* has applied for 501(c)(3) status
* receives funding through the following
501(c)(3) organization:
* is a branch of a larger 501(c)(3)
* is a community group without 501(c)(3) status
* is a school-affiliated community group
* is a religious congregation (church, synagogue, mosque, etc),
but not a 501(c)(3)
* is not tax exempt (private firm, etc)
* is a government agency
* is a 501(c)(4)
* is a public – private partnership
* other:

Since the purpose of this study is to learn more about nonprofit organizations and
community groups, if you chose “is not tax exempt” or “is a government agency”,
you do not need to complete the entire form. Please return the form in the enclosed
envelope. Thank you.
11.

how many of the following does your organization have?
(Please circle the appropriate range in each category)

paid staff
0–1
2–3
4–5
6 – 10
11+

volunteers
0–1
2–3
4–5
6 – 10
11+

stew-map: The Citywide Stewardship Census

76 New York City Survey

members
0–1
2–3
4–5
6 – 10
11+

Please answer all that apply in 12A through 12E

section iii
Tell us where your
group conducts its
stewardship activities

12.

where does your group physically work?

12a. international:

(Please specify where)

12b. national/statewide
* all states
* new york
* new jersey
* connecticut
* other:

(Please list)

12c. counties / boroughs
nyc
* bronx county, ny
* queens County, ny
* kings county (brooklyn), ny
* richmond county (staten island), ny
* new york county (manhattan), ny
long island
* nassau county

* suffolk county

westchester + surrounding counties
* ornage county * rockland county
* westchester county
* putnam county
new jersey
* bergen county * monmouth county
* essex county
* passaic county
* union county
* hudson county
* middlesex county
* other:
12d. nyc community boards: (Please list borough and number)

12e. nyc neighborhoods: (Please specify)

13.

please describe in detail the boundaries of where your group currently works.
be as specific as possible and you can list multiple locations.
For example:
“On Wyckoff St. between Court St. and Smith St”; “Lower Manhattan south of Canal St.”; “the Arthur Kill between Staten Island and New Jersey”;
“All of the shoreline in the Hudson River Estuary”; “all of ZIP code 10007”; “The Croton Watershed”; “The Guangdong Province of China”

stew-map: The Citywide Stewardship Census

New York City Survey

77

14.

who owns the property on which your organization
typically works? (Please choose all that apply.)
* federal government
* state government
* local government
* other government (e.g. ny-nj port authority):
* individual
* corporation (including joint ventures, reits)
* nonprofit

section iv
Tell us about your organization’s relationship to other groups
15.

please list up to three groups/organizations in each of the following categories with
which you collaborate.

business groups

civic groups /community groups/nonprofits

government agencies

school groups

stew-map: The Citywide Stewardship Census

78 New York City Survey

section v
Tell us a bit more about
what your group does

16. what type of services does your group currently provide?
(Select all that apply)

* educational curricula
* legal resources
* buildings/facilities
* plant materials/equipment
* technical assistance
* labor: (volunteers/students/interns)
* grants
* community organizing
* computing / internet
* public relations/outreach
* data
* other
17.

how does your group share information with the public?
(Select all that apply)

* n/a, we don’t share information
* national media
* local media
* direct mailing / newsletters
* door-to-door outreach
* flyers / signs
* website
* listserv
* blog
* national conferences/meetings
* regional conferences/meetings
* city conferences/meetings
* neighborhood-based conferences/meetings
* radio
* tv
18. what is your organization’s annual budget? (Select one range)
* $0 – $1,000
* $1,000 – $10,000
* $10,000 – $50,000
* $50,000 – $100,000
* $100,000 – $200,000
* $200,000 – $500,000
* $500,000 – $1 million
* $1 – $2 million
* $2 – $5 million
* $5 million +
19.

what is your primary funding source? (Select one)
* government agencies
* foundations
* endowment
* individual memberships
* fees/program income
* corporate giving/sponsorship
* other

stew-map: The Citywide Stewardship Census

New York City Survey

79

This concludes the STEW-MAP assessment.
Thank you for your participation.
Please mail back the assessment in the
enclosed envelope.
* please check here if you or another person from your organization
is willing to participate in a follow-up interview or focus group
related to the stew-map project.
* please check here if you would like to receive a copy of the report.
feel free to contact stew-map with any questions or comments at
stewmap@columbia.edu

stew-map: The Citywide Stewardship Census

80 New York City Survey

Appendix 2: continued
Survey protocol for Chicago

Chicago Stew-MAP Survey
Section 1: Contact information
Your personal information is confidential. We will not share your name, personal email, personal phone
number, or other identifying information with anyone outside of the research team. We may contact
you if we have questions about information you provide on this survey.

Your Name: _____________________________________________
Your Phone Number: (_____) ______ - ________
Your E-mail: ______________________________________________

Section 2: Basic Information about your group/organization
If you are affiliated with more than one group or organization, please fill out the survey separately for
each group.

Group/Organization Name: ______________________________________________
Website (if available): ___________________________________________________
Mailing Address:
(with city/state/zip)

_________________________________________________

______________________________________

Group/Organization E-mail: _____________________________________________
Group/Organization Phone Number: (_____) ______-_________
Does your group/organization wish to be on the online stewardship map?
Yes _____ No _____
Note: The information associated with your group on the map will be limited to group/organization
name, website, mailing address, group/organization email, group/organization phone number, what you
primarily work on – plus your geographic territory, which will be addressed later in this survey.

Chicago Survey

81

Section 3: Your group/organization's environmental stewardship activities
Does your group/organization do any of the following?
Conserve the local environment?

☐ Yes

☐ No

Take care of a place in the local environment (for example, a community garden, a block of
street trees, an empty lot, a riverbank, a schoolyard, a forest preserve)?

☐ Yes

☐ No

Restore or transform local habitat (e.g., daylighting a stream, brownfield to prairie
restorations)?

☐ Yes

☐ No

Monitor the quality of the local environment? This can include monitoring air or water quality,
dumping, or species monitoring?
Advocate for the local environment?

☐ Yes

☐ No

☐ Yes

Educate the public about the local environment?

☐ No
☐ Yes

☐ No

Section 4: Basic information about your group/organization
What is your group/organization's legal designation?
Please choose the most appropriate response.
☐ 501(c)(3) (or has applied)
☐ 501 (c)(4) (or has applied)
☐ Community group/organization without 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4) status (e.g., a block club)
☐ Local government agency
☐ State government agency
☐ Federal government agency
☐ Public administration district (such as a school, Port Authority, university campus, hospital)
☐ Private firm, for-profit business
☐ Other – please specify:

82 Chicago Survey

_______________________________________________

What does your group/organization work on?
Please choose all that apply.

☐ Public health (including mental health, food, crisis intervention, health care)
☐ Education
☐ Transportation
☐ Housing and shelter
☐ Community improvement and capacity building
☐ Environment (including gardening, forestry, ecological restoration, water and air protection)
☐ Toxics/pollution related
☐ Animal related
☐ Human services (including day care, family services)
☐ Youth development
☐ Economic development
☐ Employment, job related
☐ Legal services, civil rights
☐ Arts, culture, creative practices
☐ Recreation and sports (including birding and fishing)
☐ Crime, criminal justice
☐ International, foreign affairs, and national security
☐ Research in science and/or technology
☐ Faith-based activities
☐ Power/electricity generation
☐ Energy Efficiency
☐ Other – please specify:

_______________________________________________

Chicago Survey

83

If you had to choose just one activity, what would you say is your group's primary focus?
Please choose one.

☐ Public health (including mental health, food, crisis intervention, health care)
☐ Education
☐ Transportation
☐ Housing and shelter
☐ Community improvement and capacity building
☐ Environment (including gardening, forestry, ecological restoration, water and air protection)
☐ Toxics/pollution related
☐ Animal related
☐ Human services (including day care, family services)
☐ Youth development
☐ Economic development
☐ Employment, job related
☐ Legal services, civil rights
☐ Arts, culture, creative practices
☐ Recreation and sports (including birding and fishing)
☐ Crime, criminal justice
☐ International, foreign affairs, and national security
☐ Research in science and/or technology
☐ Faith-based activities
☐ Power/electricity generation
☐ Energy Efficiency
☐ Other

Section 5: Your group/organization's stewardship activities
Considering all of the programs, activities, and services your group/organization works on,
what percentage of your group/organization's effort has been for stewardship during the
past year? Please select one.
☐ 0-19%

84 Chicago Survey

☐ 20-39%

☐ 40-59%

☐ 60-79%

☐ 80-100%

What type(s) of setting has your group/organization done stewardship work in within the
past year?
Please choose all that apply.

Water & Water-Related
☐ Watershed / Sewershed
☐ Stream / River / Canal
☐ Waterfront / Beach / Shoreline
☐ Wetland

Open Spaces & Natural Areas
☐ Prairie
☐ Forest/Woodland/Savanna
☐ Park
☐ Community Garden
☐ Urban farm
☐ Playing field / Ball field
☐ Dog run or dog park
☐ Public garden (e.g. botanical garden, arboretum)
☐ Trails / Bike paths / Greenway / Rail-trail

Nature in Built Places
☐ Residential building grounds (apartment courtyard, back yard, etc.)
☐ Vacant land/Vacant lot
☐ School yard or grounds; outdoor classroom
☐ Grounds of public building other than school (e.g. city hall, library, hospital)
☐ Courtyard / Atrium / Plaza
☐ Street Trees/ Boulevard/ Traffic Island/ Greenstreet/ Parkway (Public right of way)
☐ Flower box / Planter
☐ Rain gardens, rain barrels, permeable pavement, bioswales
☐ Green buildings
☐ Green roofs
☐ Brownfield property
☐ Other – please specify:

_______________________________________________________

Chicago Survey

85

Please tell us why your group/organization does stewardship work.

___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
Section 6: Where you group or organization conducts stewardship activities.
Please describe in detail the boundaries of where your group/organization has physically
done stewardship work within the past year. You can list multiple locations. If you do not
physically work on a particular site, you can list your service area.

Examples —“We have a community garden In Chicago, on Halsted between 130th and 131st" —
"restoration workdays in Coral Woods" —"Environmental monitoring on the Southwest corner of the
Middle Fork Savanna" —"Outdoor education classes at the Ivanhoe Dune & Swale Nature Preserve" —
"Our energy conservation program service area is all of ZIP code 46368"—“We consider our territory all
of the Fox River Watershed in Wisconsin" —"Environmental advocacy statewide in Indiana”

___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________

Does your group/organization have a Geographic Information System (GIS) file showing the
boundaries of where you do stewardship work that you would be willing to share with us?
We would only use your file to show your stewardship territory on the stewardship map.

☐ Yes

☐ No

Who owns the property or properties on which your group/organization has physically done
stewardship work within the past year? Please choose all that apply.
☐ Federal government
☐ State government
☐ County government (e.g. Forest Preserve District)
☐ City/Local government
☐ Other government (e.g. Port Authority)
☐ Individual
☐ Corporation (including joint ventures, real estate investment groups)
☐ Nonprofit
☐ Don't know
☐ Other – please specify: ______________________________________

86 Chicago Survey

Who is the owner of the primary property or properties on which your group/organization
has done stewardship work within the past year? Please choose one.
☐ Federal government
☐ State government
☐ County government (e.g. Forest Preserve District)
☐ City/Local government
☐ Other government (e.g. Port Authority)
☐ Individual
☐ Corporation (including joint ventures, real estate investment groups)
☐ Nonprofit
☐ Don't know
☐ Other

Section 7: The structure of your group/organization.
Approximately what year was your group/organization founded? ____________

Note: For national or regional groups/organizations, please tell us the year your chapter was founded.

Approximately how many of the following does your group/organization have:
Note: For national groups/organizations, please provide regional information.

Full-time Staff:
______
Part-time Staff:
______
Members:
______
Regular Volunteers:
______
Note: regular volunteers are those who routinely volunteer in your group/organization's activities. This
is different from volunteers who may come out for a single work day.

For those volunteers who come out occasionally, can you estimate the total number of hours
they contribute?
Hours: ______ (per week/per month/per year – please select one time period)

What is your group/organization's estimated annual budget for the current year?
$________________

☐ Prefer not to answer

Chicago Survey

87

Section 8: Group/Organizational Relationships
Please tell us about your group/organization's relationship to other groups/organizations. For all
questions in this section, we are interested in hearing about all possible collaborations – federal, state,
and local governments; private companies; other nonprofits, schools, or community groups; etc.

Please list up to ten group/organizations from which you seek information, advice, or
expertise related to environmental stewardship:
1. _____________________________________
2. _____________________________________
3. _____________________________________
4. _____________________________________
5. _____________________________________
6. _____________________________________
7. _____________________________________
8. _____________________________________
9. _____________________________________
10. ____________________________________
Please list up to ten groups/organizations to which you provide information, advice, or
expertise related to environmental stewardship:
1. _____________________________________
2. _____________________________________
3. _____________________________________
4. _____________________________________
5. _____________________________________
6. _____________________________________
7. _____________________________________
8. _____________________________________
9. _____________________________________
10. ____________________________________
Please list up to ten groups/organizations from which you receive funding related to
environmental stewardship:
1. _____________________________________
2. _____________________________________
3. _____________________________________
4. _____________________________________
5. _____________________________________
6. _____________________________________
7. _____________________________________
8. _____________________________________
9. _____________________________________
10. ____________________________________

88 Chicago Survey

Please list up to ten groups/organizations to which you provide funding related to
environmental stewardship:
1. _____________________________________
2. _____________________________________
3. _____________________________________
4. _____________________________________
5. _____________________________________
6. _____________________________________
7. _____________________________________
8. _____________________________________
9. _____________________________________
10. ____________________________________
PARTNERSHIPS:
Does your group/organization belong to any coalitions, partnerships, or working
groups/organizations that share information, plan strategy, or coordinate activities?
☐ Yes
☐ No
If yes, please list the coalition(s) your group/organization is active in.
1. _____________________________________
2. _____________________________________
3. _____________________________________
4. _____________________________________
5. _____________________________________
6. _____________________________________
7. _____________________________________
8. _____________________________________
9. _____________________________________
10. ____________________________________

Section 9: Final Section
Is there anything else you would like to tell us about your group/organization or this survey?

___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
Thank you very much for your participation. If you have questions about the survey or the
project, please contact Cherie LeBlanc Fisher at clfisher@fs.fed.us or 847-866-9311 x12.

Chicago Survey

89

Appendix 2: continued
Survey protocol for Baltimore
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Baltimore Survey

111

Appendix 2: continued
Survey protocol for Seattle
12/6/10

SEATTLE STEW-MAP SURVEY
Does your organization work on behalf of the environment in some way? This may include
planting trees, advocating against toxics, restoring a riparian area, gardening in a schoolyard, or
some other stewardship activity. We would like to learn about these activities, including what
your organization does, where, and why.
The intent of this study is to understand environmental stewardship in the Seattle region. We
define stewardship as conserving, managing, caring for, monitoring, advocating for, and
educating the public about local environments.
A similar study was conducted in New York City, and it has helped stewardship groups connect
with each other, obtain new resources and partners, and has helped support citizens as they
work on behalf of their local environment.
This survey should take about 20-30 minutes to complete. Based on the information we collect,
we will develop maps to show where and how people work together to improve the
environment of the region. Thanks in advance for completing the survey; your input will help us
to develop a complete picture of stewardship in the Seattle area.
1. Please enter your contact information to get started.
Your personal information is confidential. We will not share your name, personal email,
personal phone number, or other identifying information with anyone outside of the research
team. We may contact you if we have questions about information you provide on this survey.
Your name:
Your title or position description:
Your phone number:
Your email:
From this point on you will be asked a series of questions about your group or organization.
Please try to provide responses that indicate the conditions or situations of the entire
organization or group, rather than just your own personal experience or preferences.
2. Basic Information about your group/organization.
Group/organization name:

Page 1 of 10

112 Seattle Survey

12/6/10

Web site (if available):
Mailing Address (with City, State, ZIP):
Group/organization Email:
Group/organization Phone:
Does your group/organization wish to be listed in a public, online stewardship
database? In other cities, this database allows stewards who share interests to find
each other and collaborate if they wish. YES/NO
3. Please tell us about your group/organization’s environmental stewardship activities:
How often does your organization do the following types of
stewardship activities?

Never

Sometimes

Often

Conserve the local environment?
Take care of a place in the local environment (for example, a
community garden, a block of street trees, an empty lot,
a riverbank, a schoolyard, a forest preserve)?
Restore or transform local ecosystem (for example,
daylighting a stream, brownfield recovery, or habitat
restoration)
Monitor the quality of the local environment? (for example,
monitoring air or water quality, or species monitoring)?
Advocate for the local environment?
Educate the public about the local environment?
*Skip logic: If anyone answers “never” to all questions, jump to a page that says:
“Thank you for your interest in filling out this survey. Based on your response to the last
question, your group/organization's activities do not fit into our research definition.
If you made a mistake while filling out the last question(s), please click the Back arrow (below)
to update your response.”

Page 2 of 10

Seattle Survey

113

12/6/10

Please tell us about your group/organization:
4. What is your group/organization’s legal designation? (Please choose the most appropriate
response).
501(c)(3) (or has applied)
501 (c)(4) (or has applied)
Community group/organization without 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4) status (such as a block club)
School district
Federal government agency
State government agency
Local government agency
Public institution (not an agency)
Quasi governmental (such as a port authority)
Private firm, for-profit business  If checked, then pop-up with a note that says, “For this
survey, please answer stewardship questions based only on the stewardship work that your
business does that is volunteer or pro bono.”
Other (please specify) ______________________

5. Tell us about what your group/organization does:
Below is a list of possible purposes and functions of
organizations. How well does each of the following
describe the purpose or function of your group or
organization?
Public health (including mental health, food, crisis
intervention, health care)
Education
Housing and shelter
Community improvement and capacity building
Environment (including gardening, forestry,
ecological restoration, water and air protection)
Toxics/pollution related
Animal related
Page 3 of 10

114 Seattle Survey

not at all

somewhat

very well

12/6/10

Human services (including day care, family services)
Youth development
Economic or business development
Employment, job related
Legal services, civil rights
Arts, culture, creative practices
Recreation and sports (including birding and fishing)
Crime, criminal justice
International, foreign affairs, and national security
Research in science and/or technology
Faith-based activities
Power/electricity generation
Energy Efficiency
Other ________________________
6. Considering all of the programs, activities, and services your group/organization does,
what percentage of your effort is for stewardship?
0 – 19%

20 – 39%

40 – 59%

7. Below are possible project sites/settings for
stewardship. In the past year, how often did your
group or organization do stewardship work at each of
the site types?

60 – 79%

never

80 – 100%

sometimes

often

WATER & WATER-RELATED
Watershed / Sewershed
Stream / River / Canal
Waterfront / Beach / Shoreline
Wetland
OPEN SPACES & NATURAL AREAS
Prairie/Savanna
Forest/Woodland

Page 4 of 10

Seattle Survey

115

12/6/10

Park
Community garden
Urban farm
Playing field / Ball field
Dog run or dog park
Public garden (botanical garden, arboretum,
etc.)
Trails / Bike paths / Greenway / Rail-trail
NATURE IN BUILT PLACES
Residential building grounds (apartment
courtyard, back yard, etc.)
Vacant Land / Vacant Lot
Brownfield property
School yard or grounds / Outdoor classroom
Grounds of public building other than school
(city hall, library, hospital, etc.)
Courtyard / Atrium / Plaza
Street trees / Boulevard/ traffic island /
greenstreet / parkway (Public right of way)
Rain gardens / rain barrels / permeable
pavement / bioswales
Green buildings
Green roofs
Flower box / Planter
Other ______________

8. Please tell us why your group/organization does stewardship work. [Freeform answer.]

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116 Seattle Survey

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Please tell us where your group/organization physically conducts stewardship activities:
9. What is the broadest geographic scope of your group or organization’s stewardship
activities?
International
National
Multiple states
State of Washington
Regional (e.g. several neighboring counties, a landscape element such as the Puget
Sound, etc.)
County
City of Seattle
Local (e.g. one or more neighborhoods, specific greenspaces within the city, etc.)
10. Please identify all Seattle neighborhoods in which you work. Click on the neighborhood
name for a map. If you are still unsure, please visit the City Clerk's website for additional
maps: http://clerk.ci.seattle.wa.us/~public/nmaps/neiglist.htm.
[LIST OF NEIGHBORHOODS HOTLINKED TO CITY CLERK’S NEIGHBORHOOD MAPS]
11. Please describe in detail the boundaries of where your group/organization has done work
in the last year. Be as specific as possible. You can list multiple locations.
For example:
“Interlaken Park” – “All of King County” – “the traffic circle on Belmont and E Thomas” –
“The Puget Sound” – “along the Duwamish River” – “the Bradner Gardens P-Patch”
12. Approximately what year was your group/organization founded? ____________
Note: for national or regional groups/organizations please tell us the approximate year your
chapter was founded.
13. Approximately how many of the following does your group/organization have:
Full-time staff: _____________
Part-time staff: _____________
Members: _____________
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Regular Volunteers: _____________ (note regular volunteers are those who routinely
volunteer in your group/organization’s activities. This is different from volunteers who
may come out for a single work day).
For those volunteers who come out occasionally, can you estimate how many hours they
contribute? per . . . . week _________ or month ___________ or year ____________
14. How often does your group/organization use
the following methods to share information with
the public?

never

sometimes

N/A, we don’t share information
National media
Local media
Direct mailing / newsletters
Door-to-door outreach
Flyers / signs
Website
Listserv
Social media (e.g. blog, Facebook, Twitter)
National conferences/meetings
Regional conferences/meetings
City conferences/meetings
Neighborhood-based conferences/meetings
Radio
TV
Other (please specify)
___________________________________

15. What is your group/organization’s estimated annual budget for the current year?
___________________________

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often

12/6/10

Check box: Prefer not to answer
16. Please indicate the level of funding your
group/organization has received in the last
year from the following sources.

no funding

minor funding

major funding

Corporate giving/sponsorship
Local foundation
National foundation
Endowment
Fees/program Income
Fundraisers (events, dinners, etc.)
Individual donations
Memberships
Federal government
State government
Municipal government
Other (Please Specify)
_____________________________
GROUP/ORGANIZATIONAL RELATIONSHIPS
In the final section of the survey, please tell us about your group or organization’s
relationship to other groups and organizations.
For all questions in this section, we are interested in hearing about all possible collaborations.
These may include federal, state, and local government; private companies; nonprofits,
schools, or community group/organizations; etc.
17. In the past year, did you seek information, advice, or expertise from other groups or
organizations?
Please list up to ten groups/organizations from whom you received information, advice, or
expertise related to environmental stewardship:

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18. In the past year, did you offer information, advice, or expertise to other groups or
organizations?
Please list up to ten group/organizations to whom you provided information, advice, or
expertise related to environmental stewardship:

19. Please list up to ten group/organizations from whom you received funding related to
environmental stewardship in the past year:

20. Please list up to ten group/organizations to whom you provided funding related to
environmental stewardship in the past year:

21. Does your group/organization belong to any coalitions, partnerships, or working groups
to share information, plan strategy, or coordinate activities? Yes/No
If yes, please list the coalition(s) your group/organization is active in.

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22. Is there anything else you would like to tell us about your group/organization or this
survey?

This concludes the Seattle stewardship assessment. Thank you for your participation. We
will send you an announcement when our report and stewardship maps are available.
Feel free to contact us with any questions or comments at: stewards@u.washington.edu

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Appendix 2: continued
Survey protocol for Philadelphia

STEW-MAP:
The Citywide
Stewardship Census

STEW-MAP: The Citywide Stewardship Census

122 Philadelphia Survey

The intent of this study is to understand environmental
stewardship in Philadelphia. We define stewardship
as the act of conserving, managing, monitoring,
advocating for, and educating the public about their
local environments.

SE

Tell
grou
stew

In this assessment we ask questions about your
organization, who you work with, where you work,
what you do, and how you do it. It should take about
15–20 minutes to complete.
Based on the information we collect, we will develop
maps to show how people work together to improve
the urban environment of Philadelphia. Thank you for
participating in this effort.

SE

Tell
wha
doe

organizational contact information

This identifying information
is confidential. We will not
share your name, personal
email, personal phone
number, or other identifying
information with anyone.

organization name

web site (if available)

mailing address

city

state

zip

respondent name:
key contact name
respondent email:
organization email
respondent phone:

organization phone

Does your organization wish to be listed in a public, online
stewardship database?
□ yes □ no
STEW-MAP: The Citywide Stewardship Census

STEW-

Philadelphia Survey

123

ntal
p

r

SECTION I
Tell us about your
group’s environmental
stewardship activities

t

p

or

SECTION II

Tell us about us about
what your organization
does

1.

does your group aim to conserve the local environment?
□ yes □ no

2.

does your group manage some area of the local environment?
□ yes □ no

3.

does your group monitor the quality of the local environment?
□ yes □ no

4.

does your group advocate for the local environment?
□ yes □ no

5.

does your group aim to educate the public about the local environment?
□ yes □ no

6.

what is your group’s primary focus? (Please select all that apply)
□ public health (Including Mental Health, Crisis Intervention, Health Care)
□ education
□ housing and shelter
□ community improvement and capacity building
□ environment (Including Gardening, Forestry, Water and Air Protection, Ecological Restoration
and/or Land Management)

□ animal related
□ human services (Including Day Care, Family Services)
□ employment, job related
□ legal services, civil rights
□ arts, culture
□ recreation and sports (Including Birding and Angling)
□ crime, criminal justice
□ international, foreign affairs, and national security
□ research in science, technology, and social sciences
□ religion related
□ private grantmaking foundation
□ seniors
□ youth
□ transportation related
□ development (Including Business, Community, Real Estate)
□ other:

STEW-MAP: The Citywide Stewardship Census

124 Philadelphia Survey

7.

what is your group’s mission statement? (200 words or less please.)

8.

what year was your organization founded?

9.

at which types of sites does your group physically work?
(Please circle all that apply)
water

watershed/sewershed
stream/river/canal
waterfront/beach/
shoreline
wetland

land

building

“natural”/
restoration area

green building

park

courtyard/atrium/

community garden

plaza

vacant land

front yard / back yard

playing field/ballfield

school yard

dog run

apartment grounds

street tree

recreation center

rooftop

SE

Tell
orga
rela
grou

botanical garden /
arboretum
greenway/rail-trail
flower box/planter
public right of way
(e.g. street ends, roadside,
traffic island, greenstreet)

urban farm
10.

my organization: (Please check and fill in all that apply.)
□ is a 501(c)(3)
□ has applied for 501(c)(3) status
□ receives funding through the following
501(c)(3) organization:
□ is a branch of a larger 501(c)(3)
□ is a community group without 501(c)(3) status
□ is a school-affiliated community group
□ is a religious congregation (church, synagogue, mosque, etc),
but not a 501(c)(3)
□ is not tax exempt (private firm, etc)
□ is a government agency
□ is a 501(c)(4)
□ is a public – private partnership
□ other:
Since the purpose of this study is to learn more about nonprofit organizations and community groups, if you chose “is not tax exempt” or “is a government agency”, you do not
need to complete the entire form. Please return the form in the enclosed envelope. Thank
you.

11.

how many of the following does your organization have?
(Please circle the appropriate range in each category)

paid staff
0–1
2–3
4–5
6 – 10
11+

volunteers
0–1
2–3
4–5
6 – 10
11+

members
0–1
2–3
4–5
6 – 10
11+

STEW-MAP: The Citywide Stewardship Census

STEW-

Philadelphia Survey

125

12.

who owns the property on which your organization typically works?
(Please choose all that apply)

□ federal government
□ state government
□ local government
□ individual
□ corporation (including joint ventures, reits)
□ nonprofit
□ other:

SECTION III
Tell us about your
organization’s
relationship to other
groups

13.

please list the names of all of the organizations with which you collaborate regularly within the following categories.
community groups (civic groups, non profits, etc.)

businesses and/or business groups (chambers of commerce, business improvement districts, etc.)

government agencies/programs (local, state, and/or federal)

school groups/programs (pre k-12, colleges and universities, etc.)

STEW-MAP: The Citywide Stewardship Census

126 Philadelphia Survey

14.

what type of services does your group currently provide?
(Select all that apply)

□ educational curricula
□ legal resources
□ buildings/facilities
□ plant materials/equipment
□ technical assistance
□ labor: (volunteers/students/interns)
□ grants
□ community organizing
□ computing / internet
□ public relations/outreach
□ data
□ other:
15.

SECTION IV

SE

Tell us a bit more about
what your group does

Tell
con
acti

how does your group share information with the public?
(Select all that apply)

□ n/a, we don’t share information
□ national media
□ local media
□ direct mailing / newsletters
□ door-to-door outreach
□ flyers / signs
□ website
□ listserv
□ blog
□ national conferences/meetings
□ regional conferences/meetings
□ city conferences/meetings
□ neighborhood-based conferences/meetings
□ radio
□ tv
16.

what is your organization’s annual budget? (Select one range)
□ $0 – $1,000
□ $1,000 – $10,000
□ $10,000 – $50,000
□ $50,000 – $100,000
□ $100,000 – $200,000
□ $200,000 – $500,000
□ $500,000 – $1 million
□ $1 – $2 million
□ $2 – $5 million
□ $5 million +

17.

what is your primary funding source? (Select one)
□ government agencies
□ foundations
□ endowment
□ individual memberships
□ fees/program income
□ corporate giving/sponsorship
□ other:

STEW-MAP: The Citywide Stewardship Census

STEW-

Philadelphia Survey

127

□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□

ogontz
old city
olde kensington
olde richmond
olney
overbrook
overbrook farms
overbrook park
oxford circle
packer park
paradise
parkwood
pennsport
pennypack woods
point breeze
port richmond
powelton village
queen village
rhawnhurst
rittenhouse sq.
saunders park
shared by paradise & east falls
sharswood
shawmont valley
society hill
somerton
south philadelphia
southwest
southwest center city
spring garden
spruce hill
st. hugh
strawberry mansion
summerdale
tacony
tioga
university city
upper holmesburg
upper northwood
upper roxborough
walnut hill
walton park
washington square west
west fairhill
west kensington
west mt. airy
west oak lane
west parkside

STEW-MAP: The Citywide Stewardship Census

128 Philadelphia Survey

□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□

west poplar
west powelton
west shore
whitaker
whitman
winchester
winchester park
wissahickon
wissinoming
wynnefield
wynnefield heights
yorktown
other:

STEW-

19.

does your group work in the entire neighborhood(s) or just a specific
part?
□ all □ part

20.

does your group work on multiple properties?
□ yes □ no

21.

does your group work outside of philadelphia county?
□ yes □ no

22.

please describe in detail the neighborhoods, boundaries and/or property addresses where your group works. be as specific as possible and
you can list multiple locations.
For example: “On Fairmount Ave. between 22nd St. and 25th St”; “Walnut Hill Neighborhood”; “South
of South St and East of Broad St.”; “the Cobbs Creek between Market St and Island Ave”; “all of ZIP
code 19119”; “The Tacony Creek Watershed”; “The Guangdong Province of China”

STEW-MAP: The Citywide Stewardship Census

Philadelphia Survey

129

This concludes the STEW-MAP assessment.
Thank you for your participation.
Please return the survey in the provided envelope.
□

please check here if you or another person from your organization is
willing to participate in a follow-up interview or focus group
related to the stew-map project.

□

please check here if you would like to receive a copy of the report.

feel free to contact stew-map with any questions or comments at
stewmap.philly@gmail.com

STEW-MAP: The Citywide Stewardship Census

130 Philadelphia Survey

131

APPENDIX 3: NEW YORK CITY SURVEY INVITATION MATERIALS
This is the initial recruitment letter that was used in New York City.

Dear New York City Eco-Steward:
If you are a gardener, a park advocate, a dog walker, a beach cleaner, a kayaker, an
environmentalist, an educator, or a community organizer—we need your help in putting

your group on the map!

Don’t let your hard work go unrecognized.
STEW-MAP (the Stewardship Mapping and Assessment Project) is New York City’s first
ever comprehensive map of the more than 5,000 civic environmental groups working in our
amazing city. Please fill out the enclosed form in order to be a part of this new effort—it will
only take 15 minutes of your time.
A dozen different citywide greening groups and 20 other organizations are working together
with researchers from the US Forest Service and Columbia University to develop this project.
Together we will count, map, and connect all the different forms of environmental work
happening in NYC.
Remember: it is the people who clean and green NYC for the present and the future.
Major citywide partners include:

•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•

Partnerships for Parks
Citizens for New York City
Council on the Environment of New York City
NYC Department of Parks and Recreation GreenThumb Program
New York City Housing Authority
New York-New Jersey Harbor Estuary Program
Environmental Protection Agency, Region 2
Hudson River Foundation
Trust for Public Land
And more than 20 other participating data providers!

For more information on the study, see the enclosed letter and the instructions at the
beginning of the form. We thank you for your participation!
Para una versión en español, favor de email: stewmap@columbia.edu.
Sincerely,
The STEW-MAP team

132

This is the postcard reminder that was used in New York City.

GET ON
THE MAP
You work hard for your city, and the environment.
Get the recognition you deserve.

<>

The US Forest Service and Columbia University are working
with citywide greening groups to count, map, and connect all
the different environmental work in NYC, from gardening to
park advocacy to beach cleanup.
The Stewardship Mapping and Assessment Project (STEW-MAP)
is the first ever inventory of environmental groups working in
New York City, and we want your group on the map.
You were sent a form from the STEW-MAP
team, now all you have to do is fill it out, and
you’re on the map.
If you’ve lost or did not receive your form,
or have any other questions, contact:
Lindsay Campbell
(212) 637-4175
stewmap@columbia.edu
<>

133

APPENDIX 4: STEW-MAP FACT SHEET
Mapping Urban Environmental Stewardship with STEW-MAP
The Stewardship Mapping and Assessment Project (STEW-MAP) is a national USDA Forest Service research program
designed to answer the questions: Which environmental stewardship groups are working across urban landscapes, and
where, why, and how?
STEW-MAP defines a “stewardship group” as a civic organization or group
that works to conserve, manage, monitor, advocate for, and/or educate the
public about their local environments. This work includes efforts that
involve water, forests, land, air, waste, toxics, and energy. Many civic
stewardship groups work within, alongside, or independent of public
agencies and private businesses in managing urban places. STEW-MAP is
both a study of urban stewardship socio-spatial characteristics and a
publicly available online tool to help support those networks.

New York City
Stewardship
Organization
Offices

To date, STEW-MAP has collected information from thousands of local
stewardship groups, first in New York City and later in Baltimore, Chicago,
Seattle, and Philadelphia. These groups include neighborhood block
associations, kayak clubs, tree planting groups, community gardeners,
regional environmental coalitions, nonprofit educational institutions, and
museums. A Los Angeles STEW-MAP project is underway as of this writing
and other cities, including Washington, DC and San Juan, Puerto Rico are
also interested in conducting STEW-MAP studies.
What does STEW-MAP show?

New York City
Stewardship
Organizations
near
Greenspace

Stewardship maps tell us about the presence, capacity, geographic turf, and
social networks of environmental stewardship groups in a given city or
region. For the first time, these social infrastructure data are treated as
part of green infrastructure asset mapping. For example, the interactive
mapping website developed in New York City (NYC) currently displays data
for 405 groups citywide alongside other open space data layers. Chicago’s
STEW-MAP data are also available online, allowing stewardship groups to
find others working near them and/or working on similar issues. Other
STEW-MAP projects continue to expand the NYC model and have created
new maps and resources for their cities.

Why is STEW-MAP important?
STEW-MAP can highlight existing stewardship gaps and overlaps in order to
strengthen organizational capacities, enhance citizen monitoring, promote
broader civic engagement with on-the-ground environmental projects, and
build effective partnerships among stakeholders involved in urban
sustainability. Long-term community-based natural resource stewardship
can help support and maintain our investment in green infrastructure and
urban restoration projects. STEW-MAP creates a framework to connect
potentially fragmented stewardship groups with the ultimate goal of
measuring, monitoring, and optimizing the contribution of our civic resources.
Who can use STEW-MAP?
STEW-MAP is a tool for natural resource managers, funders, policymakers, educators, stewardship groups, and the
public. For example, managers in NYC have queried STEW-MAP to find stewardship groups working near specific forest
restoration projects run by MillionTreesNYC, a public-private tree-planting initiative. Funders or community organizers
can also identify areas with the greatest or least presence of stewardship groups, taking into account organization size
and focus area. Those seeking to disseminate policy information can target the most connected groups to quickly and
effectively reach an entire network or a subset of groups. Members of the public who want to know who is working in a
particular neighborhood or who can provide technical resources for a project can search the database, which displays
results as a list or on a map.
Learn more at www.nrs.fs.fed.us/nyc/focus/stewardship_mapping

134

Svendsen, Erika S.; Campbell, Lindsay K.; Fisher, Dana R.; Connolly, James J.T.; Johnson,
Michelle L.; Sonti, Nancy F.; Locke, Dexter H.; Westphal, Lynne M.; LeBlanc Fisher,
Cherie; Grove, J. Morgan; Romolini, Michele; Blahna, Dale J.; Wolf, Kathleen L. 2016.
Stewardship mapping and assessment project: a framework for understanding
community-based environmental stewardship. Gen. Tech. Rep. NRS-156. Newtown
Square, PA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northern Research Station.
134 p.
The Stewardship Mapping and Assessment Project (STEW-MAP) is designed to answer
who, where, why and how environmental stewardship groups are caring for our
urbanized landscapes. This report is intended to be a guide for those who wish to
start STEW-MAP in their own city. It contains step-by-step directions for how to plan
and implement a STEW-MAP project. STEW-MAP is both an empirical study of a city’s
or region’s civic environmental stewardship resources and a publicly available online
database to help support environmental stewardship broadly in these cities. The project
adds a social layer of information to biophysical and urban geographic information on
“green infrastructure” in cities. STEW-MAP highlights existing stewardship gaps and
overlaps in order to strengthen organizational capacities, enhance citizen monitoring,
promote broader public engagement with on-the-ground environmental work, and build
effective partnerships among stakeholders involved in urban sustainability.
KEYWORDS: environmental stewardship, public engagement, partnerships, urban
landscapes, geospatial mapping, social networks

In accordance with Federal civil rights law and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) civil rights
regulations and policies, the USDA, its Agencies, offices, and employees, and institutions participating in
or administering USDA programs are prohibited from discriminating based on race, color, national origin,
religion, sex, gender identity (including gender expression), sexual orientation, disability, age, marital
status, family/parental status, income derived from a public assistance program, political beliefs, or reprisal
or retaliation for prior civil rights activity, in any program or activity conducted or funded by USDA (not
all bases apply to all programs). Remedies and complaint filing deadlines vary by program or incident.
Persons with disabilities who require alternative means of communication for program information (e.g.,
Braille, large print, audiotape, American Sign Language, etc.) should contact the responsible Agency or
USDA’s TARGET Center at (202) 720-2600 (voice and TTY) or contact USDA through the Federal Relay
Service at (800) 877-8339. Additionally, program information may be made available in languages other
than English.
To file a program discrimination complaint, complete the USDA Program Discrimination Complaint
Form, AD-3027, found online at http://www.ascr.usda.gov/complaint_filing_cust.html and at any USDA
office or write a letter addressed to USDA and provide in the letter all of the information requested in
the form. To request a copy of the complaint form, call (866) 632-9992. Submit your completed form
or letter to USDA by: (1) mail: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Civil
Rights, 1400 Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, D.C. 20250-9410; (2) fax: (202) 690-7442; or (3)
email: program.intake@usda.gov.

Printed on Recycled Paper

Northern Research Station
www.nrs.fs.fed.us