Even though 2025 has been a year of great challenge for us and for many nonprofits, it has also been a year where we worked especially hard to achieve some exceptional impact. Across each of our strategic program areas, we have remained committed to living out our values and fulfilling our mission, and this year-in-review helps illuminate some of the results we’ve accomplished along the way.
If you haven’t done so yet, please consider a donation to help us fuel the work ahead of us starting in 2026. Our work is supported by donations of all sizes, so please consider a donation amount that is meaningful to you and the change you hope to see take shape in the new year.
Thank you for an impactful year!
Our Nature-Based Climate Solutions portfolio of work focuses on centering community voices in implementing projects that address the climate crisis and its impacts. This includes climate resiliency efforts, flooding & extreme weather mitigation, green infrastructure, and forest canopy expansion.
Tree Planting Consortium: Nearly 4,000 Trees Later
Notably, we concluded our multi-year effort leading the Northwest Indiana Tree Planting Consortium, in which we worked with several communities from Lake County, Indiana, to plant a total of 3,837 trees, which will help reduce community flooding by treating 1.9 million gallons of stormwater runoff annually! Moreover, we directly engaged 649 volunteers and youth throughout the region, building capacity for communities to take ownership of their own long-term forestry stewardship needs. Next, we will be replicating this successful model to launch a new Tree Planting Consortium benefitting communities in Southeast Wisconsin and Northeast Illinois.
Urban Forestry in Hammond, Indiana
This wasn’t our only urban forestry project this past year, though! We also partnered with the Hammond, Indiana Parks and Recreation Department to plant 200 trees in the City’s Third District and historic Harrison Park. We will conclude our tree plantings in 2026 alongside the publication of the City’s new Urban Forestry Management Plan we are helping develop as part of this overarching initiative.
Planning for Big Restoration Impacts in 2026
Meanwhile, we’ve also spent time planning implementation activities for several projects next year that we can’t wait to share! For example, we’re partnering with the Illinois International Port District to restore 25 acres of green space in Lake Calumet, ultimately helping improve water quality for the 135,000 residents of Chicago’s Far South Side and South Suburbs. We’ll also begin an exciting habitat restoration project in Hobart, Indiana, where we are transforming what has become an illegal dumping ground into a 40-acre nature preserve. As you can see, we’re already gearing up for an even more impactful 2026!
You may recall that Delta Institute began serving as the Environmental Finance Center for the US EPA’s Region 5 in 2023. More specifically, we provide technical assistance on water infrastructure to municipalities, community groups, and Tribal Nations located within Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. We are now pleased to share that we have hit a new milestone: Delta Institute has now provided technical assistance in water infrastructure to 50 communities throughout the Midwest!
Through these partnerships, we have been providing support to dozens of communities throughout the Great Lakes on securing funding for projects that help reach their goals associated with the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act. We believe that all communities should have access to clean and healthy water, and our commitment to serving as the Environmental Finance Center for US EPA Region 5 ensures we will continue assisting dozens more communities for years to come.
After years of supporting agricultural conservation throughout the Midwest, we have learned an important lesson. Increasing widespread climate-smart agriculture requires two aspects:
- Market drivers to drive farmer adoption of soil health-focused conservation efforts, and
- Recognition by the agricultural real estate community that improved soil health has market drivers attached to it.
What’s most exciting?
The approach we have developed for aligning farms’ soil health with land valuation has the potential to serve as the critical “tipping point” that’s needed to standardize soil health management practices across the Midwest, thereby improving environmental and economic outcomes across the agricultural sector.
This past year, we began expanding our work to actively engage dozens more farmers and appraisers across Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin in this next stage of our soil health land valuation process. Looking ahead, we couldn’t be more excited about the potential high-impact possibility around the corner from us!
Learn more about these projects by visiting Building Regional Consensus for Soil Health Valuation or by visiting Piloting Midwestern Soil Health Appraisals. You can also click the link below to see the many resources and updates shared online under our overarching Resilient Agriculture program.
Beyond our other work devoted to green infrastructure and agricultural conservation, Delta Institute’s third strategic program, “Sustainability and Support Services,” is designed to meet the other needs of our partner communities, ranging from climate action planning, brownfield redevelopment, and more. For example, this past year:
- Brownfield redevelopment in Midwest. Vacant parcels of land, known as brownfields, can provide communities with opportunities to redevelop the land for many types of use. Delta Institute partners with communities throughout the Midwest to provide technical assistance on various stages of the brownfield redevelopment process. This past year, we’ve worked closely with communities in Indiana, Kansas, Ohio, and Wisconsin to help them re-envision their vacant land into opportunities for environmental and economic redevelopment projects. Learn more here.
- Supporting environmental and economic goals at the Port of Chicago. For several years, Delta Institute has played a key role in supporting the the Illinois International Port District (IIPD) achieve its environmental and economic goals related to the Port of Chicago’s Master Plan. We’ve been working with the IIPD on several of these efforts, such as helping them maintain Green Marine Certification as part of their sustainability commitment; based on their most recent certification process, the IIPD is the only American port in the Great Lakes to achieve a top 5 out of 5 score for community relations. We are also supporting the IIPD in its endeavor to develop a new Sustainability and Decarbonization Plan, further positioning the Port as an environmental leader in the region and identifying opportunities where the Port can contribute significantly to reducing its carbon footprint.
Have a project in mind you hope to get off the ground in 2026? Whether you’re looking for a climate action plan, brownfield redevelopment strategy, or other kind of technical assistance for your business, municipality, or county agency, we are happy to talk through opportunities for partnership. Click here to learn more.
This past year, our team has presented our work in dozens of places: conferences, podcast episodes, special events, and more. We do so to share insights from our work and connect with others on how we can collaborate together to overcome challenging obstacles and make a positive impact. For example:
- “A Novel Approach to Factor Soil Health into Michigan Farmland Appraisals” – A summary of our findings after partnering with farm appraisers and soil conservationists in Southeast Michigan. We explore the argument that if soil health can be considered as a property characteristic by appraisers, Michigan farmers may adopt soil conservation practices to increase the value of their land. This project was generously supported by the Fred & Barbara Erb Family Foundation. Watch the full webinar recording here.
- Two Green Soapbox panel discussions – Throughout 2025, the Delta Emerging Leaders associate board organized two panel discussions on important topics impacting Midwest communities: “Climate Refugees” and “Scaling Sustainable Foodways in the Midwest.” Thank you to our sponsors for making these events possible: William Blair, Peoples Gas Community Fund, RW Ventures, and J. Blanton Plumbing.
Don’t forget! We frequently post free-to-use tools and publications on our website that may be helpful to your community. You can browse through our recent tools and publications on our website.
For five years in a row, Delta Institute has been awarded the highest levels of recognition in nonprofit accountability!
This includes earning Candid’s Platinum Seal of Transparency: a recognition received by fewer than 1% of all 1.9 million nationally registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations! Additionally, Charity Navigator has continued recognizing Delta Institute for the third year in a row with its highest four-star “Give with Confidence” rating!
We believe in transparency here at Delta Institute because it is one of our core values. We are committed to being accountable and honest with everyone as part of our journey, and that includes our donors, our partners, and our stakeholders across all of our projects. We are proud of these recognitions because they demonstrate one way in which we are living up to these commitments.
In total, since our strategic plan refinement in 2022, we estimate that our work has benefitted the lives of 9.3 million Midwesterners.
This kind of impact is a humbling number for us. That means that we improved the lives of millions across the Midwest by:
- Improving water quality across dozens of municipalities whether that be by helping remove lead pipes or by reducing flooding through new green infrastructure,
- Engaging hundreds of youth and residents in environmental activities in their backyards through activities like tree plantings or citizen-led biodiversity assessments,
- Helping develop climate action plans on a municipal level to reduce each community’s carbon footprint,
- Giving new life to vacant, polluted neighborhood lots by helping communities redevelop sites into green spaces and other sites that promote economic opportunity, and
- Helping hundreds of farmers maximize the value of their land while also investing in environmentally friendly farming practices.
We’re honored to be a part of community-led projects that improve the lives of millions annually. Even in 2025, a year of great challenge for many environmental nonprofits like us, we push on and look toward how we can best live out our values and our mission.
2026 is just a few days away. Please join the hundreds of supporters who have invested in this critical work this year and help us prepare for an impactful new year around the corner.