Safeguarding Our Forests and Rivers
At Peaks to People, we protect Northern Colorado’s water supplies by investing in forest health and wildfire mitigation. With your support, we can scale up impactful, strategic projects that reduce erosion, sedimentation, and runoff—protecting water quality during and after wildfire events.
Our Impact
Since our founding in 2015, Peaks to People has been a leader in protecting Northern Colorado’s watersheds. Through strategic partnerships and innovative tools, we make targeted, high-impact investments to safeguard these precious resources.
Collaborative Approach ~ The challenges facing our watersheds are too vast for any one organization to tackle alone. That’s why Peaks to People launched the Big Thompson Watershed Health Partnership (BTWHP) in 2022. This collaboration of 17 local, state, and federal organizations—both public and private—aims to accelerate and scale up forest health projects across the watershed.
Data-Driven Investment ~ Our proprietary Watershed Investment Tool ensures that each dollar you donate is used where it will have the greatest impact, protecting water supplies and reducing wildfire risks.
Join Us in Making a Difference
Your gift today helps us continue our vital work to protect the future of our forests, water, and communities. Together, we can create a healthier, more resilient Colorado.
How Your Donation Supports Our Efforts
- Fostering Collaboration for Long-Term Resilience
Your support enables us to build lasting partnerships with agencies and organizations dedicated to protecting forests and watersheds. We facilitate collaborative decision-making through efforts like the Big Thompson Watershed Health Partnership (BTWHP), uniting diverse stakeholders to drive wildfire and forest health projects that promote long-term resilience.
- Innovating Strategic Planning Tools
Donations help us advance new, groundbreaking tools which guide landscape-scale planning and wildfire mitigation. These tools enhance collaborative wildfire mitigation efforts, ensuring high impact projects are implemented effectively to combat the wildfire crisis.
- Empowering Partners with Resources and Funding
With your contribution, Peaks to People expands the reach of wildfire mitigation projects by providing vital match funding, which helps our partners access state and federal grants. Together, we can increase the scope and impact of forest health initiatives across Northern Colorado.
- Building Trust and Strengthening Communities
Peaks to People not only provides critical funding but also strengthens public trust and communication. Your support fosters these trusted relationships, ensuring efficient collaboration to safeguard our watersheds and communities.
Testimonials
“Peaks to People adds a tremendous amount of value to conservation efforts in northern Colorado as an organizing force and umbrella under which collaborative forest management projects can be developed and implemented among a broad range of agencies and organizations.” Rob Addington, Forest and Fire Program Director, The Nature Conservancy of Colorado.
“The Colorado State Forest Service Fort Collins Field Office appreciates and values Peaks to People Water Fund and the role they bring towards a shared vision of stewarding our state’s forests and the watersheds we rely on. They have provided a unique and important role in the formation and leadership of the Big Thompson Watershed Health Partnership (BTWHP), which resources and aligns a wide range of stakeholders on specific and strategic implementation. Through this partnership Peaks to People has created a reliable and actionable framework for partners to collaborate on projects together and innovate new ways of strategic planning. Specifically, they played a pivotal role developing a new planning tool which combines the USFS Potential Operational Delineations framework and the National Cohesive Wildfire Strategy to plan and track the implementation of wildfire mitigation projects at a large scale. They played a direct role in developing the tool and facilitated critical dialogue within the BTWHP to further its development. This new tool has the potential to make substantial and meaningful impact of the pace and scale wildfire mitigation projects being implemented to match the current wildfire crisis our state and country are facing. Peaks to People also plays a direct and valuable role in its ability to assist with individual project development and implementation using grants such as CSFS’ Forest Restoration and Wildfire Risk Mitigation. The FRWRM grant program focuses on impacting our forests and communities at scale. Peaks to People plays an important role in its ability to expand project footprints by bringing together individual partners and opportunities for additional funding. CSFS looks forward to continuing our partnership with Peaks to People Water Fund and bringing more impactful change to our forests, watersheds, and state.” Max Erickson, Supervisory Forester, Fort Collins Field Office, Colorado State Forest Service
“The matching funds piece is a really important part (of the grant process). Everybody scrambles to find that match. When smoke is coming over the hill, everyone thinks it’s a good investment but it’s a little late then to get the work done. So the matching funds piece is just huge.” Michael Lester, Director Colorado State Forest Service (retired).