We
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We provide resources and education to engage citizens in building more beautiful communities.
vision
This year, we celebrated 30 years with a truly remarkable year – a growth in staff, record numbers for our education programs, and the launch of Beautify Austin. We couldn’t accomplish all we do without the tremendous support of individuals, business, schools, community groups, nonprofits, and government agencies who donate their time, skills, and money. Together we are building and keeping Austin beautiful.
About Us
mission
about us
Our vision is for Austin to be the cleanest, most beautiful community.
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staff
Ash de Jong, President Mi Casa Su Casa ATX Guest Homes
Paul Daugereau Waste Management
Sarah Kaylor Balcones Resources
Rodney Ahart Executive Director
Keith Sears Resources Assistant
Ryan Valenza, Vice President Winstead PC
Wade Giles Moreland Properties
Andy Kim Austin Community College
Sally Alsup Volunteer Coordinator
Ilya Shmulenson Director of Programs
Jon Mendoza, Treasurer F&B Capital
Donna J. Shaver Gosh Organics “By Gosh�
Linda McCoy Waterloo Education, LLC
Alecia Casper Education Programs Coordinator
Bernard Smalls Environmental Educator
Julie Fisher, Secretary Samsung Austin Semiconductor
Holly Gunn, MD Capital Anesthesiology Association
Michael Murphy Dell
Erin Cord Community Programs Coordinator
Interns
Tripti Ajgaonkar Community Representative
Dennis Hobbs Texas Disposal Systems
Matt Myers Republic Services
Faith Donovan Fund Development and Operations Coordinator
Eric Bonilla National Instruments
Ed Hubbard NMR Capital
Amy Reinarz 787 Realty
Myrriah Gossett Event and Marketing Coordinator
Celso Baez III Austin Independent School District
Holland Jones Whole Earth Provision Co.
Matias Segura II URS Corporation
Adrianne Kartachak Environmental Educator
Dustin Cosper Texas Capital Bank
Lisa Kaindl Dell
Monica Lopez Magee Director of Development and Communications
About Us
board of directors
Aubrey Cofield Communications Intern Lily Nguyen Fund Development Intern Amabilia Agular Green Teen Intern Lebon Hora Green Teen Intern Maribel Morales Green Teen Intern
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To celebrate our 30-year commitment to Austin, we kicked off Keep Austin Beautiful’s 30 projects in 30 days mission. The ambitious goal challenged the community to rally together to preserve Austin’s natural beauty and post their “I Keep Austin Beautiful by…” accomplishments on social media with #mybeautifulatx. The results were off the charts. In one month, we surpassed our goal and completed 50 projects mobilizing 2,100 volunteers! To round out the month-long celebrations, we hosted Beautiful Bash, an inspirational event honoring the 30th Annual Award Winners. The Bash also featured a silent auction, live music, food, and drinks.
30th Anniversary
Celebrating 30 Years
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Keep Austin Beautiful is proud to have been recognized with the Governor’s Community Achievement Award in 2013 for outstanding community improvement. The award is one of the most coveted annual environmental and community improvement honors in Texas. As an award winner, Keep Austin Beautiful is partnering with the Texas Department of Transportation to complete a large-scale beautification project at Rundberg Lane and I-35 in North Austin.
Beautify Austin
Beautify Austin - Rundberg
The transformation kicked off this spring and includes converting turf areas to pavers, planting trees for color and shade, and layering a selection of evergreen perennials for a full garden effect. I envision many more projects like Beautify Austin – Rundberg in Keep Austin Beautiful’s future. We are excited about the opportunity to identify areas in need and invest in a high impact beautification project that allows us to broaden our reach while building a safer and more beautiful landscape in Austin, one community at a time. Rodney Ahart, Executive Director
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Keep Austin Beautiful coordinates cleanups of Lady Bird Lake, Lake Travis, and an annual citywide cleanup and supports local cleanups throughout the year. Events are packed with supplies, guidance, volunteer recruitment, prizes, and socials. By hosting cleanups, we are creating a litter-free Austin and bringing volunteers together to share in their collective impact.
920 cleanups
Events
Events
“Really fun getting to know neighbors better and making our community a cleaner, safer place to live.” - Daniel Laitinen, Holy Word Lutheran Church
79 tons of litter collected
33,000 service hours
Clean Sweep
On Saturday, April 4th, a whopping 4,125 volunteers removed 26 tons of trash from 155 different locations throughout Austin. Volunteer Brenda Kolas captured the scope and success of Clean Sweep best, “Our most unusual item, an office chair, was in the drainage ditch and had been on an employee’s radar for over a year. Saw it from his office window and tracked it floating and moving along the stream. Used this year’s Clean Sweep as an opportunity to finally remove it. Came back with his truck bed filled with trash removed from the drainage ditch. Awesome!”
Clean Lady Bird Lake
Every other month Keep Austin Beautiful organizes large-scale cleanups of Lady Bird Lake. The cleanups are initiated from 24 sites. This year, despite rain and below 40 and above 100 degree temperatures at times, A total of 1,100 volunteers ventured out on foot, in kayaks and on stand up paddle boards to clean the entire 10.3 miles of shoreline and in the hard to reach nooks and crannies of the lake. During the cleanups, volunteers found the strangest of items including a package of smoked sausages, a rusty bike frame, and a brown bag containing jeans, cocoa butter, and a can of tuna fish.
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Resources
Resources
“Loved the kits – they were very well documented and easy to follow instructions.” - Mary Alice
Keep Austin Beautiful is a one-stop shop for completing cleanups, beautification projects, recycling at an event, and outdoor learning. By providing resources at no cost, we are empowering neighbors to clean, beautify, and restore public spaces. Because everyone cares, we want to ensure that everyone has the tools necessary to create lasting change.
81 events with recycling
11 tons of recycling collected
Activities on the Go
Kits covering thirteen topics are packaged with an easy-to-follow lesson plan, background information, and all the supplies needed to complete the activities. The kits made an appearance at school fairs, scout meetings, after school clubs, music festivals, plant sales, and service projects where they were used 145 times to guide 5,800 youth and adults in outdoor exploration and eco-friendly habits.
Tool Shack
We know we are on mission when we receive feedback like this from our partners, “We love the program and find it a wonderful support for our garden maintenance work.” - Kathy McWhorter, Festival Beach Gardener. Kathy’s testament serves as an inspiration for the 170 projects we loaned tools to this year. The collective projects engaged 5,600 volunteers in 16,600 hours of service.
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Austin’s natural beauty is one of our city’s greatest assets. The effects of completed beautification projects go well beyond the before and after photos we have all seen. This year, we launched Beautify Austin and built more partnerships to meet the demand of our city and volunteer base. Volunteers created wildlife habitats, improved water quality, offset carbon output, preserved our natural ecosystem, and gathered together in meaningful ways.
100 creek adopters
Beautify
BEAUTIFY
“We are building relationships, trust, and the capacity to accomplish bigger things.” - Lisa Hinley, North Lamar Contact Team
18,000 community service hours
Beautify Austin
Beautify Austin, a new initiative to…Beautify Austin, one community at a time ramped up at Quail Creek Park and Barbara Jordan Elementary School. Intensive projects take place for three months at each site with follow-up projects slated for two years! Large amounts of litter were removed, trees mulched, graffiti painted over, drought tolerant landscaping installed, and invasive species removed at Quail Creek Park. Barbara Jordan has an all-new maze of gardens for students to explore. By working in, with, and for communities, we hope to transform them from the outside in.
Adopt-a-Creek
As the year came to a close, we celebrated 100 adopters! Adopters are going well beyond cleanups. Robert E. Lee Tributary neighbor Gail Rothe leads a creek adoption area with cleanup help from Little Helping Hands (LHH), a local service organization. LHH focused on the trash cleanup while Gail and her group hosted six volunteer days to remove invasive plant species and plant natives. Inspired by the success and equipped with Keep Austin Beautiful resources, Gail adopted another section of the creek in Zilker Park.
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Keep Austin Beautiful leads hands-on presentations, service-learning projects, and awareness campaigns to nurture environmental consciousness. By presenting stewardship concepts in a fun, interactive way, we empower youth to identify problems, find solutions, and take action. Clean Creek Campus
128 schools
11,700 students educated
1,100 activities led
Kids love the outdoors and nowhere can you see that better than in Clean Creek Campus where fun is coupled with academic alignment. “This program helped us solidify our unit on communities because we learned how to make a difference in our world,” said Stefanie Nguyen, Matthews Elementary. This year, 2,400 students from 26 schools dedicated 4,200 hours of service to complete 35 service projects. Students could be found restoring creeks, distributing native seedballs, cleaning their campuses, and building gardens.
Generation Zero
Through a unique partnership with Austin Resource Recovery, we are at the forefront of zero waste education and helping Austin meet its 2040 “Zero Waste Goal” of reducing the amount of “trash” sent to landfills by 90%! In four years, the Generation Zero program has educated 24,350 youth about recycling, composting, and conservation. Gullett Elementary School teacher Margaret Kukendall captures why the program has an ongoing wait list, “Activities were fun and differentiated for different types of learners.”
Youth Education
EDUCATION
“Engaged learning that is applicable to the real world and making a positive impact on ones’ community.” - Thomas Wilder, Hill Elementary Teacher
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Outreach
Leadership & Outreach Keep Austin Beautiful knows that serving as leaders within our community helps us empower and engage Austin’s citizens to build more beautiful communities. Our staff is proud to be board members, chairs, and members of the following organizations and committees: • Greater Austin Parks Campaign • AISD Environmental Stewardship Advisory Committee • The Cities Connecting Children to Nature initiative with the City of Austin and the National League of Cities • The Michael & Susan Dell Community Collaborative for Child Health at the UT School of Public Health • The YMCA Camp Cypress steering committee with the YMCA and the National Park Service • Let’s Move! Outside steering committee • Austin Under 40 selection committee
560 one-on-one interactions
30+
outreach events
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features on AISD home page
organic media spots
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live segments on Fox7
25%
Media
Media & Marketing
increase in online audience growth. We reach an average audience of 665 people per day with our social media messaging.
Digital Engagement Highlights
Keep Austin Beautiful knows the first step in engaging Austinites is being available and connected. We have taken steps to make sure our social media not only shares fun moments and highlights, but is a tool for all community members to learn, share, and be heard. A few things we are excited to share this year are:
• 32,500 unique website visitors this year • 665 average post reach on Facebook • 1,100 impressions on Twitter per day • 15,500+ social media followers across platforms • launched a brand new Instagram account
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Our accomplishments wouldn’t be possible without our many funders that contribute dollars, products, and services and share our mission to keep Austin beautiful. 75% of all donations go directly to clean, beautify, and educate initiatives!
Operating Revenue*
75%
of every dollar donated to Keep Austin Beautiful is designated for programs.
Total Expenses*
FY 2016 Total Expenses
Financials
Financial Responsibility
Programs - $756,639 General & Administrative - $199,716 Fundraising - $57,218
FY 2016 Operating Revenue Corporate - $239,737 Government - $482,066 Individuals - $33,921 Charitable- $51,148 InKind - $215,160 *Pre-audited financials
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Diamond Sponsors
Dell | Edelman | Samsung | Texas Disposal Systems | Yelp Platinum Sponsors
Applied Materials Foundation | HEB | Organics “By Gosh” Texas Parks and Wildlife | Total Wine & More| Visa Gold Sponsors Capital Metro | Fox 7 | Garden-Ville| NXP |REI Republic Services | Tokyo Electron | Waste Management | Whole Earth Provision Co. Silver Sponsors
3M | Asakura Robinson Co. | Austin Community Foundation | Capital Cruises Coca-Cola | KIND Healthy Snacks | Lonestar Logos | PMB Helin Donovan | Shimshock Group The Great Outdoors | UPS | Wells Fargo
Bronze Sponsors
Austin American-Statesman | Balcones Resources | Congress Avenue Kayaks | DentaQuest | Dropbox Emerson | Field Guide Films | Goodpop | Longhorn IMG Sports Marketing | Randalls RetailMeNot | Rowing Dock ATX | The Expedition School | Whole Foods Market | Winstead PC
Affiliate Partners Keep America Beautiful | Keep Texas Beautiful
Donors
Donors
Government Partners Austin Parks & Recreation | Austin Resource Recovery Watershed Protection Department | Travis County
Business Members
Atlas Holistic Wellness Center | Austin Beautiful Trees | Austin Flower Co. | Austin SEO Geeks | Balcones Resources Bazaarvoice | Blue Tree Health | Budget Dumpster | BuildASign| Captain Hook Austin Dumpsters | Cloudera Complete Web Resources | Discount Fence USA | Done Right Foundation Repair| EcoProducts| Einstein Moving Company Ender Productions | Ernst and Young | Gaspedal | GO collaborative | Grande Communications Grande Cares Club Granite Recyclers Austin | Green Ally Salon | Ja-Mar Roofing and Sheet Metal | Lakeway Cosmetic Dentistry Lanier Parking | Louis Laves-Webb, LCSW, LPC-S Counseling | Lucille Patio Lounge | Move Austin Fitness | Oracle Razorfish | Shake Shack | SUP ATX | Tableau Software | Telephone Connection Texas Gas Service | Vaught Law Firm, P.C., | Whip In
Individual Members
Tripti Ajgaonkar | Kay Arnold | Celso Baez III | Tom & Janis Berry | Brad Bingham | Glenn Birnbaum | Jennifer Bloomingdale Eric Bonilla | Ann & Nathan Boren | Amanda Burton | KF Carbone | Pauline Claussen | Kaley Coffield | Dustin Cosper Carolyn Crumpton | John Cullen | Ashley de Jong | Paul Deaugereau | Julie Fisher | Wade Giles | Venna Gondhalekar Alex Granda | Holly Gunn | Pat Hochsterler | Kyle Hoskins | Toni Houghton | Ed Hubbard | Holland Jones | Lisa Kaindl Sarah Kaylor | Andy Kim | Matthew Kuntz | Linda McCoy | Jon Mendoza | Jana Motzkus | Michael Murphy | Matt Myers Rebecca Reid | Amy Reinarz | Lucas Richardson | Frankie Ruiz | Matias Segura II | M Shannon | Shay Smith Amanda & David Tennant | David Todd | Ryan Valenza | Brian Vattiat | Drew Watson | Stanford Young
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The Future
Looking to the Future In the next two years, Keep Austin Beautiful aims to increase its positive impact in the community by:
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raising awareness of who we are and what we do, securing the long-term financial stability of Keep Austin Beautiful with a focus on reducing risk, • fostering an organizational culture that values dedication and expertise, • establishing Keep Austin Beautiful as the leader of service-learning programs.
We look forward to continuing our work in the community! All images in this document are property of Keep Austin Beautiful. Some graphics and icons provided by www.freepik.com
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Keep Austin Beautiful 55 North I-35, Ste 215 Austin, TX 78702 P: 512.391.0617 F: 512.391.0624 (C) Keep Austin Beautiful 2016