Your donation supports rising leaders
Coco Alarcón (2016 National Olmsted Scholar Finalist) and Leann Andrews (2013 National Olmsted Scholar) have used their financial awards and interdisciplinary skills to lead landscape interventions that empower a community in Peru.
In Iquitos, 40,000 people live in floating informal ‘slums’ where residents face significant health challenges. Through participatory design, Coco, Leann, and their teammates are transforming underutilized areas into green spaces that clean water, produce food and medicine, increase biodiversity, and improve livelihoods.
Each year, LAF’s Olmsted Scholars Program recognizes and supports students with exceptional leadership potential, like Coco and Leann. When you donate to LAF, you are helping to inspire, strengthen, and embolden the discipline of landscape architecture to innovate and activate.
Your donation supports students
Sanaz Chamanara acquired both a degree and work experience in landscape architecture in her native country of Iran. However, she was dissatisfied with the scant attention given to the many environmental issues plaguing her homeland.
In 2015, Sanaz began a Master's of Landscape Architecture at the University of Michigan and in 2016 received the first $20,000 LAF Honor Scholarship in Memory of Joe Lalli, FASLA. At the time, she was struggling with the financial burden of her degree and was unsure if she would be able to continue her studies.
With the support of the scholarship, she was able to complete her MLA and is now in the final stages of a Doctorate program. Her work focuses on design, politics, and environmental justice. When you donate to LAF, you are helping to remove barriers to education and professional development in landscape architecture.
Your investment continues LAF's 50-year legacy of leadership
The core mission of the Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) is to support the protection, improvement and enhancement of the environment by supporting the landscape architecture community. For over 50 years, LAF has worked to provide knowledge and resources to enable landscape architects to use their unique skills to change the world: socially, economically and environmentally.
Now more than ever, designers must come together to do our part to help solve the defining issues of our time.
In the face of a changing climate, accelerating resource consumption, rapid urbanization, and inequity, our lands—both private and public—continue to be designed without regard for natural systems or people.
Our patterns of development need to change in a way that reimagines how we relate to our environment, our resources, and each other. Landscape solutions—how we arrange and design our cities, communities, and their outdoor spaces—are fundamental to creating this alternate future, and landscape architecture has an essential role to play.
Uniquely trained to design for natural resources, natural processes, and people, landscape architects play a fundamental role in solving the complex, interrelated environmental, social, and economic problems we face today. For over 50 years, LAF has provided leadership and resources to empower landscape architects to use their unique skills to change the world.
Your gift of any amount provides critical financial support for LAF’s research, scholarships, and leadership initiatives -- innovative programs that increase our collective impact toward a more sustainable, just, and resilient future.
The impact of your investment in LAF is far-reaching. With your support, LAF:
- Provides $160,000 in annual support to students to diversify the pool of talent and increase academic opportunity
- Funds research to bolster non-profit organizations, community leaders, and advocates as they make a case for more environmentally friendly practices and policies
- Fosters leadership and entrepreneurship through programs like the $25,000 LAF Fellowship for Innovation and Leadership
- Spurs the profession forward with initiatives like the Summit on Landscape Architecture and the Future and the resulting New Landscape Declaration call to action
We are grateful for your financial support at this critical time when the many services and talents of landscape architects are so vitally needed!
We decided to give to LAF and invest in the future of the profession through the Olmsted Scholars Program, which recognizes and awards over $60,000 annually to exceptional student leaders. These young and talented designers inspire us with their accomplishments and unlimited potential.
Thomas & Gerry Donnelly
LAF is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization founded in 1966 to support the protection, improvement, and enhancement of the environment, LAF invests in research, scholarships, and leadership initiatives to increase our collective capacity to achieve sustainability and cultivate the next generation of design leaders.
