Empathy in Nature Project Inc

“An electronic copy is provided to the executive director, the board president and the board treasurer for review and approval. After providing written approval to the cpa/tax preparer, the forms are electronically filed. Paper copies as well as the final electronic copy are provided for archives.”

“Board reviews conflict of interest annually; all officers sign.”

“Compensation reviewed by the board in july of 2021 using linkdin”

“Depending on the employee's position and classification, the empathy in nature project endeavors to review performance annually. However, a positive performance evaluation does not guarantee an increase in salary, a promotion or continued employment. Compensation increases and the terms and conditions of employment, including job assignments, transfers, promotions, and demotions, are determined by and at the discretion of management.”

“Governing documents are made available to the public upon requests”

“Empathy in nature project, inc. Was established (i) to educate pre-school age children for the purpose of improving and developing their capabilities using inclusive and accessible methods involving social-emotional and outdoor-based education; (ii) to develop new models of pre-school education involving social-emotional and outdoor-based education; (iii) to operate a pre-school with a regular faculty and curriculum with regularly enrolled students open to all members of the general public.”

“In 2022 empathy in nature created the grow outside program, which works with local under-resourced schools to transform their learning environment into a natural playground. Children go from playing on hot asphalt lots with no shade, to living breathing learning spaces, ideal for social and emotional growth, steam learning opportunities, and developmentally appropriate activities to improve physical and mental health. This program includes a process that starts with inclusive community planning, bringing together stakeholders in the school and surrounding area to envision the space, to share their challenges, experiences, and visions of what would serve the children, teachers, and families best. Following this process, empathy in nature holds different events including a community volunteer day, a children's art day, and a first day of play event to ensure that it is community-embedded throughout. Ein has developed a curriculum that includes a 6-part storybook series, accompanying field guides, and individualized field guides that support nature-based, social and emotional learning. Teacher workshops are an integral part of the grow outside process, and are held in a very different way than most teacher training programs. Workshops are interactive, engaging, and involve moving away from the traditional, conference or classroom setting, with creative and welcoming invitations to play (provocations) that provide hands on inspiration for educators, instigating a paradigm shift towards a more child-centered, play-based approach to learning, where the environment serves as a teacher and teachers serve as guides. Over the past year we have developed a relationship with a major university who is helping to fund transformations of head start programs in san diego. We have transformed 3 schools into nature play learning centers, trained over 200 educators within the head start program on nature-play and social and emotional teaching practices, affecting hundreds of children today and thousands over the next 10 years who will come through these schools. Through the university partnership, we are collecting and studying the data on these schools to add to the body of research and knowledge pertaining to nature play and social and emotional best practices for young children. In addition, we have transformed an outdoor space for an elementary school, increasing their outside, social and emotional learning time by 90%. The school is reporting more creativity, art, free play, and positive behavior since the outdoor learning environment went in.”

“Empathetic educators always an integral part of the empathy in nature mission, empathetic educators has developed into a program that brings together leading-edge educators and researchers in service of the under-resourced communities who have traditionally been underrepresented in these spaces. The barriers to this level of teacher training are high, between costs, schedules, and locations. Empathy in nature is bridging that gap and providing access to educators and caregivers by providing low or no-cost workshops and courses, providing transportation and/or bringing the workshops to areas that represent these communities, and making workshops and courses available at times that work for them. In 2023 empathy in nature partnered with uc san diego extension to run an a synchronous course that was free for partners of ein and provided university credit for their nature play course. In 2024 ein embarked on an innovative program with a local non-profit to bring nature-play and social and emotional training to childcare providers throughout the county. Traditionally, child care providers, especially family-run businesses, do not have access to the same kinds of quality training and resources that other chidcare organizations are. As individually run businesses, they lack community and peer-driven support. Ein created a program that included a 4-workshop in-person series, customized field guides, and quarterly office hours, all provided for free to the local childcare community. The program was extraordinarily popular and successful. To expand reach, the program has been translated into an online platform, giving free access to thousands of providers. The program will continue to run, expanding into topics that providers have expressed the most interest in, while repeating the original workshops to ensure that more providers are given the chance to attend.”

“Bank charges & fees 0 18 0 contractors - grow outside 244,684 0 0 contractors - teacher trainin 70,292 0 0 job supplies 2,020 0 0 publishing 10,248 0 0 shipping 0 452 0 taxes & licenses 0 200 0 payroll benefits fees 0 1,824 0 total 327,244 2,494 0”