Friends & Allies Summits

Twice yearly, the Portland Parks Foundation (PPF) convenes representatives of the 200+ friends and ally groups of Portland’s parks, community gardens, natural areas and recreational spaces. Our goal across these Friends & Allies events is to honor and enhance volunteerism, advocacy and programming of these important community groups dedicated to making Portland’s parks healthier, safer, and more accessible and inclusive.

Spring Summit

Spring is for celebration!

Every Spring we gather folks who are devoted to our shared parks, green spaces, natural habitats and celebrate the nominees and recipients of two PPF Awards: the Parks Champions Award, and the Joey Pope Award for Parks Leadership. Our Parks Champion nominees and awardees are celebrated as volunteers who have had a major impact on our parks, making them more beautiful, accessible and healthy for all Portlanders. The Joey Pope Award honors an individual, organization, or initiative which is emerging in Portland as a leader in equity and innovative approaches to programing, parks and green space access, and sustainable use and care of our shared habitat.

The Spring Summit is a brief, convivial evening program of storytelling, recognition, and networking. Past summits have involved inviting local leaders and past awardees to speak, share from their experiences, and celebrate nominees together over local food and drink.

Fall Summit

Fall is for learning.

Each Fall we gather as advocates, allies, administrators and more to converge on the pressing conversations in the field and to continue to learn from each other and build connections. We host conversations and workshops around parks, small nonprofit management and community engagement in a bigger effort to make our collective work more responsive to community needs and desires. These focused times together help us to grow as friends and allies of parks, and grow as devoted Portlanders.

Friends & Allies Summit Steering Committee

Our Friends & Allies Summit efforts are driven by brainstorming and networking from a Steering Committee of representatives from the City of Portland and community-based organizations here in Portland, and PPF board and staff.

Interested in joining the Steering Committee?
Reach out to Jason Brown, Programs Manager, at jason.brown@portlandpf.org.

Broader Friends & Allies Involvement

Our friends and allies’ work can be seen across PPF’s initiatives. Check them out below.

Past Summits

In 2020, PPF and a steering committee of community members developed a virtual summit addressing how individual and societal trauma can help deconstruct racism and racist structures including racism related to our parks systems.

In 2021, we built on these discussions through conversations about building empathy towards those experiencing houselessness while also providing a place of connection for individuals and community groups to learn from each other through workshops on volunteerism, insurance and fiscal sponsorships.

In 2022, the steering committee designed an in-person Summit in October that focused on weaving indigenous relationship worldview into our own organizations as well deep-dive workshops on trauma-informed practices, demystifying grant writing, making your org and program more accessible and again, weaving empathy and understanding into your work.

In 2023, the steering committee crafted its second in-person summit, focusing on collective care in the workplace, resisting burnout, increasing accessibility and LGBTQ+ safe spaces in parks, and increasing financial resilience for non-profits.