Daily Acts Organization

Daily Acts exemplifies boots on the ground…and in the dirt-and they teach people how each of us can make a positive difference in the environment by changing daily habits and making small changes with strong impacts. The staff is inspirational. The team listens and creatively collaborates with people and organizations to help our communities be more resilient.
I spent a year with Daily Acts in a leadership program-the Leadership Institute for Just and Resilient Communities- and I learned not only things I can do to care for the land around me, but things that can help me with personal resilience and health. I truly wish this program could get robust funding to continue and train more people to be leaders in this way.

It’s not easy to encapsulate the past 20 years of being involved with Daily Acts. So many things I’ve learned about community efforts to install gardens and food forests, Greywater systems and rainwater catchment systems, creating habitat and building soil, all so that the earth could begin to heal one small patch of of someone’s yard at a time. When the problems of the world are so vast we tend to do nothing in our overwhelm and withdraw in defeat. What Daily Acts has shown me is that working together with others inspires, and what was once too painful to face alone becomes a joy in action every day.

So often in the environmental world we spend our time focusing on what is wrong with the world and how to stop it. What initially drew me to Daily Acts was their focus on what was right and how to promote it. By finding joy in the work that makes life healthier, more abundant, and more regenerative, Daily Acts makes me want to do better, every day. They were my entry into a whole new world of local environmental action. I started as a workday volunteer, then became a Ripple the World table leader, then joined forces with Trathen Heckman and several other local climate activists to create Climate Action Petaluma, then finally joined the Daily Acts board. Currently, I'm working with Daily Acts staff, through my day job with Cool Petaluma, to find creative ways to bring sheet mulching, rain gardens, rainwater catchment, and grey water systems to as many homes as possible across the city.

Sharon Keating
Donor and volunteer

I’ve been a donor since 2016 after being introduced to Daily Act's at their Ripple the World event. Now, 6 years later, I know Trathen and his team definitely ripple the world through acts both great and small. Over the years I have seen their dedication and hard work as they build gardens, educate community members and create coalitions. Petaluma has greatly benefited from their work, as has Sonoma County and the entire state of California. I believe that their innovative model needs to be in even more communities. As a donor and volunteer I know that my time and resources are making a real and lasting impact.

In a world of uncertainty it can be difficult to find our voice. I love that Daily Acts is out there saying “Take heart, take part, take action!”

I was first introduced to Daily Acts more than a decade ago, when I was new to California and Sonoma County, by a respected mentor and friend who was deeply involved with the organization. I was looking for ways that I could personally take steps that would help the planet and help me feel greater agency amidst the existential crisis of climate change. In Daily Acts I found an organization that does that … and also so much more. I love that Daily Acts works concurrently at the levels of self, community, and larger systems, as we need all of those working together to truly move the needle. Whether you want to find ways to make your daily life more sustainable with gardens or greywater, build your community of support while supporting the community, or get more involved in our local government and policy, Daily Acts has a way you can plug in and take part.

In the past decade-plus, I have been impressed by Daily Acts’ ability to stay true to its core mission while also evolving its vision, approach, and offerings to meet the changing needs of our times, from responding to wildfires, to building robust virtual programs during the pandemic, to deepening into learning more about equity within the organization and centering the voices of those most impacted by climate change in efforts like the Petaluma Equitable Climate Action Coalition (PECAC), which provided direct input into the City’s Active Transportation Plan.

In the past year and a half, I have been humbled and grateful to become more deeply involved with Daily Acts as a member of the board of directors. While I had always experienced the staff as passionate and purposeful, this experience has given me a behind-the-scenes look at how truly committed these people are to their work and how thoughtful they are about utilizing resources. I feel the highest confidence investing my time and financial resources with this fantastic organization!

It has been amazing and inspirational to watch Daily Acts grow. When I first learned of Daily Acts it was a vision and dream of one person. The tenacity of it's founder has evolved Daily Acts into an organization bringing people and community together making a positive impact on our earth. The employees of this nonprofit demonstrate a passion for their purpose and share their passion and enthusiasm, encouraging and supporting others in making positive changes.

I have supported this nonprofit as a donor and been informed and encouraged by attending some of their workshops.

~Sharon Bonagura

In late 2021, I first came up on the Daily Acts (DA) organization as a customer of their graywater system webinars, having recently moved to Sonoma County, California and trying to make sense of drought and fire. Upon further exploration of the multiple programs and services DA provides the local community, I became increasingly impressed with the impact they are striving for to combat the climate crisis.

The DA’s Leadership Institute programs’ equity-centered focus particularly caught my attention because I currently work full-time in the fields of leadership development and diversity, inclusion and equity. Tackling the intersection of systems of oppression (like racism and colonialism) with the environmental root causes of the climate crisis is not for the faint of heart. It requires systems thinking and community-minded intention at complex levels, and I believe that the Daily Acts Leadership Institute effectively trains and supports emerging leaders to develop this capability and be more resilient in advancing effective and equitable environmental solutions.

Since my first introduction, I’ve now had the privilege to both volunteer my time with the senior staff around organization and team development initiatives, and most recently, I’ve joined the Daily Acts advisory board as a way to stay involved and give back to my local community. With each person I meet who is connected to the organization, I’m impressed with the strength of their convictions as well as their relentless pursuit to keep learning and remain humble as they collaborate with community change agents to dismantle the barriers for non-majority communities who are hit the hardest by climate crisis.

This essential work requires ALL of us to dig in, keep learning and practice non-fragility. The Daily Acts staff, leaders and boards are modeling this for the community, and I’m honored to be a part of it.

Daily Acts is one of the most inspiring organizations I have ever known. As someone who has served on numerous local and state-wide non-profit boards as well as many years in elected office, I know how challenging it can be to grow from grass roots to mature forest - to nurture the seeds that you have planted even as you plant new ones. Daily Acts continues to do this successfully. Even as the organization has grown and their tangible impact increased, they have never lost sight of their vision of restoring the wholeness of the world one act at a time. It is this vision that can offer hope in a troubled and perilous time.

Every action truly does cause a ripple with Daily Acts. My first action was to participate in a Daily Acts garden tour where I learned about laundry to landscaping, mulching and drought tolerant garden designs. From there I took a Daily Acts garden design class, mulched our front yard and then we applied to have our home be a workshop site for their laundry to landscape program. We had 12 volunteers come to our house to learn the benefits of greywater and then we all learned how to install a real system (ours!)! It was so satisfying to run that first load (and every load since)! We love our laundry to landscape greywater system! I tell everyone about our system so much that our home was highlighted in the local paper for all the water conservation we have. I thank Daily Acts for the inspiration - - from education to action to now educating others!

I met Daily Acts founder Trathen Heckman almost 10 years ago, and have been truly blown away by the work of Daily Acts ever since. As a fellow community resilience practitioner, I have collaborated on multiple projects with the organization, from workshops to large-scale campaigns. The staff is professional, heart-centered and most of all EFFECTIVE. They truly understand people-powered, nature-inspired community-centered solutions. They are leaders, they are change makers. They also truly understand the critical need to support - and step aside as needed for - BIPOC leaders. Sonoma County, the region and this planet are much better off because of their work. I will continue to actively support them, and urge others to do so as well.

When I moved to Sonoma County nearly 10 years ago, one of my first priorities was finding a place to volunteer. I was thrilled to find Daily Acts – an organization that was way ahead of the curve in helping people to live more sustainably and adapt to climate change. Daily Acts has been particularly effective at educating and supporting residents, organizations, businesses, and governmental agencies throughout Sonoma County with water conservation, something that’s certainly top of mind for most of us amidst a historic drought. In fact, Daily Acts recently won a multi-million dollar grant to expand these efforts in Petaluma. We are so lucky to have the passion and expertise of this organization right in our literal backyards – lucky not only for what it accomplishes but how it does this work: Building resiliency by building bridges within communities.

I have learned how to farm, repurpose, save water, and created community when my husband and I moved to Sonoma County some years ago. There are 700+ volunteers who have become friends, shared environmentally sustaining ideas, and inspired us to take heart and move into a new way of thinking and using what we have to prosper, and love doing so.

What a difference Trathen Heckman and his organization have made in our lives personally, and those old friends all over the US who we have suggested to tune into the Daily Acts website and classes. The organization has had a huge positive impact in our daily lives for over 10 years.

Daily Acts is the salve for cynicism, a beacon of positive energy that brings people together to affect change via education, collaboration, and advocation. Everyone is invited to participate with small actions that have a profound impact on our own lives and our community. I have had so many great experiences with Daily Acts from service days updating gardens designed for City Hall, the Cavanagh Community Center, my own backyard, converting lawns to mulch, outdoor pizza parties, installing grey water systems, to being inspired to be active in local politics. Desmond Tutu said "do a little bit of good where you are; it's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world." Daily Acts is the conduit that brings the little bit of good all of us can do and turns those actions into a ripple that will enable us to change our world, one community at a time.

Witnessing the many ways this organization has grown from white male privilege, I sadly found it to be disingenuous, exclusive, and desensitized around genuine community and care. In my experience, it has often seemed more interested in justifying its position and victim-blaming and misappropriating generous open-hearts for its self-serving hungers rather than truly being compassionately and cooperatively present and humbly in service to the real people of our North Bay community with its commitment, heart, and vision around healing our communities and the ecosystems we are very much a part of and dependent upon. Others may have had much more fruitful experiences, but being in a hidden, under-valued marginalized group in our culture, my experience was painfully different and deeply fractured my trust in non-profits and community.