Community Partnerships
Sonoma Valley's greatest challenges cannot be solved by any one organization alone. Sonoma Ecology Center works in partnership with other nonprofits and agencies towards ambitious goals that span housing affordability, climate resilience, watershed health, education, and public parks.
About Sonoma Valley Collaborative
“After 25 years of working with our community to take care of this remarkable place, we realized that we cannot accomplish our mission of ecological health in Sonoma Valley without systemic change that’s supported by the whole community.”
— RICHARD DALE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Sonoma Valley Collaborative is a forum of community leaders from a wide range of sectors across Sonoma Valley, finding solutions and taking action to address our community’s biggest challenges.
Core Functions
Build Alignment. SVC helps facilitate diplomacy across key sectors within the community, linking together organizations and leaders to solve complex community problems.
Inform. SVC develops tools that inform member decisions on new projects, policies, and proposed actions.
Advocate. SVC works to build a shared understanding of complex community problems and shift public opinion toward agreed-upon solutions.
Solve Problems. SVC identifies and tackle complex community problems with an explicit value of sustainability, finding solutions that have the greatest buy-in and also promote balance among: environment, economy and equity.
Spur Investment. SVC identifies and link potential investment opportunities with new projects or programs that align with our explicit values and identified solutions.
History of Sonoma Valley Collaborative
Sonoma Valley Collaborative (formerly Sustainable Sonoma) was conceived by Sonoma Ecology Center in 2016 to achieve a common agenda for Sonoma Valley that most of the community can support. In the early stages, Sonoma Ecology Center led in building the Sonoma Valley Collaborative partnerships, primarily with the Chamber of Commerce and La Luz. Over time, the founding partners have become just a few of the many interests at the table.
Housing Affordability
Sonoma Valley suffers from a severe housing affordability crisis that affects every aspect of our community. The future of our community is at stake.
Sonoma Valley Collaborative members have pledged to work together, across boundaries, to increase, improve and preserve housing that is affordable, for people who live or work in the Valley, within already developed areas, to create diverse, safe, complete neighborhoods.
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Since making this commitment in 2018, our staff have lead Sonoma Valley Collaborative in two years of intensive advocacy that resulted in pro-housing and pro-tenant policies in the 2023 County and City of Sonoma Housing Elements, which determine how below-market homes are preserved and built for the next eight years.
Sonoma Valley Collaborative’s Council, staff, and partners did extensive research to create a housing platform supported by our broad coalition. We did housing advocacy workshops with people most impacted by the affordability crisis, including youth and Latina parents, resulting in powerful testimonies that moved decision-makers.
Our advocacy with the united voice of the Sonoma Valley Collaborative Council and community members was effective and inspiring. The Housing Element adopted by Sonoma’s City Council in January 2023 is by far the most pro-housing plan ever in the City of Sonoma!.
Sonoma Valley Collaborative advocated for 23 housing affordability policies, in many cases writing proposed language that the City adopted word-for-word.
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2025
The Sonoma Valley Housing Affordability Roadmap
This deeply researched study by Sonoma Valley Collaborative describes 8 strategies that together reimagine housing affordability in Sonoma Valley. The Roadmap names the organizations best positioned to lead each strategy, estimates costs for each strategy, and identifies cost-saving synergies among the strategies.
The goal of this study is to provide clarity and actionable direction on this complex topic. The Roadmap details the strategies that, if we act on them together over the next three years, are the most effective at improving housing affordability in Sonoma Valley.
2020
Homes for a Sustainable Sonoma Valley: Strategic Recommendations for our Community
Sonoma Valley Collaborative published a 50-page report, Homes for A Sustainable Sonoma: Strategic Recommendations for Our Community, that has served as a blueprint for answering our Sonoma Valley Housing Declaration call to action. The report was the result of Sonoma Valley Collaborative’s community-wide listening process in 2018, a cross-sector exploration of housing issues in 2019, detailed input on recommended actions from several housing experts in late 2019, and Sonoma Valley Collaborative’s crisis response activities in 2020.
The strategic recommendations in the Homes were report are tailored to Sonoma Valley—its challenges, assets, and particular makeup. Every recommendation in the report meets Sonoma Valley Collaborative’s demanding criteria that it advance all of the following: 1) economic security, 2) equitable well-being for all, and 3) environmental and climate sustainability.
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Our Sonoma Valley Collaborative staff carried testimony from traditionally under-represented groups—local teens served by Teen Services and Latinx people served by La Luz Center—into the halls of power to influence the future of Sonoma Developmental Center and the City and County General Plan updates.
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Sonoma Valley Commons was founded in 2026 by Sonoma Valley Collaborative, a forum of community leaders who have pledged to work together, across boundaries, to increase, improve and preserve housing that is affordable, for people who live or work in the Valley, within already developed areas, to create diverse, safe, complete neighborhoods.
In 2025, Sonoma Valley Collaborative published the Sonoma Valley Housing Affordability Roadmap, an action plan to address our community’s housing affordability crisis, funded by Sonoma Valley Catalyst Fund. The Roadmap called for the creation of a mission-driven Community Development Organization capable of serving as a long-term steward and catalyst for housing solutions across Sonoma Valley.
With funding from Community Foundation Sonoma County and Sonoma Valley Catalyst Fund, Sonoma Valley Collaborative formed Sonoma Valley Commons through extensive community engagement, regional case studies, and conversations with housing practitioners, public agencies, financial institutions, and nonprofit partners throughout California. More than thirty interviews and a multidisciplinary steering committee helped identify the kinds of models most needed in Sonoma Valley. The process affirmed that locally embedded organizations are uniquely positioned to navigate the complexity of housing development while building stronger community buy-in and accountability. The Future Collective is a founding strategic partner, supporting the storytelling, community engagement, and visibility in its early stages.
Sonoma Valley Commons will focus on practical, achievable strategies that can create early momentum while laying the foundation for larger systemic change. Rather than pursuing speculative or purely market-driven development, the organization is designed to preserve existing affordability, expand housing opportunities for the local workforce, and support models of shared community benefit.
Sonoma Environmental Education Collaborative (SEEC)
Sonoma Ecology Center helped found SEEC in 2010, with the goals of bringing environmental educators together to share ideas and resources, and assuring that all children in Sonoma County have the chance to learn about where they live and to be outdoors. The SEEC is a regional consortium of environmental education professionals from organizations, agencies, networks, and school districts with a vision for an environmentally literate Sonoma County.
Resilient Landscapes Coalition
We are proud to be a part of the Resilient Landscapes Coalition, a partnership among Sonoma Ecology Center, Habitat Corridor Project, the UC Master Gardener Program of Sonoma County, and FireSafe Sonoma. The goal of the Resilient Landscapes Coalition is to simultaneously encourage fire-wise landscape design and management in the defensible space zone, enhance biodiversity and wildlife habitat, and conserve resources.
North Bay Climate Adaptation Initiative (NBCAI)
In 2009, a group of scientists and experts working in resource management and public policy came together to discuss how our region could better prepare for a changing climate. This group, NBCAI, has since conducted research on what is likely to happen here and is helping Sonoma County and its neighbors create strategies that will minimize the challenges ahead. Sonoma Ecology Center is a founding member of NBCAI and continues to support this nationally recognized work.
Team Sugarloaf
When the State closed Sugarloaf Ridge State Park in late 2011, Team Sugarloaf was founded in 2012 as a partnership of five non-profit organizations, led by Sonoma Ecology Center, dedicated to the natural resources of Sonoma Valley and to providing access to the natural haven of 3,900 acres provided by Sugarloaf Ridge State Park.
Today, Sugarloaf Ridge State Park is operated solely by Sonoma Ecology Center. While Sugarloaf is a California State Park, we do not receive operating support from the State. It is our supporters, visitors, and members who keep Sugarloaf Ridge State Park open to the public.
Sonoma Overlook Trail Stewards
Together with the City of Sonoma, we partner with Sonoma Overlook Trail Stewards, an all-volunteer group, to manage Montini Open Space Preserve. Sonoma Overlook Trail Stewards maintain the trails, provide information focusing on the trail’s flora, fauna, and history, and raise money to maintain the trail and support services.
UC Master Gardeners of Sonoma County
The UC Master Gardeners of Sonoma County developed and maintain the Water-wise Demonstration garden at Sonoma Garden Park. These Water-wise features show how plants with low water needs could be planted within a garden setting, thus giving the garden visitors a chance to see how they might have a planted garden space without the need to water often.
The UC Master Gardeners of Sonoma County and their young gardening visitors also created the Children’s Garden, a special place where families can come to play, taste, and learn about gardens.
Sonoma Valley Volunteers
At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Sonoma Valley’s organizations—governments, businesses, and nonprofits—came together to recruit younger volunteers and meet our community’s needs.
Led by the Sonoma Ecology Center and Sonoma Valley Collaborative, in partnership with the City of Sonoma and the Sonoma Valley Food Security Task Force, Sonoma Valley Volunteers was launched in March 2020 to help match community organizations with volunteers to respond to the COVID-19 crisis. Throughout the pandemic, Sonoma Valley Volunteers has been successfully utilized to recruit volunteers for crisis response efforts, including food banks, COVID-19 testing and vaccination clinics, senior home deliveries, and evacuation centers.
In 2022, Sonoma Valley Volunteers joined forces with CVNL, the City of Sonoma, The HALTER Project, Sonoma Community Center, and Sonoma County Community Organizations Active in Disaster (COAD) to recruit and train on-call volunteers for future active disasters, as well as provide ongoing support for people in crisis.