CNIT Reciprocity Initiative

Returning Care to the Places That Hold Our Work

At the Center for Nature Informed Therapy, we believe nature is not just a backdrop for healing. The natural world is an active participant in our learning, reflection, regulation, grief work, resilience, and repair.

When CNIT holds an in-person training, retreat, or community program in a specific landscape, that place gives something real: shelter, beauty, challenge, grounding, perspective, and relationship.

Our Reciprocity Initiative is one way we practice returning care.

Through this initiative, CNIT gives back to the places that hold our work through two primary forms of reciprocity:

Financial Reciprocity: donating a portion of eligible in-person program proceeds to local conservation organizations.

Stewardship Reciprocity: caring directly for public green spaces through cleanups, volunteer service, and simple practices participants can carry into their own lives.

This is not an add-on to our mission. It is part of the mission.

Why Reciprocity Matters

Nature-informed work asks us to move beyond using nature as a tool. It asks us to enter into relationship.

That means noticing what we receive from the land and asking what we can return. It means recognizing that therapeutic and educational experiences outdoors depend on healthy forests, clean water, protected trails, intact habitats, public parks, and the often-unseen work of people who steward these places.

Reciprocity helps us align our programs with our values:

We receive from the land, so we return support to the land.
We teach relational healing, so we practice relational responsibility.
We gather in local ecosystems, so we support local conservation and stewardship.
We benefit from protected and public places, so we contribute to their care.
We invite healing outdoors, so we practice care for the outdoor places that make healing possible.

Two Forms of Reciprocity

Financial Reciprocity

For eligible CNIT in-person trainings and programs, we donate 10% of net program proceeds to a local conservation organization connected to the place where the program occurs.

Whenever possible, we support organizations caring for the local land, watershed, trails, forests, parks, or ecosystems that help make the experience possible.

*Net program proceeds are calculated after direct program expenses.

Stewardship Reciprocity

Reciprocity is not only financial. CNIT also gives back through hands-on care for public green spaces, trails, roadsides, parks, and shared outdoor places.

This includes practices such as cleanup days, volunteer stewardship, local conservation partnerships, and our Take 3 Practice: inviting participants to safely pick up three pieces of trash before leaving an outdoor space.

These small acts of care help us live the same values we teach: attention, humility, relationship, and responsibility.

CNIT’s Take 3 Practice

Inspired by the Take 3 for the Sea movement, CNIT invites participants on outdoor outings to practice one simple act of stewardship before leaving the trail, park, retreat site, or green space:

Take three pieces of trash with you when you leave.

Three pieces is small enough to feel doable and large enough to matter when practiced consistently. We keep the practice simple because reciprocity should not feel overwhelming. It should feel possible.

For CNIT, Take 3 is more than litter removal. It is a moment of attention. It asks us to pause before leaving a place and ask:

How can I leave this place a little better than I found it?

Safety First

Participants are never asked to pick up anything unsafe, including sharp objects, medical waste, hazardous materials, heavy items, or anything that creates risk. When cleanup supplies are available, we use gloves, bags, and appropriate disposal practices.

The spirit of the practice is simple: small, safe, repeatable acts of care.

How the Financial Reciprocity Process Works

1. CNIT identifies the place

For each eligible in-person training or program, we name the land, watershed, region, park, preserve, retreat center, or wilderness area that is helping hold the experience.

2. CNIT selects a local conservation organization

We identify a conservation organization connected to that place. When possible, we prioritize organizations doing direct stewardship, restoration, education, trail maintenance, watershed protection, or land advocacy in that region.

3. CNIT calculates the donation

After the program concludes and direct expenses are reconciled, CNIT calculates 10% of net program proceeds.

4. CNIT makes the donation

The donation is sent to the selected conservation organization, ideally within 60 days of the program’s completion.

5. CNIT shares the impact

We list participating programs and recipient organizations so our community can see where the money is going and learn more about local conservation work.

How Stewardship Reciprocity Works

CNIT also organizes and supports hands-on stewardship opportunities throughout the year.

These efforts may be connected to a specific CNIT program, a local community need, or an ongoing relationship with a public park, green space, trail, watershed, or conservation partner.

Staff, volunteers, graduates, participants, and community members may be invited to join these efforts when appropriate.

Examples include: