PARTNER YARD CERTIFICATIONS
The Foundation partners with many local groups to help nature lovers get their yards certified.
The Conservation Foundation
The Conservation Foundation’s Conservation@Home program empowers individuals to create more sustainable yards and green spaces that support pollinators, manage stormwater, and enhance the local ecosystem. For those new to native plant gardening, we offer free yard consultations with personalized recommendations. Homeowners who meet our criteria for environmentally friendly landscapes can earn certification and proudly display a Conservation@Home sign. We also offer Conservation@Work for businesses and Conservation@School for educators seeking guidance and recognition for planting pollinator-friendly gardens on their grounds.
Wild Birds Unlimited
Wild Birds Unlimited is proud to serve as a Champion Sponsor of the National Wildlife Federation’s Certified Wildlife Habitat® program, which encourages people to turn yards, balconies, containers or work landscapes into thriving wildlife havens. The certification recognizes spaces that provide food (native plants and/or feeders), water, cover, places to raise young, and use sustainable practices like avoiding pesticides and planting natives. Creating a certified habitat is fun and easy, and even small spaces support twice as much wildlife as traditional lawns.
As your local Certified Bird Feeding Specialists, Wild Birds Unlimited is ready to help you get started by sharing resources, checklists and expert advice. Participants receive a certificate and may purchase a sign or plaque to display their commitment.
Wild Ones
You can turn your yard into a certified native habitat to celebrate your commitment to biodiversity, spark meaningful conservations with your community and help fund Wild Ones’ mission to promote native landscapes through education, advocacy, and collaborative action. You must be a Wild Ones member and have 75% minimum native species or, because we recognize that you may just be starting your journey, be actively working toward that goal. This checklist can help you prepare for the application process: Download our Self-Assessment Checklist. If your application is approved, a $50 fee will get you a yard sign to proudly display and start conversations. Click the learn more button to get more information about the program.
Monarch Waystation Certification
To offset the loss of milkweeds and nectar sources that are essential for Monarchs, you can help create, conserve, and protect monarch butterfly habitats by creating "Monarch Waystations" (monarch habitats) in home gardens, at schools, businesses, parks, zoos, nature centers, along roadsides, and on other unused plots of land. Creating a Monarch Waystation can be as simple as adding milkweeds and nectar sources to existing gardens or maintaining natural habitats with milkweeds. No effort is too small to have a positive impact. Be sure to register your habitat(s) and encourage others to follow in your footsteps!
Sag Moraine Native Plant Community
Sag Moraine Native Plant Community is committed to bringing native plants back to our community and restoring our local ecosystems. If communities across the US do the same, we can collectively begin to reverse the damage that has been done. We really can make a difference!
That’s why we help promote HOMEGROWN NATIONAL PARK™ - a grassroots CALL TO ACTION spearheaded by Douglas Tallamy and Michelle Alfandari. Mr. Tallamy is a professor in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware and a bestselling author. Through his books he is changing the way people everywhere view the role of their private landscapes.
Need help getting started? Sag Moraine can help!
Illinois Audubon Society
Bird & Butterfly Sanctuary Program
Do you love beautiful gardens that bloom with native flowers from early spring throughout the summer and late into autumn? If you enjoy attracting wildlife to your home, do you provide Food, Water, Shelter and Sufficient Space? If you do, consider certifying your garden as a Bird and Butterfly Sanctuary. Your sanctuary can be as small as a few native flowers arranged in a few pots on your patio or as large as a few hundred acres. You can also certify a portion of a local school yard, neighborhood park, library gardens, church yard, a farm field or grass strip, or an entire corporate campus.
Xerces Society
The Xerces Society's Bring Back the Pollinators campaign provides a simple framework for creating the right conditions for butterflies, bees, and other wildlife: grow flowers to feed them, provide nesting or egg-laying locations to support the next generation, and avoid pesticides to give them a safe space. These principles can be easily adapted to any location, from an apartment deck or urban front yard to rural acres. Tap into information and inspiration and sign the Pollinator Protection Pledge.