Join Austin Parks and Recreation Director Jesús Aguirre for a tour showcasing the diverse projects that highlight the importance of partnerships for community benefit within a park system.
Austin has a long history of community organizations supporting the city’s parks. Over the decades, the City increasingly recognized the impact of these partners — and the need for a formal partnership framework. In the late 2010s, the Austin Parks and Recreation Department (APR) began developing the Partnership Policy and Framework to ensure transparency, equity, and collaboration across all community-led efforts.
Today, APR is fortunate to collaborate with PARKners leading vital work across hundreds of diverse parks. While no two partnerships are exactly alike, each falls within one of four partnership configurations that provide a clear path to collaboration. These configurations establish consistent standards and processes that allow APR to work fairly, efficiently, and equitably with all park advocates — reflecting Austin’s culture of ensuring that public land embodies the community’s shared values of inclusivity, sustainability, and creativity.
The tour will feature sites that illustrate the full spectrum of this framework in action — from all-volunteer, community-led initiatives, to grassroots efforts advocating for the transformation of a former power plant into parkland, to a thriving food forest in the heart of the city, and major projects constructed and maintained by two of APR’s largest nonprofit PARKners. It will also highlight partnerships with the local school district that expand access to greenspace after school hours, ensuring shared and equitable use of community assets.
Along the way, hear how Austin has worked to listen to the public, adapt its approaches, and ensure that partnerships are monitored, accountable, and aligned with community priorities — strengthening trust and shared stewardship of Austin’s public spaces.
Learn how the APR Partnership Policy and Framework meets community organizations where they are, supports their efforts with resources and technical expertise, and fosters collective care and collaboration to advance transparency, trust, and long-term community benefit.
