Jodie Couture is the events manager at One Tree Planted—a Montreal-based nonprofit with a focus on global reforestation—where the 27-year-old is responsible for coordinating both community and employee engagement events.
How she spends her days: "For community events, I work closely with our network of on-the-ground community planting partners to support their tree planting and restoration projects in April for Earth Month, June for World Environment Day and September for Plant a Tree Day. These events are open to communities around the world at no cost. Employee engagement events entail setting up private tree planting events for our corporate donors. Again, I do so by working closely with our planting partners to bring these events to life.
Both of these styles of events have me managing volunteer count, coordination of all details between our volunteers/corporate donors and planting partners, COVID-19 restrictions, liability and photo release distributions, matching project proposals to groups and more. Outside of the coordinating, I manage our events team, which currently includes two other coordinators.
I would say that my interest in coordinating events really blossomed when I was leading my university’s outdoors club. I coordinated trips to various nature parks and wilderness areas around Quebec for students to attend for hiking, camping, cross country skiing, canoeing and a range of other outdoor activities. For many of those students, it was their first time getting into nature and seeing the Quebec countryside. I loved it so much and knew it was something I’d enjoy doing as a career.
A couple of years later I got hired at One Tree Planted as the team's first-ever official event coordinator. It was still a relatively small organization when I came on board in 2020 (about 15 employees). I’ve had the pleasure of getting to grow and evolve with the team, which is sitting at around 50 employees today. It’s been really special. We have an amazing team, and I’ve learned so much about this space."
Biggest takeaway from the past two years: "The biggest thing that the pandemic has taught me is the value of community. I have always been very social and community-focused, but now more than ever I see how important it is, personally and professionally, to feel connected to something larger than myself. I think everyone needs that sense of connection."
Impact she wants to have on the industry: "As far as impact goes, I want to be able to continue supporting the amazing work our planting partners are doing within their communities. Through my role, I hope to help in empowering communities through restoring the natural world, one tree at a time!
Personally, I also have a passion for birds and urban wildlife. A dream project of mine would be to create a series of events across North America that follow bird migration patterns and plant trees in key areas to support that pattern."
Advice for her peers: "In terms of coordinating events in the environmental nonprofit space, I’d tell them to really spend the time connecting with the communities and folks on the ground that they’re working with. What are their needs? How can you best support them? Is the work you’re doing needed and wanted in that community? I guess ultimately, I would tell them to really listen to those that they're working with."
This year's "Fresh Faces" feature is sponsored by Glisser, an award-winning meetings and events platform developed by event industry veterans to go beyond basic video and screen-sharing tech to power inspiring, high-participation events of any size.
