Team Trees


Team Trees is a collaborative fundraiser that raised 20 million U.S. dollars before the start of 2020 to plant 20 million trees. The initiative was started by American YouTubers MrBeast and Mark Rober, and was mostly supported by YouTubers. All donations go to the Arbor Day Foundation, a tree planting organization that pledges to plant one tree for every U.S. dollar donated. The Arbor Day Foundation began planting in January 2020 with plans to end "no later than December 2022". It is estimated that 23 million trees would take up of land, absorb around 1.6 million tons of carbon and remove 116 thousand tons of pollutants from the atmosphere.

Background

The idea started on May 24, 2019, when a fan suggested on Reddit that MrBeast should plant 20 million trees to celebrate reaching 20 million subscribers on YouTube. The idea spread across YouTube, Reddit, and Twitter, mostly in the form of memes. The idea may have been related to the 2019 Amazon rainforest wildfires. American YouTuber, engineer, and inventor Mark Rober partnered directly with Donaldson to launch the fundraiser. On October 25, 2019, Donaldson uploaded a YouTube video explaining his plan, which claimed the top spot on YouTube's trending page, and caused numerous YouTubers to join the movement.
The trees will be planted "in a variety of forests on public and private lands in areas of great need" starting in January 2020. The goal is to have them planted "no later than December 2022".
As of July 31, 2025, the project has raised over $24,910,612 exceeding the fundraiser's goal to plant 20 million trees. As anticipated, more than 20 million trees have been planted.

Efficacy

As of April 2025, only 6% of the original 2,000 trees planted in one area were extant.

Responses

Many YouTubers created content to capitalize on the growing trend of Team Trees; despite the Arbor Day Foundation reaching out to only a few hundred creators, Team Trees is now featured in over 80,000 videos from over 4200 global creators. Across Instagram and Twitter over 556,001 posts have garnered more than 4.6 billion views.
Discovery Channel made a documentary called #TeamTrees about the campaign which aired on December 3, 2019, coupled with a donation of USD $100,203 the next day.
Eike Lüdeling, the department head of horticultural sciences at the University of Bonn, stated, "It turns out that many of these seedlings, if you don't do this well or if people do it who don’t really care about those trees, then they all just die quickly. Sometimes it’s probably a better idea to plant fewer trees and really take care of them." Danny Cohn, the director of public relations for the Arbor Day Foundation, addressed these concerns, stating that "the partners who work with the organization are all required to have plans to help their trees thrive."

Planting projects

Planting locations of Team Trees include:
LocationCountryContinentNumber of TreesStatus
AndesArgentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, PeruSouth America300,000
Central and Northern VictoriaAustraliaOceania75,000
Eastern QueenslandAustraliaOceania300,000
Amazon rainforestBrazilSouth America600,000
Atlantic ForestBrazilSouth America170,000
BurundiAfrica100,000
Area of 2017 Elephant Hill Fire, British ColumbiaCanadaNorth America170,000
Area of 2017 Hanceville Fire, British ColumbiaCanadaNorth America150,000
The Great Green WallChad, Mali, SenegalAfrica3,840,000
Minqin County, Gansu ProvinceChinaAsia25,000
Gaizhou, Liaoning ProvinceChinaAsia45,000
Dominican RepublicNorth America200,000
FranceEurope150,000
HaitiNorth America1,050,000
Cauvery River BasinIndiaAsia905,439
West Papua ProvinceIndonesiaAsia450,000
IrelandEurope100,000
Kijabe ForestKenyaAfrica950,000
Xe Sap and Xe Pian National Protected AreasLaosAsia30,000
Kianjavato Mountain RangeMadagascarAfrica400,000
MadagascarAfrica600,000
MozambiqueAfrica1,252,007
Chitwan National ParkNepalAsia885,000
AucklandNew ZealandOceania28,789
Maitai valleyNew ZealandOceania32,590
NicaraguaNorth America975,000
PeruSouth America235,800
PortugalEurope10,000
Freetown PeninsulaSierra LeoneAfrica80,000
PalenciaSpainEurope4,200
Mae Hong Son ProvinceThailandAsia50,000
Adana ProvinceTurkeyAsia60,000
İzmir ProvinceTurkeyAsia50,000
United KingdomEurope24,000
United KingdomEurope50,000
Mersey ForestUnited KingdomEurope270,000
Southeastern United StatesUnited StatesNorth America1,000,000
Mississippi River Valley in Arkansas, Louisiana, and MississippiUnited StatesNorth America1,000,000
Butte County, CaliforniaUnited StatesNorth America100,000
Tyndall Air Force Base, FloridaUnited StatesNorth America983,000
Watersheds in GeorgiaUnited StatesNorth America450,000
Michigan State ForestsUnited StatesNorth America2,207,067
Bitterroot National Forest, MontanaUnited StatesNorth America63,800
Flathead and Kootenai National Forests, MontanaUnited StatesNorth America281,132
Gallatin National Forest, MontanaUnited StatesNorth America275,000
Nebraska National Forest, NebraskaUnited StatesNorth America40,000
Bladen Lakes State Forest, North CarolinaUnited StatesNorth America197,555
Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, OregonUnited StatesNorth America23,100
Willamette River Basin, OregonUnited StatesNorth America500,000
South CarolinaUnited StatesNorth America1,350,000
Rappahannock River Watershed, VirginiaUnited StatesNorth America50,000
WashingtonUnited StatesNorth America650,000

Team Seas

On October 29, 2021, MrBeast and Mark Rober teamed up again to launch Team Seas, a successor to the project that aimed to help clean up marine debris. As with the Team Trees campaign, many influencers had also joined in spreading the message to help the project be a success. While the project is international, MrBeast and Mark Rober traveled to the Dominican Republic to help clean up there and address issues with trash collection in underdeveloped and underserved areas.