Growing the future of food, community & climate resilience
The Urban Garden Project is the backbone organization for the community garden movement - building capacity & driving impact
About The Urban Garden PROJECT
ORIGIN STORY
Founded by the former Executive Director of Denver Urban Gardens (DUG), The Urban Garden Project is a 501(c)3 organization aimed at enhancing food security and promoting climate resilience. It was created to address the systemic barriers that hold the community garden movement back.
WHY IT MATTERS
One solution. Many outcomes. Community gardens are a vital part of the urban community agriculture movement, delivering food security, enhancing public health, promoting climate resilience, and fostering social cohesion—all at a fraction of the cost of single-issue interventions.
THE SCALE OPPORTUNITY
From 30,000 Gardens to 100,000
The U.S. already has a thriving but fragmented network of community gardens that play a crucial role in the community garden movement. These gardens are time-tested, proven, and essential for enhancing food security. With shared infrastructure and sustained investment, this movement could triple—dramatically increasing climate resilience in cities nationwide.
elements
The urban garden project exists to support the community garden movement.
Affiliate fees based on number of sites. Fees cover administrative expenses of the UGP. Benefits include:
- Special Topic Workshops
- MightyNetwork access for staff
- US Community Garden Database access
- Well Being Index (WBI) usage
- 4 collaborative funding opportunities each year
- Logo reciprocity
- UGP signs for gardens
EDUCATE (Coming Soon)
Workshops on a wide range of topics led by you and your peers from around the world.
Sample topics:
- Organizational design
- Fundraising
- Marketing
- Garden leadership
- Public/private collaboration
Virtual - real-time and recorded
$250 per workshop
equip (Coming Soon)
Clearinghouse of standardized tools sourced from UGP organizations to help their peers tackle the eight obstacles to community garden organizational success, ie, land use agreements, water authority contracts, fundraising playbooks, etc
Group buying of core resources: CRM, accounting software, insurance, etc.
Fractional support: Leadership, fundraising, marcomm, accounting
Quarterly Forums
Get to know the community garden community. These quarterly, two-hour Zoom sessions are part meet and greet and part thought partnership.
Annual Meeting
Go to NYC for a community of practice to further strengthen your connections.
MightyNetwork
Be part of a private social network for UGP members (COMINIG SOON)
Lean on your Community Garden partners who have "done it before" to help you strengthen your organization. The UGP will match you with leaders who can work with you and your team to address a pain point or growth opportunity.
Contact Linda to explore an engagement.
Help the UGP get an accurate measure of the entire community garden movement by helping build the Community Garden Database. Complete this survey today.
In the never-ending quest to "prove" the benefits and potential of community gardening, we are developing the Community Garden Well Being Index (WBI). COMING SOON
The UGP Literature Review - Proving what we all know to be true, add to and access research in support of community garden benefits.
