Page 6 - Caring_for_your_community

Who is this manual for? How to use this manual

This manual is aimed at botanic garden professionals who are We begin with a summary of the main frameworks and
interested in developing the social role of their gardens and definitions which came to light during the interview process.
whose work involves engaging with the public. Members of This section aims to provide you with the theoretical under-
staff working in horticulture, education, conservation, research, standing and vocabulary to plan your own projects and write
visitor services or marketing can all contribute to making an effective proposals. The remainder of the manual is broken
organisation more relevant to society. The stories of projects down into four sections: what SOCIAL ISSUES are currently
and activities collated in this manual have been contributed by being addressed by gardens and how; HOW TO ENGAGE THE
a variety of professionals, including scientists, educators, staff COMMUNITY; using AUDIENCE RESEARCH to document and
from marketing and horticulturalists – proof that this way of explore the impact of these projects; and FUNDING enabling
working requires the commitment of teams across all aspects these projects to happen. The introduction to each section
of the garden, not just a specialist team. We have collated the gives our analysis of the projects we researched and is followed
terminology and methods, experience and wisdom, from those by case studies that give more information and context. All case
who are already doing work of this nature, to support others to studies follow the same format: a brief description of the project,
do the same and to inspire as many as possible to get involved its focus (social issues), the engagement approach, audience
with or start up socially relevant activities from scratch. research employed, funding sources and challenges faced.

Our methodology

Our initial move was to conduct a survey of gardens around
the world, asking them to tell us about their community
engagement projects. The questionnaire was distributed through
our newsletter mailing list to 6,000 professionals working in
the botanic garden/plant conservation sector. From the 76
responses we selected contributions from 18 gardens. The
projects comprise activities that had a start and end date,
usually based on available funding. Programmes refer to
longer term activities which are well established, at least
partly core-funded and often include shorter-term projects.
Activities include operational functions of the garden, such
as running the gift shop, which are mainly core-funded.

Our selection criteria included: strong focus on social issues,
innovative approaches, sustainability of projects, representation
of projects from different countries and continents, big and
small, newly established and older gardens, and projects that
covered a range of budgets. Following the selection of the
gardens, between October and December 2014 we carried
out semi-structured Skype interviews with garden staff. The
interviewees’ roles in the particular project often represented a
combination of coordination, management and implementation.
To triangulate the information from interviews we collected
documents and images related to the projects. The results of
the interviews and document qualitative analysis were compiled
into case studies and used as the basis of this manual.

4 CARING FOR YOUR COMMUNITY | A MANUAL FOR BOTANIC GARDENS