Institution profile
Naples Botanical Garden is a 170-acre public garden that features plants from around the world. The Garden provides arts, culture, youth and adult education, conservation, and volunteer programs that contribute to the quality of life in Southwest Florida onsite and online at naplesgarden.org. The Garden’s living collections are always growing and evolving, leaving our audiences with a deeper engagement with our curated gardens and Preserve.
How the program was created
In keeping with the Garden’s mission to connect all people with plants, we want our visitation to better reflect the demographics of the Naples community and have identified audience diversification as a primary goal. During the pandemic, the Garden shifted its focus to local audiences and implemented new initiatives to mitigate previous barriers to access.
Through one of those initiatives, the Community Appreciation Campaign, we positioned the Garden as a resource for families looking for self-guided nature-based education in both English and Spanish as well as a place to safely explore the outdoors. The program allows for free Garden admission for essential workers and their families including educators, workers in essential areas, first responders, healthcare workers, and tourism and hospitality workers.
In recognition of other community organizations that need help, the Garden partnered with Our Daily Bread food pantry, which uses our parking lot for monthly food distribution and includes free Garden admission vouchers as part of the food distributions. The initial partnership has subsequently expanded to include Alliance for Period Supplies of Southwest Florida as well as For the Love of Paws, which provides cat and dog food.
These audience diversification efforts have brought the Garden to a new frontier in expanding access, understanding, and opportunity. The program is supported by individual and corporate donors. It was also the fund-a-need focus at our annual Hats in the Garden gala, which went virtual as #HatsInOurGardens in November 2020.
Program impact
As of October 2021, Naples Botanical Garden has welcomed over 20,000 visitors through the Community Appreciation Campaign. Initial data from these efforts show a dramatic shift in visitorship with increases in children, average age, and ethnicity. The Garden is seeing record attendance in months that are traditionally our “shoulder” season. We are also capturing more visitor contact information, ensuring that we can continue communication with these new visitors and move to diversifying our membership base as a result.
Future plans
We currently have an access membership program called Garden for All which provides complimentary memberships to clients of local United Way partner agencies. Future plans include incorporating the Community Appreciation Campaign into the Garden for All membership model.
Southwest Florida has one of the largest Haitian communities in the country. We are investigating translation of our audio tours and activity packs into Haitian Creole to better serve this population.
Takeaways for other public gardens
It is okay to make yourself accessible. Complimentary admission for first-time visitors—especially groups who do not otherwise show up in your space—does not equal lost revenue. These are people who weren’t buying tickets to your space anyway. Open your doors and be authentically welcoming. These are opportunities that can be funded by other sources.
