DESERT BOTANICAL GARDEN

The Garden is here to help our visitors enjoy the beauty of the desert and care about it. Research shows that family members’ attitudes towards nature-based activities has shown to be the most influential factor in children’s engagement with nature (Soga, 2018). As the preservation of the desert and its ability to sustain life is in the hands of the next generation, this investment in conservation and education is designed to set in motion thousands of nature lovers and preservationists.

Mission: “The Garden’s commitment to the community is to advance excellence in education, research, exhibition and conservation of desert plants of the world with emphasis on the Sonoran Desert. We will ensure that the Garden is always a compelling attraction that brings to life the many wonders of the desert. (Articles of Incorporation, 1937; Amended 2002 and 2018)”

Vision: “The Garden’s vision is to be the premier center in the world for the exhibition, research and conservation of desert plants. The Garden strives to be an indispensable resource for learning about cactus, agave and other desert plants of the Sonoran Desert and the world. Every element of the Garden reflects excellence, beauty and inspiration to transform the guest experience into one of discovery. The Garden is here to help everyone enjoy the beauty of the desert and to help them care about protecting and sustaining the natural world for the benefit of future generations.”

The pillars of our 2019-2023 Strategic Plan summary are sustainability, economic sustainability, environmental sustainability and social sustainability.

SUSTAINABILITY
Desert Botanical Garden is committed to striking a balance between structured planning and operational flexibility in an ever-changing world. The Garden models responsiveness and resilience, while demonstrating that it can both endure and thrive in pursuit of its mission. This requires emphasizing “the triple-bottom line” by excelling in all three pillars of sustainability: economic, environmental and social.

ECONOMIC SUSTAINABILITY
Desert Botanical Garden will continue to manage responsibly its financial, human and other resources in order to support its mission for future generations. The Garden will utilize and expand current revenue streams, while simultaneously identifying untapped revenue sources to diversify revenue stream and support future growth.

ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
Desert Botanical Garden will leverage its established reputation as an expert in research, conservation, collection and horticulture of cactus and agave to become the global leader in the conservation of desert plants. The Garden is committed to sharing its knowledge and best practices to conserve and protect desert plants and habitats.

SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY
Desert Botanical Garden ensures social diversity and inclusion by providing an environment in which everyone feels welcome, engaged and valued. The Garden strives to support broader community efforts, encouraging conversations surrounding critical issues. As a founding institution in our community, we will lead by example to develop and implement strategies to ensure that our board, staff and volunteers reflect the diversity of the audiences that we serve.

Desert Botanical Garden has a strong record of developing, implementing and evaluating both short- and long-term plans for the institution, led by our Board and involving senior management, staff, more than 700 volunteers, members and community representatives. Our strong culture of planning has directly resulted in significantly increasing attendance and expanding our programming, facilities, institutional capacity and community impact over the past 20 years.

The Garden began the multi-phased planning process for our 2019-23 Strategic Plan in 2016 by securing feedback from staff, volunteers and Trustees, developing the guiding principles and convening task force committees to assess potential initiatives. This five-year plan is ambitious yet readily achievable and grounded in the Garden’s history and traditions. It is holistic, drawing inspiration from the four corners of our mission while forging a new path for the Garden.

This new plan comes on the heels of 20 years of dramatic growth. Staring in the late 1990s, Board members and staff have successfully completed three ambitious capital campaigns that have transformed the Garden:

• Growing a Legacy for Generations, completed in 2000, raised $17 million to build the Garden’s world-class science end education campus.
• Tending the Garden, completed in 2008, raised more than $18 million to construct dramatic new exhibits for the Garden’s plant collections and to create a $9 million endowment.
• The Saguaro Initiative, completed in 2017, raised more than $18 million. This campaign served to construct state-of-the-art greenhouses and exhibits, as well as further build the Garden’s endowment (now $16 million) and other reserve funds that strengthen our capitalization.

Following the investment of more than $50 million during the past 20 years, the Garden is now building upon and celebrating the gains made to assure that we will continue to be a powerful force for conserving and sustaining desert plants, habitats and valuable community resources.

*Note: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic's effect on the Garden's budget and operations, we have extended the Strategic Plan to 2024.

Desert Botanical Garden was founded in 1939 by individuals who were concerned about Phoenix’s rapid development and felt the need to protect and preserve a portion of the native desert. The focus over our first 30 years was on collecting, caring for and propagating plant specimens to establish an outstanding collection of living cacti and succulents. In the 1970’s, the Garden invested in scientific research by adding to our staff the world-renowned scholar of agaves Dr. Howard Scott Gentry and dedicating a building and curator to the herbarium collection; in 1974 the herbarium (DES) was designated as a National Resource Collection by the Advisory Committee for Systematic Resources in Botany, funded by the National Science Foundation. The Garden has since established itself as a world leader in understanding, conserving and interpreting the desert’s unique plant life. The 1980’s and 1990’s marked a period of great distinction for the Garden's newly formed volunteer program, guided tour program, school programs and interpretive signage along our five major trails.

Since 1999, the Garden has raised more than $50 million through campaigns to fulfill our potential and ensure our permanence as a destination garden, an educator of children and adults, and the top-ranked research center in our category including: adding facilities, research labs and a state-of-the-art horticulture campus; building and interpreting new exhibits; developing community collaborations; developing plans for future interpretation and a new children/family garden; and building our endowment and other permanent funds. These activities have significantly enhanced one of the world’s largest and most diverse collections of 50,000+ arid-adapted plants, including many rare, threatened and endangered species from the world’s deserts. Community-based efforts have resulted in: the Garden-led Central Arizona Conservation Alliance, a coalition of 70+ organizations who are ensuring the recreational and ecological sustainability of central Arizona’s open spaces; and Spaces of Opportunity, created by a partnership with grassroots organizations that has transformed an empty 18-acre lot in an economically disadvantaged south Phoenix community into a food oasis, with a farm, community garden plots for neighbors and a weekly farmers market.

In recognition of our commitment to best practices: the Garden has been accredited by the American Alliance of Museums since 1983; our cactus and agave family collections were designated as National Collections by the North American Plant Collections Consortium of the American Public Gardens Association in 2010; and DBG was selected to join the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in 2016 and became the host group for the Cactus and Succulent Specialist Group in 2017.