Hoyt Arboretum Friends Foundation

In 1930, when John Duncan created a plan for Hoyt Arboretum, he imagined that someday the Arboretum might feature 40 plant families with up to 500 species of trees and plants. He couldn't have imagined today's Hoyt Arboretum, which is home to over 170 plant families and more than 2,000 species - 63 of which are vulnerable and endangered.

And visitorship has kept pace with the growth of trees and plants. Today, more than 350,000 people per year use the Arboretum as a place to exercise, learn and immerse themselves in nature. Our Visitor Center is a busy hive of activity and as we expand our plant collection and educational programs, this will continue.

Our new strategic plan (2017 - 2022) will help us keep pace with this growth - through five areas of focus:
Engaging educational opportunities
Caring for and expanding our tree collection
Expanding awareness of Hoyt Arboretum in the community
Creating exceptional visitor experiences
Ensuring long-term sustainanability of Hoyt

A few strategies from our strategic plan include:

Designing educational programs for diverse audiences, e.g. family programs, self-guided tours and tours in multiple languages.
Developing funding sources to underwrite program costs for all students
Increasing plant families in our collection from 172 to 200 over the long term
Remove invasive ivy from the Arboretum by 2020
Create a plan to track use of Hoyt and measure visitor satisfaction
Keep our Visitor Center open seven days per week
Make full use of space to improve the visitor experience
Complete ADA access from the MAX station to the far end of the Arboretum
Continue to build strong donor relationships
Increase earned income from programs, rentals and gift shop revenue by 25%

Board: We are investing the the ongoing development of our board of directors to ensure effective governance and organizational support
by increasing members and expanding the diversity of skill sets and backgrounds to better reflect our community.

Staff: The Hoyt Arboretum Friends has a staffing structure that ensures the recruitment, retention and development of competent, professional staff. Our staff has increased from 2.5 FTE to almost 4 FTE in 2019 to provide capacity to increase programming.

Volunteers: Hoyt Arboretum relies on volunteers for all aspects of our prgramming and maintenance. We will continue to increase resources to support our volunteer recruitment, training and recognition.

In 2019, we increased the number of students visiting Hoyt Arboretum on a field trip from the previous year, serving over 4,200 students up from just 600 in 2016. More than 60% of students who came in 2019 were from high-poverty schools with the support of our school bus scholarships.

In 2021, we will continue efforts to remove about 30 acres of English Ivy from Hoyt Arboretum.

In 2020 and 2021 we completed upgrades of the Overlook Trail, an accessible trail of approximately 1/2 a mile from the public transit station (MAX) up to the Hoyt Arboretum Visitor Center.