KGI Annual Report 2005
Description:
Kitchen Gardeners International (KGI) is a non-profit network whose mission is to celebrate home-grown, home-prepared foods in their many international forms and to promote their role in building a healthier, tastier, more sustainable and secure food system. In doing so, KGI seeks to connect, serve, and expand the global community of people who grow and prepare some of their own food. As believers in and practitioners of local, small-scale food production and processing, we support others doing the same thing in our regions including family farmers and producers of artisanal and craft foods.
Governance:
KGI is registered as a 501c3 nonprofit organization under US law and is governed by a small board of directors coming from the United States and Europe.
Goals:
-To provide a structure, virtual and real, for kitchen gardeners worldwide to: meet up with each other; share their passion for food, cooking, and organic gardening; and further their skills and knowledge in these areas
-To introduce new people to the joys and benefits of actively participating in one's food production and preparation
-To inform KGI's supporters and the general public about the many ways of participating in and contributing to a sustainable food system and planet
-To help individuals and communities to achieve higher levels of food self-reliance through eduaction, projects, and charitable giving
-To promote fellowship, cultural exchange and international understanding via a shared love of kitchen gardening
Main Activities and Achievements in 2005:
1) KGI website overall
The KGI website continued to be our main outreach and education tool. It became clear in the course of 2005 that we were outgrowing our previous website and that a new type of site was needed that would allow for easier updates and the creation of new desired features. Starting in the summer, we started transitioning our site to a new host and a new web development strategy using Movable Type, a flexible blogging software. Visits to the KGI website increased by 30% in 2005.
2) KGI Blog Project
One reason for making the shift above was to incorporate more voices and expertise into KGI’s development and work. Starting last fall, KGI began recruiting food and garden bloggers. By the year’s end, roughly 20 people had signed up for the project roughly half of which were actively blogging while the rest had either made no posts or very few. While still quite new, the project breathed some new energy into the organization in 2005 and helped make the KGI website both more interesting and more comprehensive in its coverage. By the year’s end, nearly 100 entries had been added to the site from places as diverse as Australia, Canada, the US and Turkey. The website saw a significant increase in traffic in the last couple months of 2005, a large part of which can be attributed to the blog project.
3) Member/Supporter Development
The long term viability of KGI depends on its ability to reach out to and resonate with kitchen gardeners. We continued our efforts in 2005 to reach out to our support base to find out how we’re doing from the user/supporter vantage point and what we might do differently in the future. The results of our 2005 survey are available here: http://www.kitchengardeners.org/2006/01/survey_results_1.html . In October, we launched our first ever coordinated membership development drive with the goal of raising $1000 by the end of the year. We got up to about $750.
4) International Kitchen Garden Day
KGI coordinated the third annual International Kitchen Garden Day on August 28th. The day was recognized and celebrated by a handful of groups and individuals from different parts of the world, both large and small. Currently, we do not have the organizational capacity to track where celebrations were organized and what types of activities were offered. We therefore relied on participating groups to tell us how they recognized the day. Prior to the day, we did media outreach which resulted in having the date included in event calendars in newspapers, newsletters, and websites. We had less capacity this year to coordinate this event.
5) E-mail newsletter
KGI produced twelve monthly newsletters in 2005 covering a wide array of topics related to cooking, gardening, and the global food system. KGI maintained its policy of offering this information free of charge and free of advertising as a way of reaching new people and populations. Readership of the newsletter grew by over 20% in 2005, going from roughly 1800 to over 2200. We continue to receive very enthusiastic feedback about this.
6) Real Food for Real People public awareness campaign
Although there were no new developments with KGI’s “real food” internet campaign, the site (www.eatrealfood.org) continued receiving visits (roughly 5000) without any effort on our part.
7) KGI Mini-grants program
We had hoped to launch this program in 2005, but decided to hold off on this until we were in a better position financially.
Financial Report:
Our accomplishments seem all the more impressive considering that they were achieved with less than $600 in out-of-pocket expenses. What isn't reflected in this report however are the countless hours of volunteer time and other in-kind contributions that made these activities possible. KGI gratefully acknowledges all those who helped our common cause in one way or another in 2005, including writers and photographers who donated their work to us, translators, and a number of individuals and companies who helped spread the word about us by word of mouth advertising and through their newsletters and websites. Thanks.
We also want to give special thanks to those of you who saw a small seed of hope in what we were doing and agreed to support our work financially.
Beginning Balance (01/01/05) 201.63
Uses of Cash
Outreach (website, e-newsletter costs) 484.20
Supplies (software) 74.95
Sub-total 559.15
Sources of Cash
Member contributions 918.87
Sub-total 918.87
Ending Balance (12/31/05) 561.35
