Description:
Kitchen Gardeners International is a 501c3 nonprofit founded in Maine, USA with friends from around the world. Our mission is to empower individuals, families, and communities to achieve greater levels of food self-reliance through the promotion of kitchen gardening, home-cooking, and sustainable local food systems. In doing so, KGI seeks to connect, serve, and expand the global community of people who grow and prepare some of their own food.

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 education, projects, and charitable giving
-To promote fellowship, cultural exchange and international understanding via a shared love of kitchen gardening

Main Activities and Achievements in 2006:

1) KGI website and newsletter
The KGI website and electronic newsletter continued to be our main outreach and education tools and both showed signs of strong growth in readership. Traffic to our website averaged 56,000 unique visits per month by the end of 2006, double our 2005 traffic and on par with the websites of food and gardening organizations considerably larger and better resourced than KGI. Our newsletter readership rose once again by 30%, reaching 2800 people.

2) Media and public outreach
KGI continued added to its media portfolio in 2006 with coverage in numerous newspapers, magazines, and successful forays into new digital media such as YouTube. Highlights included a TV report on Maine's WGME news 13 and an article about us in the Washington Post. KGI was also invited to attend and speak at various food and garden related events during the year including Maine Fare and the annual Food and Society conference organized by the Kellogg Foundation.

3) International Kitchen Garden Day
KGI coordinated the fourth annual International Kitchen Garden Day on August 27th. The day was recognized and celebrated by a number of groups and individuals from different parts of the world, both large and small. In 2006, we still did 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.

4) Garden visibility project
KGI launched a new activity in 2006 to increase the visibility of kitchen gardens and gardening in various communities. KGI supporters were asked to come up with creative ways of advertising their gardens which resulted in a garden sign competition. While some people entered yard signs into the competition, the grand prize of a gift certificate to Johnny's Selected Seeds went to KGI member Jennifer Love who painted her minivan with gardening slogans and images.

5) KGI Mini-grants program
KGI program of offering financial and technical assistance in support of kitchen garden projects began on a small scale in 2006 through two projects, one in Scarborough, Maine, the other in Guyana, South America. In the case of the former, KGI provided technical assistance to the Pleasant Hill Elementary School in the design and execution of a new school garden. The project now has the participation of 30 families and has succeeded in securing funds for an expansion. The Guyana project is being carried out by a faith-based NGO called DepTrad that is helping 300 poor families to become more self-reliant through kitchen gardens. KGI provided technical assistance and $300 worth of seeds.

Staff and board updates:
KGI welcomed new board members in 2006: Jan Maes, David Buchanan, Maya Howard. Our six-fold increase in revenue in 2006 allowed us to take the first step in hiring paid staff. It was decided at the July board meeting that Roger Doiron, KGI's founder, would be hired on a part-time basis to help maintain and grow KGI's activities and membership.

Financial Report:
KGI carried out a diverse program of educational and awareness raising activities in 2006 which seems all the more impressive when one considers that our yearly expenses remained under $3000. We saw strong growth in the number of individual and institutional donors, along a new revenue stream coming from KGI's website. 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 cause in one way or another in 2006.

Beginning Balance (01/01/06) 561

Uses of Cash
Activity and event-related costs 2427
Office and administrative costs 571
Sub-total 2998

Sources of Cash
Member dues and contributions 3582
Website related revenues 217
Grants 3000
Sub-total 6799

Ending Balance (12/31/06) 4362

Report Approved by KGI Board on March 8th, 2007

Roger Doiron
Jan Maes
David Buchanan
Maya Howard