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Project Giving Back exists to amplify the work of charitable causes in the UK. We fulfil our purpose by funding gardens for good causes at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. The gardens are first a catalyst for engagement at the world-renowned Royal Horticultural Society Chelsea Flower Show, before being relocated or repurposed to permanent sites across the UK creating an ongoing legacy and benefit to the causes and their communities.
December 22, 2023
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This year, PGB-supported gardens featured in over 1,200 articles in the press, and some of my favourite outcomes that this year’s cohort told us about include:
The fundraising statistics. Not all charities we work with make fundraising their primary measure of success, but for those who invested in supporter stewardship in 2023, we received reports of between £25k - £200k being raised during show week.
New audiences. RHS Chelsea offers an incredible public platform for awareness raising. One of the smaller charities we worked with in 2023 told us that in May alone they had 5,000 new visitors to their website - that’s 5,000 new people interested in a cause that they’ve not engaged with before.
New or strengthened partnerships. We have heard from many of our 2023 charities that the opportunity of having a garden at Chelsea has enabled them to strengthen corporate partnerships, relationships with significant donors, and to explore ways of working with other, like-minded organisations. For some, it has also been the launchpad for growth, and we can’t wait to see the journeys each and every one will continue on.
While we are so proud of the fundraising and supporter engagement that our investment is enabling, it’s the personal stories of the people behind the gardens that are the greatest demonstration of the impact PGB funding is making. One of the Aspens’ fundraisers said following the 2023 show:
“Seeing Reece, one of the people we support, volunteering at the show and proudly telling our visitors about how being supported by Aspens has changed his life and how excited he is to have the garden return to his home when it is rebuilt, was an absolute highlight. It represented the most important part of being involved with the project - empowering the people we support to feel a part of such a prestigious event. We’re very excited as the next exciting chapter of the garden begins as it returns to our site in Kent where the beautiful, sensory garden will provide a therapeutic haven to our whole community and be an invaluable asset to our charity for many years to come.”
A purposeful relocation plan is built into every garden application and we are committed to ensuring that as many gardens as possible live on to offer spaces for learning, recovery, respite and solace. The headteacher at Alec Reed Academy, one of the schools where Harry Holding’s School Food Matters Garden was relocated to, said:
"All of our children are in need of a little extra TLC. Amid the busyness of day-to-day life, this garden is somewhere the children will be able to find small pockets of inner silence which will allow healing and help them to feel more positive, productive and to be kind.”
The outcomes that have been achieved to date have exceeded our expectations and we were therefore thrilled to announce in October 2023 that, with the generous extended funding commitment from our founding philanthropists, we will continue funding gardens for good causes at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show until 2026. This updates our initial goal of funding 42 gardens across three years to 60 gardens over five years.
We also look ahead with excitement to 2024 where we will be supporting a further 15 charitable organisations at RHS Chelsea, all of which will be repurposed or relocated at permanent locations across the UK. The show and sanctuary gardens have already been announced and you can find out more here, and the 6 All About Plants gardens will be unveiled on 8 January so do look out for those.
As we reflect on 2023, the second full year of Project Giving Back funding for gardens for good causes, it is impossible to ignore the increasingly challenging world we are sharing. The opportunity Project Giving Back gives charities is also a big undertaking and responsibility and their teams need to be applauded for the lengths they all go to in attempting to make the most of it - if you are interested in supporting a charity this festive season, or as a part of your commitments in the new year, I invite you to check out the charities we’ve worked with over the past two years and become a supporter of one of them.
We hope that our unique project is inspiring people everywhere to give back in creative and meaningful ways. I truly believe we all have the capacity to make a difference, and as 2023 draws to a close, and we prepare ourselves for the fresh start a new year always brings, I am thankful for my personal involvement in this incredible project and would like to extend thanks on behalf of the whole PGB team to all those who have and are bringing gardens to good causes to life so that more people may enjoy a garden of their own.
On Tuesday 26 March 2024, Rosie Atkins received an RHS Elizabeth Medal of Honour (EMH), in recognition of her contribution to horticulture. Rosie talks about her career and what receiving the EMH means to her.
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For the last 20+ years I’ve been celebrating IWD in the corporate world … a world where we’ve used the day to celebrate the progress and achievements being made. And that’s been important because, let’s face it, there are still today material discrepancies in the number of women in senior and leadership roles, and in gender pay. Corporates now recognise the issue and, in most cases, are working hard to address the imbalances. However, targets of 40% of women on Boards and an 8% gender pay gap shows there is still a long way to go, and it’s a nut that hasn’t been cracked.
We are delighted to be supporting all six of the All About Plants gardens at RHS Chelsea this May. These small gardens use the power of plants to highlight the work of some amazing charitable causes and showcase new designers and specialist growers and nurseries.
Trees, water and a heartwarming dose of joy were the main topics of conversation at the RHS Gardens for the Future press conference this week.
Project Giving Back (PGB) will support 15 gardens for good causes at RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2024, including seven show gardens and two sanctuary gardens that have been announced by the RHS today.
We are now accepting expressions of interest from charities and designers interested in applying to create a fully funded show garden at RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2025. This follows our recent announcement that Project Giving Back is extending its programme of funding for gardens for good causes until 2026. Here we explain in more detail the stages and timeline for the application process.
Project Giving Back (PGB) intends to continue its support of gardens for good causes at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2025 and 2026. Expressions of interest for 2025 funding can be submitted via the Project Giving Back website from Friday 22 September to Friday 3 November 2023. All gardens supported by PGB are repurposed in permanent locations around the UK after the show as ongoing legacies for the causes that inspired them.
We are excited to be back at the Garden Museum in September with a two week exhibition celebrating the 15 gardens supported by PGB at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2023. All our 2023 gardens for good causes are being relocated to permanent homes throughout the UK.
My first visit to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show site during the build always blows my mind. With 25 show gardens this year, the compact site feels full of activity, machinery and a LOT of people in high vis.
Project Giving Back offers a form of creative philanthropy in which good causes receive a gift of opportunity rather than direct funding. Wide ranging benefits include opportunities for extensive press and social media coverage, hosting exclusive events for potential donors and direct engagement with thousands of show visitors. We asked our 2022 garden teams to tell us how their experience at RHS Chelsea 2022 has impacted their charity so far.
Every International Women’s Day, thousands of “Happy IWD” messages are sent and received. Don’t get me wrong, I’m at the front of the queue when it comes to wanting to celebrate the achievements of women, past, present and future, but when it comes to international anything day/week/month, ‘happy’ is not often what I feel. While I applaud organisations for using it as a vehicle for highlighting change still needed, every year, there’s a part of me that feels frustrated because the very existence of a day is evidence that equality is still being strived for.
Speaking at the PGB 2023 Exhibitor Workshop, Katie Tait, Director of Communications at Maggie’s and PGB Mentor, chats to some of our 2022 cohort about the challenges of running successful PR campaigns in the crowded Chelsea media space.
House Nine Design and Project Giving Back helped raise over £15,000 to help those fleeing domestic abuse through the charity Furnishing Futures.
We are delighted to reveal further good causes we will support next year with the announcement of the All About Plants and Sanctuary Gardens at RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2023.
Following a hugely successful inaugural year in 2022, we will support more gardens for good causes in 2023. They will be presented at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, before being repurposed and relocated to their permanent homes across the UK. These include seven Show Gardens announced by the RHS. All gardens we support are inspired by UK charities and will live on after the show as a lasting legacy for their individual good causes - as teaching gardens, community spaces and other beneficial green spaces.
The Garden Museum will host a special exhibition, from 30 September - 6 October 2022, to celebrate the twelve gardens for good causes supported by Project Giving Back that were presented at RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2022.
To help applicants plan a submission for 2024 funding, we are sharing more information about the questions that will be asked in our expression of interest form.
From 1 - 23 September 2022, we will be inviting expressions of interest for garden funding at RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2024.
RHS Chelsea 2022 was a vintage year and Project Giving Back is proud to have played its part. Hattie Ghaui, CEO of Project Giving Back, reflects on the charity's first RHS Chelsea Flower Show, celebrates some of the incredible success stories, and looks ahead to the next milestone in the charity's Chelsea journey.
Hattie Ghaui has been appointed CEO of Project Giving Back, which is now a registered charity.
Once our charities and garden designers have had their design accepted by the RHS, then it’s all systems go. There is a huge amount of organisation involved in creating a show garden at RHS Chelsea Flower Show. As former RHS Chelsea Flower Show Manager and RHS Head of Shows Development, our advisory panel member Alexandra Denman is perfectly placed to provide insight into the many things that go into bringing together a successful show garden.
It is thanks to the generosity of our Founders that Project Giving Back exists to give good causes the opportunity to have a presence at RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Here our Project Director, Hattie Ghaui, explains more about how our gardens are funded.
When Project Giving Back was first conceived at the beginning of last year, Rosie Atkins was an obvious choice to be invited to get involved. Rosie began her career in journalism at the Sunday Times and 30 years ago launched Gardens Illustrated magazine. After ten years as editor, she left to become Curator of Chelsea Physic Garden. She has chaired various RHS committees and served on the boards of several charities. Here Rosie tells us what made her want to be part of Project Giving Back and why she thinks gardening and good causes are such a good fit.
We are thrilled to announce the good causes and designers behind four new All About Plants gardens, supported by Project Giving Back at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2022.
Project Giving Back will support 12 gardens for good causes at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in May 2022. Today we can reveal seven of those gardens, with more to be announced later in January. All gardens supported by Project Giving Back will be unveiled to show visitors and viewers before being relocated to their permanent homes across the UK in summer 2022.
For the first time in the show’s 108-year history, the RHS Chelsea Flower Show was held in autumn this year. The sun shone all week and the whole experience was one of relaxed, late summer contentment. We popped along to discover more about how the greatest flower show on Earth offers an unparalleled platform for good causes to tell the world about their work.
We're so pleased to be able to announce a new and unique organisation that will provide funding for gardens inspired by UK charities and not-for-profit organisations at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2022, 2023 and 2024.
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