Promising Practices

The following Promising Practices are resources share by School Garden Support Organizations to inform and strengthen your work of running school garden programs.
The SGSO Network aspires to build a constellation of organizations that support, sustain, and advance the school garden movement. As a community, we value open communication and sharing that encourages collaboration, networking, and the cross-pollination of ideas that can lead to unexpected results and solutions. 

We invite you to contribute your own resources

Promising Practices

Tools that can help SGSOs begin to do some of the work to answer these big questions and find the best ways to intertwine equity, inclusivity, diversity, and justice into all aspects of each school garden support organization. VIEW STRENGTHENING EQUITY & INCLUSION IN GARDEN EDUCATION
Identifying sustainable funding streams is a crucial element to ensure the success of school garden support organizations. We define sustainable funding as consistent, substantial and/or from permanent budget lines. The following resources provide an overview and examples of different funding models and sources that SGSOs rely upon. View FUNDING SCHOOL GARDEN WORK PROMISING PRACTICES
The success of garden-based education programs delivered by SGSOs is directly related to the extent that they are able to build trusting relationships and robust partnerships with a diversity of stakeholders. View Relationship Building for Program Success
Explore the different ways school gardens and SGSOs staff their programs. View SGSO and School Garden Staffing Models and Sample Job Descriptions
Highlights promising practices shared by various SGSOs from across the country on how to develop a lesson sequence to support student learning; find the lessons you’re looking for; and adapt or improve upon them. View Finding, Improving & Sequencing High Quality Lessons
We strive for school garden programs to have access to quality evaluation tools and feel empowered to use them in meaningful and useful ways to improve their own programs; communicate with partners and funders; and share with the communities they serve. View resources for MEASURING IMPACT & SHARING RESULTS.
We strive to ensure that all school garden stakeholders have the opportunity to participate in dynamic regional networks to connect with each other and share resources, ideas, questions, funding sources and support, and more! View Networking and Communications Best Practices Document
Successful school garden professional development effectively supports school communities in using learning gardens as an instructional tool. It equips individuals, schools and organizations with the knowledge, language and tools to integrate the garden into the learning culture of the school or site. View Professional Development Best Practices Document
SGSOs strive to support school garden that are fully functional, easy to maintain, and integrated into the schoolyard. View Best Practices related to Maintaining Multiple School Gardens.
View School District & Regional Program Examples
A project of Life Lab in partnership with Whole Kids Foundation and the SGSO Network, the Promising Practices resources are a result of multiple years of resource sharing and curation at the SGSO Leadership Institutes. 
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