Proposal: Gardens of Golden Gate Park Interpretive Master Plan

Gardens of Golden Gate Park Proposal for Interpretive Master Planning

The Museum Group Matt Kirchman | ObjectIDEA Darcie Fohrman | Museum Exhibitions Amparo Leyman Pino | Yellow Cow Consulting Robert Mac West | Informal Learning Experiences

The Museum Group

Individual expertise. Collective wisdom.

Jessa Barzelay San Francisco Botanical Garden 1199 9th Ave San Francisco, CA 94122 7 October, 2020 via email: jbarzelay@sfbg.org

Dear Ms. Barzelay, Thank you for your invitation to submit a proposal for Interpretive Master Planning for the Gardens of Golden Gate Park: San Francisco Botanical Garden, Conservatory of Flowers, and Japanese Tea Garden. We are thrilled for the opportunity to offer our qualifications, and share our scope and process with you. Our proposal team comprises four members of The Museum Group. When many of our members received your solicitation, we convened a meeting of the group, reviewed the scope and time line, and collaboratively determined which members were most equipped to respond. We built the perfect team. We will align our individual skill sets to meet the needs of the Garden and work with your staff and stakeholders to support the granting process, develop content and engagement strategies for your guests, document the extraordinary interpretive potential that all the gardens have to offer, and create a comprehensive plan in light of the merger of the garden experiences. We look very forward to discussing any aspects of this proposal with you and, if so honored, to envision a comprehensive approach to interpretation for the Gardens of Golden Gate Park. Sincerely, and on behalf of The Museum Group

Matt Kirchman President and Creative Director ObjectIDEA

Table of Contents 06

Respondent’s Information

Introduction

Firm History

Experience of Team Members / Résumés / References

Approach

Work Plan

Relevant Projects

Working with San Francisco Botanical Garden

Fee

Respondent Information and Primary Contact

ObjectIDEA 9 Naples Road Salem, Massachusetts 01970 617.233.8702 www.objectidea.com ObjectIDEA was established as a limited liability company in 2006 in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Matt Kirchman, President and Creative Director mkirchman@objectidea.com

Introduction – Our Proposal at a Glance Starting in 2021, the San Francisco Botanical Garden, the Conservatory of Flowers, and the Japanese Tea Garden are consolidating management and will be run as the Gardens of Golden Gate Park. The merger and creation of the Gardens of Golden Gate Park, as a new entity and institution, would require a consistent methodology for interpretation, a framework for science communication and engagement of the communities it serves. The Interpretative Master Plan will function as the framework that would give consistency, unity, and a voice to the cultural and scientific wealth the Gardens have to offer to the San Francisco community, and the international and multicultural visitorship from abroad. The Museum Group, has responded to this Request for Proposals by bringing their expertise in organizational management, interpretive design, community engagement, and science communication to create a comprehensive strategy that will result into a unique interpretative master plan that will engage all audiences regardless of their age, language, cultural background, and socioeconomic status. It is important to mention that The Museum Group’s approach to diversity, equity, access and inclusion, is embedded in the whole practice, from the processes to the final deliverables.

5 This proposal offers the full scope of services executed by a team of members of The Museum Group. We will bring our individual expertise and the collective wisdom of TMG to your project. • Matt Kirchman of ObjectIDEA, Salem, Massachusetts • Darcie Fohrman of Museum Exhibitions, San Francisco • Amparo Leyman Pino of Yellow Cow Consulting, San Francisco • Robert Mac West of Informal Learning Experiences, Denver, Colorado 5 Each of our team members has a distinct “listening” and a talent that aligns with the Gardens’ needs and expectations. We are all leaders and facilitators 5 We propose working with you to secure grant funding. 5 We propose a three-phased project comprising 14 months. Each phase concludes with a significant deliverable.

Firm History – An Introduction to The Museum Group

The Museum Group is a consortium of museum consultants founded in 1995 by independent professionals who had held leadership positions in museums. Our mission is to work with museums to help them achieve their greatest potential in an everchanging world. Members of The Museum Group advance the museum field and the vitality of museums by:

• Working with museum leaders to identify innovative solutions and strategies unique to their institutions • Leveraging the collective resource of our experience for the benefit of the museum community • Building awareness of contemporary issues relevant to the museum field. • Creating opportunities for the open exchange of new ideas and information among colleagues and museum professionals

Our consortium of experienced, independent museum consultants offers distinct advantages to museums and the museum field: • When we work with our clients, we draw on the collective knowledge, experience, and support of our colleagues in the group. • When we engage with the wider museum community, we’re committed to promoting fresh thinking and active conversation about the complex issues that challenge museums today. In working with our members, you’ll have access to an expert knowledge base of leaders with hands-on experience in every part of museum operations. Members of The Museum Group have their own consulting practices, but we collaborate on projects that call for varied expertise.

Louise Douglas, Ph.D. | General Magager, Audiences and Programs National Museum of Australia l.douglas@nma.gov.au | 02-620-85102 Matt Kirchman made a significant contribution to the development and design of the five permanent exhibitions which opened the new National Museum of Australia in 2001. Mattâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s role as interpretive planner meant that he had to work within a complex and demanding environment and his excellent communication and intellectual skills created a series of bridges between the project managers, curators, external exhibition designers and the architects designing the building. Mattâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s positive and collaborative approach to the myriad of challenges and issues was critical to the successful completion of these exhibitions on time and on budget. I unhesitatingly commend him to you. 10

Meet your team

Matt Kirchman is the Founder and President of ObjectIDEA and serves as the Creative Director of planning and design for all projects. He holds a Master of Science degree in Experiential Education and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Visual Communication from Northern Illinois University. For over 20 years, the interpretive design field has afforded him the opportunity to exercise his philosophies and methods in both schools of thinking.

Prior to forming ObjectIDEA, Matt was an exhibition developer and Director of Interpretation at several exhibition planning and design firms in Boston. He brings an in-house perspective to the planning process by calling on his experience as a designer for the John G. Shedd Aquarium in Chicago and as a naturalist and educator for outdoor schools, parks, and museums across the United States. Matt was one of two independent consultants invited by the American Alliance of Museums to assist the organization in identifying the benchmarks for interpretive planning that AAM will use to accredit its member institutions. He has lectured at conferences for the American Association of Museums, The National Association for Museum Exhibition, New England Museum Association, and Museums Australia. Matt collects museum visits and keeps a database record of each and every one. His current collection numbers over 300 visits from Bangkok to Boston; New Zealand to New York.

WHAT WE DO

• We guide teams through the interpretive planning and exhibition development process. • We broker interpretive design excellence on the behalf of visitors and cultural institutions by serving as an accessibility advocate and an owner’s representative. We ensure that every user’s best interests are at the heart of planning and design decision-making. • We collaborate with museum teams, agencies, architects, landscape designers, exhibition designers, and fabricators, bringing interpretive rationale to the design approach and vision to the visitor’s experience. ObjectIDEA was launched to create freedom in the exhibition development process, uncouple it from any one exhibit design firm’s strength or aesthetic, and provide the opportunity for dynamic team-building pursuant to the needs of individual clients.

Kristina Yu, Ph.D. | Director of Living Systems & Senior Scientist kyu@exploratorium.edu | 415.528.4869 Working with Darcie on the life sciences gallery for the Exploratorium relocation project has been the most transformative and enriching experience of my career. When we started, I was a biologist who happened to work at a museum. At the end of the project, I finally felt like a true museum professional - this was due to Darcieâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s amazing mentorship and guidance of me and my team. Not only did Darcie work with us to articulate our truest intentions and deepest aspirations for our gallery, she coached us in how to navigate relationships within and outside of the organization with grace and professionalism. She coaxed all of us involved with the project to challenge our assumptions and limitations, to take calculated risks and think big. And, when it came time to fabricate and implement, Darcie was the standard bearer for pragmatism, implementation, and organization. FROGS at the Exploritorium 12

Darcie Fohrman, based in San Francisco, collaborates with all types of museums throughout the country to create multidisciplinary, engaging, moving exhibitions that are relevant to contemporary issues and audiences.

A highly skilled facilitator, Darcie brings four decades of experience to forming and working with interdisciplinary teams to create innovative visitor experiences. She has been exhibition designer, developer, creative director, and/or project director on dozens of projects in response to the needs of the project and the planning team. Currently she guides stakeholders to determine, facilitate, implement, and assess the planning process for complex multi-faceted concept plans. Her award-winning exhibitions include Daniel’s Story: Remember the Children at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; FROGS and Revealing Bodies at the Exploratorium; QUESTION at Stanford University’s Cantor Arts Center; COURAGE: The Carolina Story That Changed America, Changing Places: From Black and White to Technicolor, and NUEVOlution: Latinos and the New South at the Levine Museum of the New South; and Above and Below: Stories from the San Francisco Bay at the Oakland Museum of CA. As the Director of Exhibitions at the San Diego Museum of Art, Darcie introduced the team approach to planning and design for many large, memorable exhibitions like Dr. Seuss: From Then to Now – a “blockbuster” exhibition that went on to travel by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES). As Director of Exhibitions for Chicago’s Spertus Museum of Judaica, she co-developed and designed the first permanent Holocaust exhibition in the United States. A past president and active member of The Museum Group, Darcie is also a founder and former Vice President of the National Association for Museum Exhibition (NAME) and for 10 years coordinated the NAME sessions at the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) annual meetings. For eight years, Darcie taught exhibition development and design as a faculty member of the Museum Studies graduate program at John F. Kennedy University. She continues to educate in museum studies programs and serve on panels at conferences. She serves locally as president of the board of Youth Arts Collective (YAC) in Monterey, CA.

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Amparo Leyman Pino is an education consultant based in the San Francisco Bay Area, and the principal and founder of Yellow Cow Consulting. She holds a BS in Psychology and a Master in Education. She is an alum of the Noyce Leadership Institute, currently known as the Informal Learning Leadership Collaborative, ILLC.

Her career in museums and science centers started in 1994, when she worked as an explainer at Papalote Museo del Niño, the children’s museum of Mexico City. Her passion for education created an interesting career path where Amparo has had the opportunity to bridge the formal and informal education settings. She has been the Director of Education of Futurekids de México, the Director of Educational Content and Programming at the Bay Area Discovery Museum, and she is the co-founder and former Principal of a private elementary school in Mexico City. Amparo has lead projects related to teaching, counseling, training, professional development, curriculum development, assessment, research, technology integration, content development, after school programs, e-learning and informal education of science, technology, the arts, entrepreneurship and interpersonal development through exhibits and programs. She has been involved in relevant projects such as the creation of twelve new museums in Mexico and the Middle East. She is the designer of new programs for babies, toddlers and preschoolers for the Children’s Museum of Jordan. In her role as advisor, Amparo provided guidance to the design of the award-winning exhibit MegaMind at the Tekniska Museet in Stockholm, Sweden. Currently her practice is focused in diversity and inclusion with two main practices: content and strategies. Amparo is dedicated in developing new ways of learning for multilingual communities, she is an expert in adapting language and culture of programs and exhibits; her work at the Monterey Bay Aquarium is opening new avenues of understanding through the creation of blended language programs. Amparo’s work includes institutional processes to understand and embrace practices for diversity and inclusion. The training and professional development programs are helping institutions to create capacity and shift the understanding of diverse audiences. Besides the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Amparo has worked with institutions such as the Santa Cruz MAH, the Lawrence Hall of Science, The San Diego Natural History Museum, Cornell University, Sietecolores, the Desert Botanical Garden, the California Academy of Sciences, the Virtual Science Center, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, Children’s Museum of Jordan, the King Abdul Aziz Center for World Culture, the NiseNet, El Laberinto de las Ciencias y las Artes, BizWorld, Kidzone, Library Works, Demco, and the Swedish Exhibition Agency.

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Dr. Robert “Mac” West‘s career-path evolved in stages – academic, curator, museum director and, most recently, consultant and proprietor of Informal Learning Experiences. Through this experience he has had continuous engagement with natural environments – initially as an evolutionary biologist and paleontologist – then trough the institutions he directed: Carnegie Museum of Natural History and Cranbrook Institute of Science. Both had extensive natural areas and increasingly important programs devoted to the preservation of natural environments and protected areas for various species.

His consulting work has concentrated on expanding the public’s views of, interpretation of, and exploration of both local natural environments and the array of the world’s ecosystems and their inhabitants. He also has provided numerous studies of emerging and developing institutions by means of feasibility studies, careful analyses of nearby and overall similar comparable institutions, and intense engagement with numerous aspects of the local community. This community engagement is increasingly essential for the development of appropriate and relevant programs and activities as well as jointly designed and developed programs that enhance local life and resources. During his diverse career Mac has served on the boards of the Association of Science and Technology Centers, the Visitor Studies Association, the Association of Science Museum Directors, the Michigan Museums Association, the National Center for Science Education, and (locally) the Rocky Flats Museum. He regularly reviews proposals for the National Science Foundation and the Institute for Museum and Library Services. ILE’s clients are indeed worldwide – outside of the United States Mac has worked in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, China, Brazil, Thailand, Israel, Mexico, and Canada. California clients include the California Academy of Sciences, Fresno Metropolitan Museum, Monterey Bay Aquarium, Turtle Bay Exploration Park, Fossil Discovery Center in Madera County and the Gateway Science Museum at California State University Chico. There have been an interesting array of projects dealing with various approaches to the natural environment from both botanical and broad diversity perspectives. They include agritourist studies in New Mexico and Colorado, programming and audience development for the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago, master planning for the Shaker Lakes Nature Center outside Cleveland, programing for the North Carolina Museum of Life and Science, Durham, environmental and economic programming for the River Center in Alpena, MI, Penobscot River trail interpretation, Brewer, ME, and environmental issues of the Atchafalaya Basin in Louisiana. Mac received his bachelor’s degree from Lawrence College in Wisconsin and his MS and PhD from the University of Chicago. After a year of postdoctoral research at Princeton University, he was adjunct faculty at Adelphi University in New York, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, University of Pittsburgh, and Oakland University in Michigan. He has served as a Fullbright Specialist in Sri Lanka, was awarded the Arnold Guyot Award by the National Geographic Society for his Arctic research, and is an honorary lifetime member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

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Approach, Scope of Services, and Products Creating an interpretive plan is a journey of discovery.

In order to create an actionable interpretive plan, we have to get to know the Garden and the people at the Garden. Your mission. Your values. Your goals. Your organizational structure and culture. And, most importantly your visitors. Our proposal process suggests a schedule that will give us enough time to build understanding and trust. This becomes challenging for us all with the merger of three distinct destinations and cultures. We suggest that if our team is selected, we get to know each other as soon as possible and work with you before the funding is in place to begin the interpretive planning process. Our collective experience as The Museum Group could contribute to the merger process. Early engagement will inform the Information Gathering Phase of the Planning process and we could help the Gardens with the efforts to secure project funding. Building on the goals of your merger, we suggest working with you to develop and articulate Visitor Impact Statements and Desired Outcomes for the grant application which will give us precious time to strategize interpretive approaches, test ideas, and create the interpretive plan when the merger is complete. We have the experience and expertise that you require to investigate your fullest and most vibrant interpretive potential; to guide you through the process of uncovering your storyline, honing your interpretive messaging, and identifying the most engaging and meaningful experiences for visitors. We understand that you strive to instill meaning and create relatedness between the Garden and its guests in the context of beauty and horticultural practice. We are excited about the possibility of collaborating with you to achieve these goals. The final interpretive plan will be worthy of San Francisco Botanical Gardens’ standards and celebrate the research and education that the institution will bring to the table. In turn, the plan will provide interpretive experiences that are accessible to a wide audience, useful for the local community, attractive to tourists, and memorable and exciting for all. • We will explore the fullest range of opportunities for visitors to learn from their garden encounters. We’ll explore a broad scope of interpretive media ranging from horticultural displays, to simple, mechanical and technology-based media techniques. • We’ll develop an organized hierarchy of messaging, and intelligent information graphics including diagrams and message maps. We’ll develop look-and-feel standards for graphic communication. • We will assist you in presenting the plan, as it unfolds, to staff and stakeholders. • We will work with you to bring a logical implementation schedule and a budget into alignment. • We will be your invested partners in the planning process. We’ll work openly, swiftly, creatively, and collaboratively to complete our contract in 2022.

Three Phases

In order to execute the project, we have identified the following phases of work, plugged in the expectations outlined in the RFP, and inserted some of our own recommendations for process and product. We acknowledge that contracting The Museum Group will occur following the grant process and we want you to know that we will support that effort in good faith.

Phase One: Information Gathering

For three months following contracting, we will engage the Gardens in getting to know the place as a whole, the nuances of each of the destination gardens, and the staff’s hopes and dreams. We will formally articulate goals for the Interpretive Planning process, and review plans of the past and any relevant materials the Garden feels should inform our process (such as existing visitor research studies, curriculum guides, public program calendars, etc.). We will also get the know the Gardens intimately. We will be visitors ourselves and take in as many visits and participate in actual and virtual programming as much as possible. We will also survey the field of Gardens and Arboreta to identify inspiring best-practice models for interpretation and visitor engagement. This phase will conclude with a “Findings” report.

Phase Two: Underpinning Interpretive Planning

During this phase (five months in duration) we will engage the three staffs that represent the Botanical Garden, the Conservatory of Flowers, and the Japanese Tea Garden. We will conduct personal interviews, facilitate “Garden Group” conversations, and facilitate all-staff workshops aimed at bringing common goals for the entire garden experience to the fore. Community dialogues will be critical in order to most appreciate and understand visitors’ expectations and varying degrees of attachment to each of the gardens. Through Community Conversations we will identify what aspects of the gardens should be retained and what aspects are in need of clarification and improvement. We will assess the interpretive offerings of the Gardens including the take-home literature as cited in the RFP, but the signage programs, public programs, and school programs as well. We will assist the San Francisco Botanic Garden, Conservatory of Flowers, and Japanese Garden in surveying their membership and/or visitors through web-based survey tools. Working with horticultural, educational, and administrative staff, and docents (at least) we will develop an outline of interpretive messages that each of the gardens is most suited to communicate. This “content outline” will be developed as a hierarchy of communication aims structured as a “trellis” to support the highest-level messages of the Golden Gate Gardens overall. We will aim to find commonality among the three very unique gardens so that the interpretive plan unifies the Gardens while preserving each garden’s unique nature and identity. NOTE: Our very special team brings some “added value” to this phase of work in that we are committed to the Gardens’ accessibility to the widest possible audience and therefore our teammate Amparo Leyman Pino will lead the charge to explore dimensions of inclusion, diversity and equity for all garden-goers. Mac

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West will lead conversations about environmental sustainability and science literacy in order to build a bridge between the horticultural practice at the gardens and visitors’ interests in gardening and environmental literacy. As a die-hard interpreter, Matt Kirchman will translate the technical language of the content outline into the lay-language of the visitor. He will serve as our team’s visitor advocate. Darcie Fohrman will serve as our owner’s advocate, ever-mindful of the Garden staff’s visions and dreams, and consistently be in touch with the needs of the institution. The products of this phase of work will represent the 50% Plan deliverable.

Phase Three: Planning Specifics

The final phase of work (six months in duration) finds us working with the Garden team to envision how the interpretive plan is expressed on the sites and producing the maps, diagrams and graphic systems to aid in the intellectual and physical navigation of the Gardens. Our content outline will be expressed as a “message map” superimposed on maps of the properties. We will identify how the over-arching messages – those at the top of the hierarchy trellis – find a home in every garden, and how each garden expresses its own interpretive program toward a unified whole. Using our own visit experiences and our dialogue with visitors (from phase two) we will identify the interpretive journey of the Gardens. We will take into account the traffic patterns of the Gardens and between each garden, knowing that it is nearly impossible (nor desired) to mandate certain circulation routes. Our approach to message mapping will be to ensure that interpretive experiences are appreciable in various circulation schemes. In exploring the intersection of physical and intellectual navigation schemes, we may be able to recommend tour routes for more captive audiences. We will work with the Garden team to understand the goals of the iconography system and its use by both garden staff and visitors. Matt Kirchman’s ObjectIDEA team has a fantastic graphic designer who is very skilled at maps and icons and will be able to explore options for this system once we understand its functionality more. We will develop a system of both wayfinding and interpretive elements for the Gardens (including signage, technology, and more) and map them into place. Having learned much during the COVID19 pandemic, we will feel compelled to investigate both random and one-way circulation scheme that facilitate distancing. After an approval of the Interpretive Plan, we will provide a comprehensive list of implementation initiatives and anticipated costs for implementation. A logical calendar for implementation will be developed in collaboration with the Garden team. The above will be submitted at the end of September 2022 as 100% Interpretive Plan,

Project Timeline

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Relevant Experience Our collective experience runs deep – far to deep to list comprehensively. The following is a list of relevant highlights and a select few projects are profiled more deeply in the pages that follow. Master Planning Experience at Gardens and Parks

Each of our team members has been responsible for producing valuable and innovative interpretive master plans for museums, heritage sites, zoos and aquariums, and parks and gardens. In fact, some of have set the standard in the industry. • United States Botanic Garden, Washington DC • Longwood Gardens, Kennet Square, PA • Sarah P. Duke Gardens, Durham, SC • Belmont Bay Science Center, Woodbridge VA • California State University, Chico, CA • Audubon Institute, New Orleans, LA • Akron Zoological Park, Akron, OH • Zoological Society of Florida, Miami, FL • Jarrett Prairie Center at the Byron Forest Preserve, Byron, IL • Alachua Savannah at Paynes Prairie, Gainesville, FL • Nature Center at Shaker Lakes, Cleveland, OH • Desert Botanical Garden, Phoenix, AZ • Bok Tower Gardens, Lake Wales, FL • California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco

UNITED STATES BOTANIC GARDEN Washington DC

Matt Kirchman of ObjectIDEA worked with the United States Botanic Garden to develop a comprehensive Interpretive Master Plan that encourages the institution to focus, aiding the staff in the planning and delivery of all types of Garden experiences. It organizes information and interpretation in an intellectual and physical hierarchy, matching message to media to make sure they work well individually and collectively. And the plan offers flexibility within a framework – the interpretive plan can be updated, added to, and reorganized as programs are implemented and evaluated over time. The over-arching themes solidify the close connections between plants and people, between plants and our nation’s history, and between plants and the workings of a sustainable natural environment. Such a diversity of messaging allows each and every visitor to validate what they do know about plants and “grow what they know” into new knowledge and enthusiasm for plants

SARAH P. DUKE GARDENS AT DUKE UNIVERSITY Durham, NC

Sarah P. Duke Gardens is a 55-acre botanic garden in Durham, North Carolina consisting of four gardens: • The Historic Gardens • Blomquist Garden of Native Plants • Culberson Asiatic Arboretum • Doris Duke Center Gardens Each garden has a distinctive focus and a unique look and feel. The gardens are a mixed of manicured plantings, natural growths of plants, and educational spaces that perform a number of functions. The Gardens border Duke University and the city of Durham, and are enjoyed by hundreds of thousands annually from both communities and beyond. In 2019, Matt Kirchman of ObjectIDEA worked with the Administrative, Education and Curatorial Departments at Duke to develop an interpretive master plan. The plan identifies an “umbrella message” about the benefits of gardening ranging from food and fiber to environmental services like soil retention and water management.

GIANTS OF LAND AND SEA AT CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES San Francisco, CA

Giant of Land and Sea is the first multilingual exhibition created by the California Academy of Sciences. Life at the edge of land and sea is dynamic and ever-changing, where fog rolls in, tectonic plates tremble, and sea otters frolic in the kelp forest canopy. In the Academy’s newest major exhibit, science becomes sensory as guests explore Northern California’s natural wonders through a variety of interactive experiences: • Feel your way through an immersive fog room • Keep your balance in an earthquake simulator • Virtually ascend to the top of a towering redwood Giants of Land and Sea celebrates the extraordinary biodiversity in their own backyard – and the scientists and citizens taking action every day to sustain it. The Academy celebrates the multilingual region by translating the Giants exhibit into Chinese, Filipino, and Spanish. Yellow Cow Consulting provided its methodology for the overall adaptation of language and culture, and served as proofreader of the Spanish language to assure its accuracy, authenticity and warmth.

Elaine McGinn | Senior Director, Visitor Experience & Community Engagement Desert Botanical Garden emcginn@dbg.org | 480.481.8174 (p) | 480.748.8822 (c) I am delighted to recommend Amparo Leyman Pino to lead DEAI work for your organization. She has worked with the Desert Botanical Garden for the past four years as our DEAI consultant leading workshops that leave everyone excited and energized. Her enthusiasm and knowledge in how to build cultural capacity is not only motivating, it has changed our understanding of the work we must do to be a diverse and inclusive organization. Amparo is an exceptional leader and a passionate DEAI partner for the Garden. 32

DESERT BOTANICAL GARDEN Phoenix, Arizona

Amparis LeymanPino of Yellow Cow Consulting worked the Desert Botanical Garden to develop an over-arching strategy for diversity, equity, access, and inclusion. The goal of the project is to transform its interpretative plan into a bilingual tool to make its learning experiences accessible to the Latin American diaspora. What they found in this process is that it requires a deeper and comprehensive plan to impact the whole institution, and not limit it to the interpretation. The Garden has participated in the GENIAL symposium, and Yellow Cow Consulting has facilitated a series of workshops called the Firecracker, to ignite enthusiasm, knowledge and create capacity from the Board to the floor staff and volunteers. The project is still ongoing and yielding positive results.

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How we’ll work with the San Francisco Botanic Garden

“Plan” is a Verb and a Noun – a process AND a product. In order to successfully accomplish the work in a professional and exceptional manner, it is necessary to clearly establish and adhere to certain principles of operation for this project: • Establishing an honest and collaborative approach to the work – we are all on the same team with the same goals • Understanding of the deliverables required of our consulting team and the client’s stakeholders • A clear acceptance of and adherence to, by all involved parties, the personnel and organizational responsibilities and contractual deadlines for this scope of work • Open and continuous communication between The Museum Group and the entire project team • Early identification and aggressive resolution of issues • Disciplined adherence to commitments and schedules by all involved parties Our project implementation strategy is to ensure transparent communication, adherence to schedule and scope, flagging and tackling potential issues, and most importantly, keeping the Garden staff’s minds at ease.

R E A L-T I M E SC HEDU L I N G We use a web-based scheduling software that outlines a critical path to execute the project. It is a “living schedule” and is updated frequently in real time. Project participants log-on to view and modify and to report their progress. Upon notice of award, the project team will add granularity to the schedule we’ve created thus far, covering every aspect of the work plan, establishing individual responsibilities and deadlines that allow for smooth project performance.

CO L L A BO RAT I VE & C REAT I VE PRO BLEM SOLVING Our process is always a collaborative one, where we establish a partnership with the Client in the sharing of ideas and momentum towards mutual goals. We begin every project with a kickoff meeting to focus specifically on the expectations and involvement of all project team members; clarifying the project mission and goals, reviewing the schedule and milestones, and discussing roles and responsibilities. We know how important it is to hear each other and be heard by all. During the project, we deeply immerse ourselves in the subject matter, and we encourage significant dialogue between our team and yours. We advocate for workshops over formal presentations, and so when we meet with

you – whether in mid-phase or at the point of submitting a deliverable – we will facilitate a charette approach to creative problem solving. We meet virtually via shared desktop and face-to-face as often as time and budget can afford. Two of our team members are local to San Francisco and two of us are remote.

O N E P L ACE FO R EVERY T HI NG Life is messy enough. We have invested in on-line storage and communication tools for your project to ensure that each team member is not routinely searching for an email attachment or unsure of a meeting date or agenda. We manage research articles and content, photographs and images, and design products via a shared on-line library. Our management toolkit employs Smartsheet, Goto Meeting, and Dropbox quite regularly. These are very intuitive management, communication, and storage programs and are very easy to learn without any formal training.

W E ’ R E A L L JUST PEOPL E All the management tools in the world will not substitute for basic human-to-human dialogue. Like you, we desire to engage in an enjoyable and creative process. We want to feel a sense of pride in having done a great job, and we desire to put beautiful and meaningful cultural projects in the world. These kinds of benefits only come from a developing a creative and cordial relationship with our collaborators. And good project management underpins this relationship.

Rates and Project Costs

What Might the Project Cost?

We are certain that we can perform the scope of services for a fee that falls within the budget as stated in the Request for Proposals. This preliminary take on a project cost is fully negotiable with a greater understanding of time commitments and material expenses.

Phase One: Information Gathering (3 months)

$26,211.00

Phase Two: Underpinning Planning (5 months)

$43,685.00

Phase Three: Planning Specifics (6 months)

$52,422.00

Expense Budget for travel and materials (not to exceed)

$11,680.00

TOTAL $133,988.00