Gardenality Redefined
In 2018, Gardenality became a 501(c)3 non-profit organization with a mission to educate, engage, and motivate individuals with little-to-no experience with farming, gardening, or plant horticulture through interactive online learning technology. By creating a community of online farmers, gardeners, and horticulturists, Gardenality will serve the public by providing an important learning environment with real-world example of sustainable farming, urban gardening, environmental stewardship, and land conservation. By providing these services, Gardenality seeks to help reverse the downward trend in the number of farms and farmers in the United States and to help educate farmers and gardeners around the world in the best practices of sustainability to ensure the presence and efficacy of farmlands for many generations to come. Please help us to support our mission. Since we are a 501(c)3 charity, your donations are tax-deductible.
Gardenality History
In 2008 chance brought together two visionary minds that just so happen to share two very similar personalities yet two very different skill sets. Brent, the expert gardener, and Chason, the web designer and computer programmer, both able to look at something not for what it is but for what it could become. Together they began to brainstorm a solution to bridge the gap between the cutting edge technological innovation of the 21st century and age-old gardening. Originally, Gardenality was created with the idea of a member-driven site to bring gardeners together from all over the world to share ideas and knowledge.
Over the years the team and vision of Gardenality have changed. While Brent is no longer with Gardenality, we have added new team members like Dr. Nikki Sawyer, a biologist with a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Emory University. An avid gardener, environmentalist, and plant geek, Nikki has helped to bridge the transformation of Gardenality into a non-profit organization with a focus on education and land conservation.
How did Gardenality get its name?
As with any new idea, it started as a concept way before it's was given an official name. Originally coined Gardenai by Brent, Chason sought out various dot com sounding names like Gardendom, Gardenoso, and Gardenality. Holding true to our vision of a web site for gardeners, by gardeners, the final call was made after the results of a poll. Gardeners spoke and Gardenality won by a landslide. Now we just couldn't think of any other name that would do!
How was Gardenality made?
Gardenality’s brand, look, and feel were created by Chason. He is also the primary programmer that coded the majority of the approximately 80,000 lines of code that make up the Gardenality BETA. A fellow programmer no longer with the team, Brian Young, contributed to the initial development of the BETA as well, focusing on the various social networking components and keeping Chason from going completely loopy from staring at too much code.
Where did the initial information come from?
Brent lead the charge in creating the hundreds of detailed articles, plants, and thousands of attribute relations. Assisted by a local nursery and several other gardening experts, Gardenality received a major jump start. Now Gardenality is poised to become a major player in plant, gardening, and landscaping information online. We want to be the Wikipedia of gardening! The best part is we treat the information with respect, giving it the latest technological tools so it is indexed properly making it a breeze to search, share, and study.
Where is Gardenality headed?
Gardening is all about growth and Gardenality is no different. Gardenality underwent a big redesign in 2018. We have become a non-profit organization with a mission to educate others about the importance of plant knowledge, farming knowledge, gardening knowledge as well as educating and promoting sustainable farming, urban gardening, environmental stewardship, and land conservation for future generations. With the funds provided by a generous donor, Gardenality made its first land purchase in 2018 towards its goal of helping to conserve land for the future.
But that's not all we have planned! There are many more ideas floating around our heads and we are anxiously awaiting the ideas you share as well. We’ve made the ground, now the sky’s the limit!
How Can I Help?
Option 1: We are partnered with Amazon Smile. You can click here to set up your Amazon Smile Account to use Gardenality. Then, you can shop on Amazon as normal (make sure to log into smile.amazon.com when you shop!) and 0.5% of the price of eligible purchases will be donated to Gardenality. Thanks!
Option2: Click here to make a donation using our link to PayPal. As a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, your donation is tax deductible! Our Tax ID number is 83-1416752. Thanks!
Option 3: You can go to our Facebook Page and click "Create Fundraiser" at the top of the page. Follow the instructions to create a personalized fundraiser that will appear on your Facebook feed and encourage your friends and family to help meet the goal that you set. This is a great idea for birthdays and other occasions when you have everything you need and would rather raise money for a worthy cause!
