Our funding goal is to raise $12,000 USD so that The Plant Exchange can dramatically extend its community impact by becoming a nonprofit organization (NPO). Incorporating creates a legal entity enabling The Plant Exchange to enter into business dealings, form contracts, and own property. We want The Plant Exchange to be come self sustaining and not solely dependent on donations from the good people and businesses in our community. Also as a NPO, The Plant Exchange can file for tax-exempt status that provides additional reward to the companies and people who donate to our plant-loving, informal association of members.

In gratitude for your contribution we have fun and useful donation rewards for you that we update regularly.

The donations you make will be used for:

• Legal fees  $3,800 – for legal advice in setting up the not-for-profit status including a national copyright search, fees and registration of our name.
• Accounting fees  $2,300 – for set up the accounting structure and reporting mechanisms, and the purchase of software licenses for accounting software, Quickbooks.
• Operations  $3,100 – we have an active volunteer team who are the backbone of this endeavor. However, we still have to hire part-time staff to manage important year round planning and logistics details, managing our online presence, responding to inquiries received and provide more rich content to our community.
• Storefront and Storage space $2,800– rent for a location where we could have a storefront with remaining space used for storage. Currently we can only accept donations immediately before the exchanges in March and October and these items have to be stored in private homes, and only in the last week at the event venue. Having a year-round space for storage would allow us to collect and maintain donations throughout the year resulting in more great stuff to give away at our events!

Should our supporters help us get beyond our initial funding goal of $12,000 we have other ways to grow The Plant Exchange. Here are our stretch goals:

• Used Pick-up Truck – This would help us pick up donations more efficiently, and increase the number and variety of plants that end up at our events.
• Outreach for Sponsorships and Partnerships - To serve more people, we will need to recruit more users and reach out to local municipalities and companies for partnership and support. Developing this will require paid help working year round. Developing  this stream of revenue will ensure the sustainability of the non-profit and keep the events free to attendees.
• Online Tools and Resources  - We would like to develop a series of online tools and resources for other communities to use to plan, create and hold their own plant exchanges.  
• Technology and Infrastructure - We would like to improve the way we manage our database of volunteers, sponsors and participants. This would pay for user support for various additional software tools such as Salesforce.com. 

The Benefits from The Plant Exchange today are:

• An average of 2500 plants are exchanged at each event!
• Hundreds of people from the San Francisco Bay Area and Oakland in particular are brought together around a common passion in a free and open forum.
• A platform for master gardeners to share their knowledge.
• Inspiring and teaching people how to grow healthy plants.
• To help people grow food-bearing plants as a way to combat food deserts.
• Free organic gardening material and lessons on how to make your own.
• A platform for local artists to share and sell their art.

The Plant Exchange as a nonprofit will also:

• Offer year round access to many of the plants, goods and services available at the events through our storefront.
  
• Offer year round classes and workshops on gardening and horticulture.
• Help bring more community organizations, nurseries and others in the horticultural world in closer contact with each other.
• Just be a cool place to hang out and meet other plant lovers.

We pride ourselves in running a fun and well organized event where people feel that they received much more than they contributed.  Yet The Plant Exchange’s popularity and wild success might be it’s undoing.  Odette needs more help than her stalwart volunteers can provide to keep running twice a year, FREE events with more than 800 attendees.  With $12,000 we can get Odette the year round, part-time paid administrative and technical support she needs, and we can open a storefront with storage so that all the materials and equipment required to put on these events are under one roof.  This will expand access to the goods and services The Plant Exchange can now only provide twice a year. Help us give the people of the San Francisco Bay area what they have been asking – more Plant Exchanges, more often.  With enough help, we can also create an online resource so this amazing experience and resource is not limited to just the San Francisco Bay area.  You could be a part of bringing a similar exchange to your neighborhood in Anywhere, USA or Anywhere, Europe or Anywhere, South America!