Company description

Denver Urban Gardens started as a grassroots movement in the late 1970s when gardeners in Denver’s Northside neighborhood came together to create a space for a group of local Hmong women to grow their own food. Working collaboratively, they transformed a vacant parking lot into what is now the Pecos Community Garden, and over the following years, more community gardens began to spring up as the group helped other neighbors do the same.

DUG was formally incorporated as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization in 1985 to support Denver residents in creating sustainable, food-producing neighborhood community gardens. Over the past 35+ years, our network of community gardens has expanded across six metro Denver counties. We currently oversee 200 community gardens, including 66 school-based community gardens, and 20 food forests.

In addition to our gardens, DUG programs provide access, skills, and resources to help people grow food in community and regenerate urban green space. We offer youth programming, skill-building workshops for adults, community-centered events, volunteer workdays, free and reduced-cost seeds and seedlings, and compost training.

Job description

ESSENTIAL JOB DUTIES
New Gardens (35%)
● Identify new sites for DUG community gardens based on community feedback,
community interest, site viability, food forest sites, DUG’s new site rubric and
organizational priorities. From 2024-2027, the majority of new DUG gardens will be in
Denver’s West Area.

● Work in partnership with Director of Garden Leadership (DGL) to engage community in
design and installation of new gardens. If a Food Forest in co-located on a site, this work
will also be done in partnership with the Food Forest team.
● Design new sites either independently or with contracted landscape architect.
● Incorporate Therapeutic Gardening Initiative (TGI) elements into all new gardens -
sensory garden and free play space.
● In 2025, evolve site standards incorporating innovative, climate conscious and
accessible design and materials.
● Oversee vendor and material management.
● Adhere to all guidelines and restrictions laid out in DUG’s land use agreements, grants
and local, state and federal laws. Ensure all necessary approvals are in hand before
work begins.
● Ensure all site tests are conducted and tracked.
● Plan and implement workday schedule to complete builds in partnership with
Development team (Volunteer Coordinator and Director of Partnerships).
● Mentor and support physical infrastructure team.
Garden Maintenance and Improvements (35%)
● Establish annual work plan and budget for garden maintenance and improvement
projects based on DUG staff site inspections, capital improvement schedules (i.e.
10-year plot border replacement, etc), community requests and, in some cases, grants.
● Plan annual Baseline Infrastructure Initiative (BII) work based on annual garden adoption
revenue.
● Work in partnership with Salesforce/IT team and DGL to streamline inbound Work Order
process to track and respond to garden emergencies and inquiries in a timely manner.
● Incorporate TGI elements into five existing DUG gardens per year - sensory garden and
free play space.
● Identify optimal work plan utilizing DUG-only, garden-led and DUG-led volunteer work
days.
● Oversee vendor and material management.
● Build DIY resource library for gardens/gardeners in partnership with Education and
Engagement team.
● Co-create Field Operations innovations - i.e. DUG Hubs.
● Mentor, support and manage the physical infrastructure team.
Community Collaborators (10%)
● Provide design consulting services for DUG’s Community Collaborators - typically 3
engagements each year. Each engagement consists of 3 meetings which will be a mix of
virtual and in person.
○ Some engagements may include providing testimony at developer’s entitlement
hearings.

● Establish and track work plans in partnership with development team and DGL.

Garden Policies (5%)
● Ensure all activities on DUG garden sites adhere to rules and restrictions laid out by
DUG’s landowner partners.
● Evaluate and evolve all policies that impact garden physical infrastructure including but
not limited to injury reports, water, trash, land use, bee policy, pet policy, etc.
Admin (10%)
● Full responsibility for annual physical infrastructure budget - new builds, maintenance
and improvements.
● Track progress of spend versus budget in partnership with finance and development.
● Full responsibility for annual evaluation of projects and metrics relating to gardens as
spaces of impact including administration of surveys, focus groups or other methods.
● Participate in all Field Operations status and planning meetings.

Compensation

this position is: salaried, varies DOE, $70,000.00 - $100,000.00

Application instructions

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Deadline

December 01, 2024