Growing the Garden

The Chicago Botanic Garden's ten-year strategic plan, "Keep Growing," was launched in 2009. The Keep Growing plan includes a $125 million capital and endowment initiative to enable the Garden to continue to engage, educate, and inspire, and to improve plant and ecosystem health close to home and around the world.

In June 2013, the Garden’s Board of Directors unanimously approved Plants for Life 2020, a campaign to raise $90 million to complete the objectives of the strategic plan, including its two most important projects, the Kris Jarantoski Campus and the Regenstein Foundation Learning Campus.

A highlight of the Plants for Life 2020 plan was naming the horticulture campus on the south end of the Garden the Kris Jarantoski Campus to honor the guiding vision and 37 years of extraordinary service to the Garden by the Garden’s executive vice president and director. A July 2014 groundbreaking ceremony officially marked the beginning of work on the new campus, for a new tree nursery that will support all plant production, from indoor and outdoor floriculture for seasonal displays to permanent collections. The nursery will be completed in the fall of 2015.

Another highlight of the Plants for Life 2020 plan was a $10 million gift from the Regenstein Foundation, pledged by Garden board member Susan Regenstein on behalf of her family’s foundation. As a result, the centerpiece of the Regenstein Foundation Learning Campus, the Education Center and Garden, will begin to take shape at the north end of the Garden following groundbreaking in April 2015. The Learning Campus will be completed in 2016.

Fundraising continues for the Kris Jarantoski Campus and the Regenstein Foundation Learning Campus; if you would like to help the Garden complete these important capital projects, contact Patty Shanahan, director of planned and major gifts, at Click here to show mail address or (847) 835-6838.