Vote Your Idea to the Top!

Rally the voting troops!

Anyone can vote for your project—up to 25 times per person between January 5, 2017 and March 1, 2017. The more votes the greater your chance of winning.

Let everyone know that they can vote every day for your project—until they reach their limit of 25 votes per project, during the Voting Stage (January 5, 2017 – March 1, 2017). Or, for the busy person, they can submit their 25 votes per project all at once!

IT’S EASY! All your supporters need to do is click on the Vote button on any of your project submissions. You and your supporters can vote on just your project, or multiple projects. Oh, and please note that once a person has cast a vote, it cannot be withdrawn.

Remember: The 15 school garden projects that have the highest number of votes in each of the two funding levels will become finalists.

Bring Out the Heavy Hitters

To become a winner, you need some muscle on your side! Invite a natural health product retailer, or a number of them, to join your team and support the neighbourhood school.

Your big idea for a school garden will be a huge appeal to these local businesses. The more involved with your school garden project the higher the number of votes you will be credited.

Here is how it works.

When a natural health product (NHP) retailer accepts your invitation to support your big idea—in the following ways . . . you will automatically be awarded 1,000 votes!

That’s in addition to the number of votes that the owners and staff can individually vote!

Ways NHP Retailers Can Support Your Big Idea

Put up a poster in their store to describe your big idea (click here for a template you can use) [template needs to be branded with Foundation’s logo, etc.]
Invite their customers to get behind your school garden project by voting online (click here for a template of a card they can hand out to their customers) [Foundation branded)
Invite their colleagues, family, friends to support your project (each person that registers gets to vote 25 times for your project!

Let them know that this is a great way to support their community. And we will feature them on your project page on the Foundation’s web site.

Find a natural health product retailer in your community here: Find an NHP Retailer

(Chris / Stephen to set up)

You Can Be a Finalist!

Yes, you can! The 25 ideas that receive the most votes in each of the two funding levels, including the idea with the most NHP retailer votes will become finalists.

The school garden projects who make the top 25 finalists will be reviewed and evaluated by our independent panel of judges. They will choose the five winning ideas.

The Grand Prize Winner will receive $20,000!

You’ve Made It to the Finalist Stage! Now Comes the Judging.

The panel of judges has been given clear guidelines on how the finalists’ projects will be evaluated. Each idea will be scored on a scale from 0 to 10 and weighted based on the percentages, as follows:

Short & Long-term Sustainability of the Garden	35%
Impact on the Community	20%
Realistically Implemented by June 2017	10%
Natural Health Product Retailer involvement	10%
Number of Votes	10%
Creative Elements to the Project	10%
Presentation and Quality of Submission	5%

Mark your calendar. April 15, 2017 winners will be announced!

Next Steps

Register on the Foundation’s Create a Garden. Inspire a Generation.
Download and review the Big Ideas Submission Questions
Download the Big Ideas Guide
Download and complete the Create a Garden. Inspire a Generation. School Garden Entry Submission