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Master Plan for Marin Art and Garden Center

For nearly 10 years Marin Art and Garden Center has been engaged in a comprehensive master planning process to plot a long-term strategy for preserving, rehabilitating and enhancing our historic 11-acre site and gardens. The mid-century modern buildings central to our National Register of Historic Places designation date from the Center’s founding nearly 80 years ago and many structures, specimen trees and landscape elements date from the estate era of the 1860s. 

The Master Plan provides a road map for addressing both deferred maintenance and Center improvements over the coming decades, ensuring that Marin Art and Garden Center remains a place for the community to celebrate for the next 80 years and beyond.

Center staff and the board of trustees work with a team of architects, landscape architects, engineers, environmental scientists, horticulturalists, building experts, historians and community organizations and leaders to develop the long-term plan.

Major Areas of Study:

  • The evolving role of the Center in the community—utilization of the place now and in the future
  • Physical attributes of the site, including topography, water and native plants and animals
  • Physical structures—rehabilitation of existing; planning for new facilities
  • Adapting the landscape for a changing climate—tree canopy, native species, water-wise practices
  • Improving the visitor experience, especially safety, access, interpretation and programming

A summary of the Marin Art and Garden Center Master Plan is available here.

With the Master Plan as a guide, Center staff and the board outlined the first phase of improvements, which is called the Sowing the Seeds Capital Campaign. This $7 million effort is seen as the first of several capital improvement projects needed over the coming years.

Documents

Master Plan Summary

View a presentation on the latest vision of the plan, from Autumn 2024.

Tree and Plant List

Download a copy of the tree and plant lists that were part of the Master Plan Phase 1 submission to the Town of Ross.

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Website funded by a generous gift from Phoebe Cowles

IRS Guidelines for Gifts from Donor Advised Funds to Support MAGC Events

Thank you for your interest in giving to the Marin Art & Garden Center events from your Donor Advised Fund (DAF) or Family Foundation.

We sincerely appreciate your generosity and support!

To ensure your gift follows the current IRS guidelines for DAF/Family Foundation support of an event, we would like to share the below guidelines with you.

  • Raffle tickets, tickets to galas and other special events, auction items, and benefits conferred in connection with a DAF/foundation grant are not permitted.
    • IRS has specifically ruled that fair market value associated with fundraising events cannot be separated, a practice known as “bifurcation.”
      • For example, with Edible Garden, if the price of the ticket is $200 and the FMV fair market value (non-tax-deductible amount) is designated to be $50, the donor must pay from sources other than her DAF/foundation for the full value of the ticket ($200) and not just for the non-tax-deductible amount ($50).
    • We recommend you confer with your financial advisor to confirm if any of these examples of how donors may still use their DAF to support an event would work for you:
      • A donor could sponsor the event, and not attend, and pay fully out of the DAF/foundation.
      • A donor could sponsor the event using DAF/foundation funds and attend by purchasing an individual ticket through non-DAF/foundation funds.
      • A donor could sponsor the event, join the event as a guest of another donor/table guest, and pay fully out of the DAF/foundation.
      • A donor could sponsor the event and host the afforded number of people at their chosen level as long as they pay for the seats at the lowest ticket price ($200 for Edible Garden) outside of their DAF.
        • As an example, a $1,500 sponsor that covers 2 guests, could pay for their sponsorship with $400 from a different source of funds, and then give an additional gift of $1,100 out of their DAF.

 

Please email Tod Thorpe, Director of Development at tod.thorpe@maringarden.org to discuss your gift to Marin Art and Garden Center