Catching Rain in Your Community: Effectively Marketing a Voluntary Rain Garden Program

The City of Fort Wayne set out to develop a rain garden demonstration and incentive program to ensure the success of their campaign. An aggressive marketing and public information effort helped the community begin to recognize, support, and adopt the program as their own. However, the rain garden program is just the first step in their “Green Infrastructure Initiative”. They are hopeful this program will be a springboard to look at the overall sustainability component of their wet weather control and conveyance infrastructure, and start a broader marketing effort within the community for cleaner and safer water. The goal is that their rain garden program will quickly become the basis for future green infrastructure, and be the leading example for other sustainable programs.