Nonprofit organizations, including cultural institutions such as public gardens, typically practice succession planning less frequently than organizations within the for-profit sector. Despite research that indicates a significant number of nonprofit Executive Directors will retire in the near future and that public gardens arguably assume one of the highest levels of risk in the nonprofit sector due to differences in generational workforce trends, the extent to which succession planning is practiced
within the American Public Gardens Association (the Association) membership is unknown. Therefore, the objective of this research is to understand the extent to which succession planning is practiced within the Association membership.