Greater Washington National Parks

TALKING POINTS
FRIENDS ALLIANCE MEETING
May 18, 2006
J. Glenn Eugster, National Park Service

Greater Washington National Parks


Summary

I am delighted to have the chance to share our Greater Washington National Parks Donation and Fundraising effort with the National Park Foundation.

GWNP’s include 14 units, more than 100 sites, about 88,000 acres of parkland, nestled in a metro region of more than 3,000 square miles which is home and a work and play destination to more than 5.5 million people. It is a rapidly changing region that expects to add 2 million people by 2030 lose between 28-43 acres of green space each day. It is a challenging region that is under the castle walls and home to all of the US Congress and Senators.

We currently have 34 accounts at the NPF, with about over 14 million dollars total. Two of those accounts are GWNP Fund accounts.

Our effort is a modest one that began in 2000 so please consider that it is a work in progress. I offer these comments with the recognition that what you do with us is most difficult work and that we are rookies compared to most of you and your NPS colleagues.

A number of you, especially Greg Moore and Kent Olsen, have helped us a great deal. The time, insights and advise of our Friends groups helped to make our effort possible so don’t be surprised when you see the “finger-prints” of others on our work.

Although this region of NPS is unique you may want to consider the information I share for its value for: 1) working with a cluster of related-NPS units anywhere; 2) working with parks in metropolitan or micropolitan regions.


Greater Washington National Parks Fund effort is intended to:

· Protect, restore and enjoy the Greater Washington National Parks
· Make the parks more relevant to the region and it’s future
· Communicate—and connect, more effectively with the public we serve
· Integrate NPS, and partner activities, to the everyone’s advantage
· Use assets to leverage help to meet park and public needs. Supplement funds provided by Congress to improve the quality of our work and extend our reach.

I am prepared to share of our work, or talk about how we got to where we are, whatever is of most interest to you.


Background

May 2000: Meeting with NPS-NCR, WASO and NPF leaders.

Followed meetings and discussions with Ast. Sec. John Berry

· Parks have been successful fundraising individually but some felt we needed to do something at a grander scale. More sustainable fundraising was sought
· Messaging first, then strategy. Thematic approach. Sell to the region first.
· NPF was working with NPS and parks were donors were being approached by individual parks—thru NPF. Why not ask for one pot?
· Collaborative effort was suggested. Hard to get started. Have to be in this for the long-haul.

Park Interests:

· Money and budget concerns.
· What gives us the most leverage to secure funding?
· We are your neighbors!
· Help us with a shared vision!
· Bring together the dispersed park units.

First---we needed to decide whether we wanted to invest time in this. This wasn’t on our current priority list

Second—--we needed to use the Cluster to talk and listen.

Third, we needed to answer the question, what is in it for me?

Fourth, we needed to do something quick—Tyson’s opportunity.

Fifth, we agreed to get people together for 6-8 hours with facilitator to develop a NCR donations and fundraising strategy.

Sixth, we wanted to create a GWNP Fund to attract Steve Case of America On-Line.

Seventh, we wanted to look at other models.

Eight, we agreed to describe the concept first. NPF offered to develop a concept paper.

Ninth, we agreed that we would organize a message for all NCR parks

June 2000: Supers Meeting

· Encourage unrestricted income
· Lesser known parks need to benefit
· Leverage awareness
· Work session with NPF suggested to design proposal

August 24, 2000: Supers Workshop

Workshop, facilitated by LEAD, to design a proposal.

NPF presented a concept and the group discussed it.

We wrestled with the tension of a template idea versus a designed idea—and survived.

Breakout groups discussed what the elements of the strategy needed to be. Eight options—including status quo and a smaller 3-4 park demo project, were discussed and reviewed. The elements of the options formed the proposed alternative:

· Entity clearly understood by public
· Buy in to a regional messaging/ marketing plan
· Unify all parks—network of parks.
· Clearinghouse
· Inside and outside concept

Agreed to describe what we agreed to do; get comments from the supers; ask for commitment to pursue this.

September 2000: Initial Design Overview Prepared

Lisa Mendelson, Kate Richardson, Audrey Calhoun, others were key.

Goal: to ensure that the National Parks in the National Capital Region are more prominent and relevant to the diverse communities they serve and to supplement funds appropriated by Congress.

Sub goals:

· Improve service to the community
· Improve communication to the residents of metro-Washington DC
· Educate and motivate the public
· Improve the public’s awareness of NPS


GWNP Fund proposed as a committee of NPF with 20 Trustees of the Fund, and an Executive Director. Proposal included the creation of a NPS parks Fund Council—four elected supers plus the RD to represent the needs of parks and programs and to serve as a liaison.

Fundraising cost us money. Initial budget required NPS to use non-appropriated funds from four parks, with a donation from LL Bean through NPF to get started.

After individual consensus building sessions with each of the parks, review by NPS WASO and the Solicitor’s Office, on May 8, 2001, Greater Washington National park supers and regional leaders passed a resolution to start the Fund and elected the first Council.

NPF Support

In 2002 we were assisted by a full-time Executive Director provided by NPF. This assistance was helpful bringing some dollars and corporate partners to NPS. However, hiring an executive director proved to be premature given NPF goals and our lack of a consistent revenue stream. In 2003 NPF and NPS agreed that NPF would not provide day-to-day support to the Fund. Since that time the GWNP’s have relied on a more diverse approach to accomplishing our work. We expect to affiliate with a non-profit and have a private sector day-to-day manager of the Fund at some time.

Greater Washington National Park WORK

We have followed the direction we received from Greg Moore about:

Messaging and Communications + Friends-raising + Donations and Fundraising = Action

So what have we been doing?

Messaging and Communications

· Working with LL Bean we prepared a single map of all GWNP’s
· Working with the Supon Design Group we developed a set of icon images to create a better public identity of GWNP’s.
· Using the images we have begun to produce pins and patches.
· We developed, with the help of our Communications Office, a brochure and a quarterly newsletter for the GWNP’s. These feature the icons and describe ways to get involved.
· We also asked our supers what they needed donated funds for. There reply was diverse but we found that everyone needed funds for:
--Trees
--Trails
--These are some of the more attractive and attainable T-Need’s. Toilets, trash, transportation, talent, and time are on the common needs list but we decided to start with trees and trails.

· As a result we designed a new tree donation effort—The National Cherry Tree Fund, and a trails effort— Greater Washington National Parks Trails Forever

The Cherry Tree Fund is a way for people to donate funds to the GWNP’s to help sustain the historic Cherry trees within the National Mall and Memorial Parks.

The Trails Forever effort is intended to …..

Friends-raising

· We created an NCR Partnerships Office, within the Regional Director’s Office, to integrate donation and fundraising activities—when appropriate; put a better face on the region; seek grants; and serve as a liaison to NPF, NCBF, Unilever, and efforts that cut-across multiple parks.
· We have held a series of forums with NPS and park friends groups to discuss parks, open space and outdoor recreation. Over the last four years we have made more than 35 forums and workshops involving more than 1,200 public and private leaders. Our speakers have included local experts and those from afar including Greg, Kent, Brian O’Neill, Steve Birganti, and others.
· We launched our Trails Forever effort, in collaboration with Unilever/ Lipton, and NPF, last June as a way to encourage more use of the parks, more volunteers and more awareness of other stewardship options.
· We helped with the premiere of a film, at the Kennedy Center and locally, on one of our park sites—Dyke Marsh. More than 800 people attended the two premiers.

Donations and Fundraising

· NPF and other partners have helped spur donations and inkind services from:
--LL Bean
--Soupon Design Group
--Unilever/ Lipton
--Ford
--Starbucks
--Washington Rotary

· Increased visibility has resulted in donations to the GWNP Fund and to park funds from numerous local businesses, churches and individuals.

· Increased visibility has resulted in federal grants.

· Overall we have received a variety of individual and corporate cash donations to the Fund totaling nearly $300,000 and more than that amount in inkind services.

Action

· Through our partnership with NPF we have begun to work with Unilever/ Lipton on the Trails Forever effort. Initially NPF gave us seed money to start the Trails effort. We combined the NPS/ NPF idea of Healthy Parks-Healthy Living with our Trails Forever proposal and Unilever has been a wonderful supporter. They have provided us with funds and technical services for:
--Trails Forever brochures for our parks
--The June 2005 Trails Forever/ Healthy Parks-Healthy Living event—including tee-shirts, posters, and more.
--A regional trails guide
--Park trail grants
--Trail maps for each park
· We leveraged $100,000 of new federal funds for tree planting and replacement.
· Through our partnership with the National Cherry Blossom Festival, Inc. we have increased the public’s awareness of the National Cherry Tree Replacement Fund. Donations have increased from individuals, civic groups and corporations.
· We recently linked Unilever and NCBF for the 2006 Festival and with Unilever’s help we:
--Produced a Cherry Blossom Trail Guide
--Funded a temporary welcome station that served 55,000 people during the Festival. The staton provided info on the Festival, the GWNP’s, Healthy Parks-Healthy Living and NPF.
--Provided funds for a Cherry Blossom Volunteer Corps.
--Provided the National Mall & Memorial Parks with funds for logistical needs.
--Unilever also funded a Trails Forever/Healthy Parks-Healthy Living parade float which was seen by more than people during the Festival Parade.
--Unilever also provided support to the NCBF Inc.
· In June we will host the National Parks America Tour at five of our parks, inside and outside the beltway, bring corporate dollars and volunteers to help park managers with projects.

Closing

We are continuing to explore alternative ways to work with NPF, our cooperating associations, our concessions operators, and our friends groups and despite our progress the next year will be challenging.

Five years of work has been a bit like “group rock-climbing”. It is slow hard work but once you make the journey to higher ground the view—and the air, is much, much better. It’s a risky proposition along the way and you will encounter obstacles and an occasional snake. It reminds you that if you want to get to higher ground you have to be patient and persevering. It also reminds you, daily, that there is no substitute for hard work, working with friends and friends groups, and the importance of the cause.

We have more believers now than when we started and we are optimistic that this approach will make a difference in our individual and collective work.

Thanks for sharing this time with me. Continued success in your work.

I have packets of information for each of the friends groups.

Questions?