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Glacier Park's fundraiser partner releases strategic plan

by Chris Peterson Hungry Horse News
| April 23, 2014 6:50 AM

The Glacier National Park Conservancy recently released a three-year strategic plan for how the nonprofit will support and enhance the Park’s programs and experience.

The plan is a notable change in the way the organization and the Park will work together going forward. In the past, the Park Service came up with a list of projects it would like help funding.

Now according to Conservancy CEO Mark Priess, the two entities will collaborate in a longer-range planning effort that not only involves the Conservancy and the Park but other partners, including the new Park concessioner Xanterra Parks and Resorts, the Glacier Institute, Glacier Park Volunteer Associates and former Park concessioner Glacier Park Inc. to name a few.

The Conservancy is Glacier Park’s official fundraiser. Last year, it supported about $500,000 in Park projects, and its goal is to increase that amount in the coming years — supporting projects that it calls “the margin of excellence.”

Those projects range from the popular Citizens Science program, where volunteers gather data on animals and birds in Glacier Park for Park scientists, to the Native American Speaks program.

Half of the Park’s annual budget of about $26 million is base funding, according to Park superintendent Jeff Mow. The other half is project money derived from a variety of sources, including gate and entrance fees, Federal Highway Administration money and rehabilitation funding for historic structures like the Many Glacier Hotel.

Base funding has been flat or even reduced over the past few years, so money raised by the Conservancy is becoming more important to keeping popular programs going.

Some smaller national parks rely on philanthropy just to operate, Mow said. Glacier Park isn’t in that position, he said, but it facilitates the Park’s ability to “offer excellent programming.”

Collaboration doesn’t always mean money — it could mean offering in-kind services or simply working together, Priess said.

For example, the Conservancy started the Glacier Youth Partnership program last year which brought teens and young people in their early 20s to the Park to complete trail work and learn citizen science. This year, the Conservancy will look to expand the opportunities, working with members of the Glacier Associates on some of the Park’s historic structures.

The Conservancy is also working closely with the Park on moving the visitor center in Apgar to the transit center at the T-intersection near the west entrance. The goal is to complete the move by mid-May, Mow said, though it could take until the middle of summer.

A longer range vision is to possibly expand that facility — there is room for expansion without further environmental analysis, Mow said. The Park has an excellent visitor center on the east side at St. Mary, but the west side’s visitor center has always been less than what the Park would like, Mow said.

The Conservancy will also focus its fundraising efforts with the regional community. It already has significant support in large cities across the U.S., Priess said, but in the past six months, they’ve been meeting with virtually every chamber of commerce in the area. The response has been positive, he said.

“We want to provide them with an opportunity to plug in and engage with the Park,” he noted.

The Conservancy has one major fundraiser on tap for this summer — the Backpackers Ball at the Green Valley Ranch in Coram on Aug. 2. A similar event held last fall raised about $100,000 for Park programs. This year the goal is $120,000.

Tickets for an evening of food, drink and dancing are $150 per person. For more information, call the Conservancy at 892-3250 or visit online at https://glacierconservancy.org and follow the links.