editorial from the executive director

Park philanthropy: A margin of excellence or a margin of survival

by Dr. Houck Medford, executive director, the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation

Park philanthropies have traditionally provided the National Park Service with funds which provide a margin of excellence, but continued federal underfunding could force them to provide a margin of survival. This is unfair to the donor who has made a good faith contribution with the expectation that their gift will support the “excellence” factor. This arrangement could even potentially establish a form of double taxation: a donor pays for parks once via the IRS, and the second time via a charitable gift to compensate, unwittingly, for a park operations offset.

The General Accounting Office has reported that all friends organizations ( e.g Friends of the Smokies and the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation) and cooperating associations donated about $208 million from 1997 through 2001. When added to the National Park Foundation's (a congressionally established national philanthropy group) $103 million in contribution for the same period, the total generated by charitable entities was $311 million. Park philanthropies want to multiply those sums, but have several times expressed concerns that budget offsets can destroy the motive force of private donors, which is to provide added value to our national parks.  

But now, the tipping point has been reached in actuality, in the NPS (National Park Service) FY '04 budget. If not checked, the situation will worsen in FY '05 and beyond. Specifically, the Congress's annual increases in park operating funds (ONPS), while greatly appreciated, have failed to keep abreast of agency costs, so that operating capacity has decreased substantially.  

In the case of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Blue Ridge Parkway , these parks have had to canabalize themselves to maintain operations.  

This paradoxical process has resulted in: a) increases too small to pay for permanent employees; b) the Service's raiding of other operational line items to fund raises; c) inflationary costs; d) internal Service assessments; e) homeland security requirements; f) and emergencies like last year's western wildfires and the Hurricane Isabel clean-up. 

The cuts occur at a time when national park business plans, conducted by private sector consultants, reveal already acute personnel shortages fueled by operating shortfalls of $600 million annually. The detailed Business Plan for the Blue Ridge Parkway, published in 2003, identified a deficit of $10.6 million, meaning that it would take a roughly 40 percent increase to operate the Parkway at standard.

So where will these necessary funds come from? From Congress, more than likely, to the extent there is a vocal and empathetic public and that funds can be found. Philanthropy? Provided that public-spirited donors have confidence that their contributions will be will be properly applied.  

One philanthropic industry marker whether it be a university or national park is that the supporting partners (e.g. alumni and constituents) should be able to generate 10% of the total operating budget of the parent institution (for the Parkway, this would be $1.5 million annually). One recent study (1), which examined the value of the Parkway scenery, concluded that respondents were very willing to pay to preserve the scenic quality of the Blue Ridge Parkway . With 20 million visits a year, the potential philanthropic capacity is obviously huge.

Park philanthropies are professionally organized and operated businesses that operate on the sound principal that charity must supplement federal funds, not replace them. When the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation was established in 1997, an internal exercise among park staff was to record a perception of need that could be satisfied by the Foundation' resources. Some of the items that came back on that “want list” were boom axes, back hoes, and weedeaters . Clearly, this is where park philanthropy should not be directed.

Park philanthropies need to be discretionary, too, in how funds are distributed to their partner parks. In some parks, the philanthropy organization simply writes a check, but in others such as the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation, fund distributions for projects and programs must meet two criteria: the project/program must have a lasting value; and 2) the project/program must enhance the visitor experience.

Clearly the responsibility for park stewardship falls on the shoulder of many – congressional representatives, park superintendents and staff, and the public.

The greatest progress in preserving our parks will be made when public demands good stewardship of their park resources and makes their backyard national park a personal investment priority.

(1) Blue Ridge Parkway Scenic Experience Project Report Phase 2 – Final Report. Matthews, GL; Stewart, S; Kask, S.

The Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation is a member of the Friends Alliance, an organization of national friend groups and foundations which support national parks.  Some of the opinions contained are inclusive of text addressed to the Director of the National Park Service in April, 2004.

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