Essex Heritage, a nonprofit organization that seeks to preserve and enhance the resources of the county’s heritage area and the parks that compromise it, received a $25,000 grant from the National Park Foundation that will go towards examining how to better represent traditionally overlooked communities in the area.
The National Park Foundation, the nonprofit arm of the National Park Service, selected 41 park partner organizations to receive Strong Parks, Strong Communities grants, which total $1.7 million. The grants will help organizations address the most pressing needs of the parks they serve and enable them to invest in strategic planning, community engagement, improving visitor experience in parks, increasing organizational relevancy and resiliency, and launching new fundraising campaigns.
“We are grateful for this Capacity Building Grant from the National Park Foundation, which
allows us the opportunity to take a closer and more critical look at how we are representing all
communities in the Heritage Area,” said Essex Heritage CEO Annie Harris in a statement.
Will Shafroth, the president and CEO of the National Park Foundation, said he believes philanthropy and partnership are key to the success of the nation’s parks, and the grant funding doled out represents an investment in the belief.
“New funding will help park partners across the country to build capacity, improve strategic planning and fundraising initiatives, and to more deeply engage the communities and national parks they serve,” he said. “Ultimately, investing in the growing community of park partners is a commitment to expanding and transforming the role philanthropy plays to ensure national parks reach their full potential.”
The Strong Parks, Strong Communities is a collective effort by the National Park Foundation, the National Park Service, and National Park Friends Alliance to grow national park philanthropy
across the country.
Vickie Mates, the executive director of National Park Friends Alliance, added that the grants will “elevate the creative opportunities, organizational efficacy, and bandwidth of the professional network that Friends Alliance serves.”
“We look forward to our continued collaboration and celebrating the outcomes created by these incredible grantee projects,” Mates continued.
Charlie McKenna can be reached at [email protected].
