Washington State Parks Foundation

Improve: providing grants and building capacity to implement critical State Parks projects. In 2022, this program funded 22 park improvement project grants across the State, initated work to install a new playground at ike kinswa and continued wildlife research study of State Parks in western Washington.

Welcoming for all: connecting people and celebrating their diverse traditions at State Parks. The program purpose is to help State Parks realize its mission and vision that Parks "connect all washingtonians to their diverse natural and cultural heritage and ensure Parks are "cherished destinations with natural, cultural, recreational, artistic, and interpretive experiences". A match is provided to a grant from the national endowment for the arts - folk & traditional arts program that funded programs and concerts at 12 State Parks, supporting 15 partner organizations while providing over 30 paid opportunities for artists, musicians, craftspeople, and other culture bearers representing Washington's diverse heritage. Other programs are dedicated to address park access barriers by tripling the numbers of free day passes loaned by libraries to underserved families. We continued engagement with 50 diverse visitors to secure feedback to redesign Parks facilities to make them more welcoming for first-time visitors..

Program 2: connect: building an engaged and informed State Parks community. Critical to our mission is building a Parks community and connecting people to shared experiences in nature. We supported programs to help prepare first-time visitors, support for underserved communtiies to access State Parks and increased coordination with State Parks to align messages. We reached out to over 200,000 Parks users and our over 9,000 donors who act on behalf of our mission and give to, advocate for and treasure our State Parks.

Other services include organizational capacity building for friends of State Parks and advocacy work with partners and the public.