Washington State Parks Foundation
Your Parks. Your Voice.
Washington State Parks Foundation
EIN: 36-4473679
as of September 2024
as of September 09, 2024
Mission
Our purpose is to ensure a vibrant and inclusive Washington State Parks system for generations to enjoy. We engage, expand, and sustain a broad base of supporters who give to, advocate for, and treasure our state parks.
Ruling year
2001
Executive Director
John Floberg
Main address
1752 NW Market Street, #744
Seattle, WA 98107 USA
EIN
36-4473679
Parks
Arts and culture
Environment
Population served
Children and youth
Economically disadvantaged people
Adults
Families
NTEE code
Fund Raising and/or Fund Distribution (C12)
Parks and Playgrounds (N32)
Other Art, Culture, Humanities Organizations/Services N.E.C. (A99)
IRS subsection
501(c)(3) Public Charity
IRS filing requirement
This organization is required to file an IRS Form 990 or 990-EZ.
Tax forms
Communication
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Washington State Parks Foundation picks up where state public funding ends. The state parks are public lands that are intended for the benefit of everyone, and they do receive government funding – but in these days of fiscal belt-tightening, the parks rely more than ever on the tradition of private philanthropy by citizens just like you who care about protecting these priceless, irreplaceable places. Parks used to receive 85% of their support from the state general fund -- but today state parks must raise 80% of its operating funds by charging usage fees for day access, camping and other activities. The struggle to fund the daily operations of state parks results in shortfalls to complete improvements, host free, public events and rebuild facilities, while the fee-based system impedes access for low-income families to these special public lands.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Check Out Washington - Adventure Kit & Passes for underserved comminities
We want to ensure that today’s kids become tomorrow’s conservation leaders, so we’re taking on the challenge of getting young boys and girls from underserved communities to visit state parks. We are working with public libraries to provide Adventure Packs that have a loanable free state park pass along with field guides, binoculars and e-books featuring diverse kids in the outdoors.
We target underserved schools in rural and urban areas to ensure that students from low-income families are introduced to the cultural and natural history of state parks.
Park Improvement Project Grants & Advocacy Campaigns
Through Park Improvement Projects donors ensure that Washington’s iconic landscapes, long distance trails, cultural treasures and historic sites can be enjoyed for generations to come. Our work provides direct funding through the Park Improvement Projects Grants to state parks and advocacy and outreach campaigns to secure operations funding for state parks and legislative support for larger, multiyear projects that require capital budget investments.
GRANTS: We bring together funds from our donors to create an annual Park Improvement Projects Grant fund to complete projects led by state parks staff and done in in partnership with local Friends of Parks Groups, youth groups and volunteers. Donors have a say in selecting projects by voting online to prioritize projects to fund.
Community Connections via Park Events
With donor and corporate sponsorship support, we co-lead and fund events across the state parks system to create a welcoming place to learn and share our natural and cultural history as well as provide safe and fun places to recreate and take up a new outdoor activity. We reach out to communities that haven’t traditionally enjoyed the parks or are economically disadvantaged.
Our programs include:
Traditional and Folk Arts in the Parks to introduce visitors to state parks through connections to nature and cultural traditions. An example event includes the Canoe Days Celebrations to provide tribal youth the opportunity to participate in a unique experience with tribal elders. Other events focus on music, dance and poetry.
National Get Outdoors Day Celebration where we welcome newcomers to an American experience and Washington tradition of camping, hiking and recreating outdoors.
Where we work
Videos
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Total number of grants awarded
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Park Improvement Project Grants & Advocacy Campaigns
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Parks include: Fields Spring, Ginkgo Petrified Forest, Fort Ebey, Palouse Falls, Olmstead Place, Sun Lakes-Dry Falls, Riverside, South Whidbey, Alta Lake, Fort Flagler, Moran, Peace Arch, Fort Worden
Number of new advocates recruited
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Park Improvement Project Grants & Advocacy Campaigns
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Advocates have signed petitions and provided names and addresses to connect signers with their legislative districts and legislators.
Number of schoolchildren and underserved families who participate in education & park access programs
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth, Caregivers, Families, Parents, Economically disadvantaged people
Related Program
Check Out Washington - Adventure Kit & Passes for underserved comminities
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Our Sustainable Development Goals
Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.
Goals & Strategy
Reports and documents
Download strategic planLearn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
Improvement Goal: Increase and strategically deploy our annual grants to partners to improve our parks, trails and historic places.
Advocacy Goal: Advocate to ensure there is public funding for operating and stewarding the state parks system and rebuilding and repairing facilities and trails.
Education Goal: Inspire the next generation of stewards to care for our state parks via science, natural and cultural history educational programs that use state parks as learning labs.
Outreach Goal: Connect Washingtonians to their public lands by welcoming underrepresented communities and newcomers to our state to experience a Washington tradition of recreating outdoors at state parks. This strategy includes supporting free access to parks via partnerships with local libraries.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
Improvement Strategy: We will double our annual grants by engaging supporters and corporate sponsors who value public lands. We will establish internship and volunteer support programs for parks in remote communities and target financial resources, in-kind support, matching funds to partner organization to stretch our resources.
Advocacy Strategy: We will sustain and nurture over 17,000 advocates who will speak out on behalf of parks highest needs.
Education Strategy: We will expand our partnership from schools to also include all libraries in Washington state so that all communities can access natural history educational materials and free access to state parks.
Outreach Strategy: We will support new arts and culture programming to connect Washingtonians with their diverse heritage and cultural traditions while addressing federal funding shortfalls.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Our organization will leverage work with our volunteers as well as nonprofit and agency partners, while using new technologies and online resources to efficiently implement the goals of our donors and the entire state parks community.
Improvement and advocacy goals will use online systems and multiple robust social media channels to cultivate and nurture members. These systems will be used to communicate with and cultivate supporters who will give and advocate for improvement projects and be inspired to create peer to peer campaigns for their favorite parks projects. We will use online systems to alert advocates to sign petitions and contact legislators.
Our education goals will be met by using satellite and interactive technologies to allow classrooms to engage with field experts at state parks. We will use our partnerships with educators to increase engagement in new geographies and with rural communities where low-income families and students reside. Finally, to reach our outreach goals we will work by creating new partnerships with local community and social service organizations that represent new users and volunteers who collaborate with us to create special events and opportunities to engage with targeted populations.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
Between 2016 and 2022 we have:
-Increased support for on the ground projects by 400% via new Park Improvement Projects to restore parks facilities, install new playgrounds, restore trails and conserve historic places. We have secured over 10,000 sustaining supporters who fund our programs and work.
-Sustained over 17,000 Advocates who signed online petitions seeking to secure sustainable public funding for operating and stewarding the state parks system as well as advocating to repair and build long-distance trails. The result has been the expansion of public funding support for state parks via operating and and capital budgets.
-Crafted new pilot program that started at reaching 517 residents in Pierce and Spokane counties as well as cities of Mount Vernon and Spokane with special day use passes to allow underserved residents to access and use state parks. This program now reaches every library and community in the state of Washington .
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
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How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?
To identify and remedy poor client service experiences, To identify bright spots and enhance positive service experiences, To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To identify where we are less inclusive or equitable across demographic groups, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve, To understand people's needs and how we can help them achieve their goals, To rank priority projects to invest in.
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Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, We take steps to get feedback from marginalized or under-represented people, We take steps to ensure people feel comfortable being honest with us, We look for patterns in feedback based on demographics (e.g., race, age, gender, etc.), We look for patterns in feedback based on people’s interactions with us (e.g., site, frequency of service, etc.), We engage the people who provide feedback in looking for ways we can improve in response, We act on the feedback we receive, We share the feedback we received with the people we serve, We tell the people who gave us feedback how we acted on their feedback, We ask the people who gave us feedback how well they think we responded
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What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
The people we serve tell us they find data collection burdensome, It is difficult to find the ongoing funding to support feedback collection, public disclosure laws relating to libraries can make it hard to contact patrons to get feedback.
Financials
Revenue vs. expenses: breakdown
Liquidity in 2022 info
58.78
Months of cash in 2022 info
23.1
Fringe rate in 2022 info
27%
Funding sources info
Assets & liabilities info
Financial data
Washington State Parks Foundation
Revenue & expensesFiscal Year: Jan 01 - Dec 31
Washington State Parks Foundation
Balance sheetFiscal Year: Jan 01 - Dec 31
The balance sheet gives a snapshot of the financial health of an organization at a particular point in time. An organization's total assets should generally exceed its total liabilities, or it cannot survive long, but the types of assets and liabilities must also be considered. For instance, an organization's current assets (cash, receivables, securities, etc.) should be sufficient to cover its current liabilities (payables, deferred revenue, current year loan, and note payments). Otherwise, the organization may face solvency problems. On the other hand, an organization whose cash and equivalents greatly exceed its current liabilities might not be putting its money to best use.
Fiscal Year: Jan 01 - Dec 31
This snapshot of Washington State Parks Foundation’s financial trends applies Nonprofit Finance Fund® analysis to data hosted by GuideStar. While it highlights the data that matter most, remember that context is key – numbers only tell part of any story.
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Business model indicators
| Profitability info | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unrestricted surplus (deficit) before depreciation | $90,041 | $16,508 | $141,543 | $221,468 | -$45,346 |
| As % of expenses | 29.4% | 4.9% | 39.9% | 44.9% | -7.9% |
| Unrestricted surplus (deficit) after depreciation | $89,157 | $15,068 | $140,103 | $220,028 | -$46,586 |
| As % of expenses | 29.0% | 4.5% | 39.3% | 44.5% | -8.1% |
| Revenue composition info | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total revenue (unrestricted & restricted) | $380,519 | $344,986 | $506,322 | $654,463 | $991,354 |
| Total revenue, % change over prior year | 54.8% | -9.3% | 46.8% | 29.3% | 51.5% |
| Program services revenue | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Membership dues | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Investment income | 0.8% | 0.3% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.1% |
| Government grants | 0.0% | 1.3% | 5.3% | 4.0% | 1.2% |
| All other grants and contributions | 99.2% | 98.3% | 94.7% | 96.0% | 98.7% |
| Other revenue | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Expense composition info | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total expenses before depreciation | $306,493 | $333,945 | $354,843 | $493,510 | $572,636 |
| Total expenses, % change over prior year | 32.8% | 9.0% | 6.3% | 39.1% | 16.0% |
| Personnel | 22.2% | 23.5% | 40.2% | 42.1% | 38.6% |
| Professional fees | 31.3% | 40.2% | 14.2% | 4.7% | 5.7% |
| Occupancy | 4.2% | 3.9% | 3.6% | 3.0% | 2.9% |
| Interest | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Pass-through | 6.2% | 7.6% | 14.6% | 27.1% | 31.6% |
| All other expenses | 36.1% | 24.7% | 27.4% | 23.1% | 21.3% |
| Full cost components (estimated) info | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total expenses (after depreciation) | $307,377 | $335,385 | $356,283 | $494,950 | $573,876 |
| One month of savings | $25,541 | $27,829 | $29,570 | $41,126 | $47,720 |
| Debt principal payment | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Fixed asset additions | $9,280 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Total full costs (estimated) | $342,198 | $363,214 | $385,853 | $536,076 | $621,596 |
Capital structure indicators
| Liquidity info | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Months of cash | 12.5 | 13.0 | 17.5 | 16.1 | 23.1 |
| Months of cash and investments | 12.6 | 13.0 | 17.6 | 16.1 | 23.2 |
| Months of estimated liquid unrestricted net assets | 10.9 | 10.6 | 14.8 | 16.0 | 12.9 |
| Balance sheet composition info | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash | $317,999 | $361,249 | $518,565 | $660,792 | $1,104,471 |
| Investments | $3,080 | $276 | $897 | $0 | $1,543 |
| Receivables | $74,255 | $43,683 | $36,580 | $53,589 | $40,891 |
| Gross land, buildings, equipment (LBE) | $9,280 | $9,280 | $9,280 | $9,280 | $9,280 |
| Accumulated depreciation (as a % of LBE) | 9.5% | 22.0% | 37.5% | 53.0% | 66.4% |
| Liabilities (as a % of assets) | 2.8% | 2.0% | 1.9% | 0.9% | 1.6% |
| Unrestricted net assets | $287,887 | $302,955 | $443,058 | $663,086 | $616,500 |
| Temporarily restricted net assets | $108,255 | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Permanently restricted net assets | $0 | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Total restricted net assets | $108,255 | $102,992 | $112,820 | $52,199 | $516,300 |
| Total net assets | $396,142 | $405,947 | $555,878 | $715,285 | $1,132,800 |
Key data checks
| Key data checks info | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Material data errors | No | No | No | No | No |
Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Documents
Executive Director
John Floberg
John Floberg is Executive Director of the Washington State Parks Foundation, where he collaborates with state park leaders, advocates and local communities to create a healthier, more sustainable park system that is welcome to all. He has both a Master of Science and a Master of Business degree, and has held positions as a wildlife biologist at North Cascades National Park, a scientist at the Nature Conservancy in Washington and served as Chair of Seattle's Urban Forestry Commission.
Number of employees
Source: IRS Form 990
Washington State Parks Foundation
Officers, directors, trustees, and key employeesSOURCE: IRS Form 990
Compensation data
There are no highest paid employees recorded for this organization.
Washington State Parks Foundation
Board of directorsas of 11/09/2023
Board of directors data
Mr. David Ammons
Retired from Sec. of State Office
Term: 2014 - 2023
Carol Shaw
University of Washington
Andrew Elofson
Perkins Coie Trust Co
Brandon Middaugh
Microsoft Corp.
David Ammons
Retired, Washington State Secretary of State
Diana Dupuis
Ex Officio, Washington State Parks
Mary Laurie Connelly
Ex Officio, Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission
Mark Middaugh
Middaugh Law, PLLC
Michael Wanderer
Retired, Physician
Stuti Sureka
TIBCO
Rakesh Kumar
Jim van Loben Sels
Mt. Spokane Ski - Snowboard Park
Nathan Engman
Columbia Bank
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Yes
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
Gender identity
Transgender Identity
Sexual orientation
Disability
We do not display disability information for organizations with fewer than 15 staff.
Equity strategies
Last updated: 11/08/2021GuideStar partnered with Equity in the Center - an organization that works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems to increase racial equity - to create this section. Learn more
- We review compensation data across the organization (and by staff levels) to identify disparities by race.
- We ask team members to identify racial disparities in their programs and / or portfolios.
- We analyze disaggregated data and root causes of race disparities that impact the organization's programs, portfolios, and the populations served.
- We disaggregate data to adjust programming goals to keep pace with changing needs of the communities we support.
- We employ non-traditional ways of gathering feedback on programs and trainings, which may include interviews, roundtables, and external reviews with/by community stakeholders.
- We disaggregate data by demographics, including race, in every policy and program measured.
- We have long-term strategic plans and measurable goals for creating a culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.
- We use a vetting process to identify vendors and partners that share our commitment to race equity.
- We have a promotion process that anticipates and mitigates implicit and explicit biases about people of color serving in leadership positions.
- We seek individuals from various race backgrounds for board and executive director/CEO positions within our organization.
- We have community representation at the board level, either on the board itself or through a community advisory board.
- We help senior leadership understand how to be inclusive leaders with learning approaches that emphasize reflection, iteration, and adaptability.
- We engage everyone, from the board to staff levels of the organization, in race equity work and ensure that individuals understand their roles in creating culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.
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