In 2013 the Glacier National Park Conservancy was founded through the merger of the Glacier Fund and the Glacier Natural History Association.

Glacier Fund was the official nonprofit fundraising arm of Glacier National Park while the Glacier Natural History Association ran the official gift shops and was a donor as well.

In that first year, the combined conservancy gave $850,000 back to support Glacier National Park projects.

This year, the conservancy has pledged $4.39 million to the park, more than 25% of the annual $16 million National Park Service budget.

Of that $4.36 million, about $2.88 million has already been allocated toward park projects. The conservancy and the park’s staff identified project needs just before the government shut down on Oct. 1, Conservancy Executive Director Doug Mitchell said in an interview recently.

Of local note to Columbia Falls High School students is the continuation of the School-to-Park program. In that program Columbia Falls High School students build badly-needed housing cabins and other structures for the park.

The program has been a win-win for the school district and the Park Service, as students learn the building trades while the Park Service has been able to update its housing and other needs over the past few years.

The conservancy has also funded the Park Service’s expert builder who assists in the construction of the cabins, in addition to school staff. It was the conservancy’s “Great Fish Challenge” project this year, Mitchell noted. The Great Fish Challenge is a Whitefish-based program that raises funds, along with matching grants, for dozens of nonprofits across the Flathead Valley. The School-to-Park program alone costs about $186,500 a year.

The conservancy is also looking to fill in key funding where government funds may fall short. That includes the longstanding Native America Speaks program, where Native Americans give regular talks in Glacier through the summer months, and the “Half the Park Happens After Dark” effort, an astronomy program that celebrates Glacier's fabulous dark skies every summer.

“We are at a pivotal crossroads. Cuts within the National Park Service and uncertainty about future operational priorities threaten our shared work helping preserve, what Wallace Stegner famously called ‘the very best idea we ever had,’ our national parks,” the conservancy’s recently released funding needs guide notes. “But here in Glacier, we are ready to respond.”

The funding centers on wildlife, wilderness and wonder. The wonder includes education programs, like the previously mentioned astronomy program while the wildlife includes continued support for the citizen science projects in Glacier. Data from that project has proven invaluable, with recent findings noting a sharp drop in Glacier’s iconic mountain goat population over the past decade.

In addition, the conservancy will help fund ongoing restoration of endangered white bark pine on the landscape, as well as suppression of non-native lake trout in Quartz and Logging lakes, in an ongoing effort to restore native bull trout populations in the park.

On the wilderness front, the conservancy will fund Montana Conservation Corps projects in the park. Crews from that program work on trails and other projects in the park. The Conservancy will also fund $386,000 in wilderness stewardships, which, among other things, funds wilderness rangers who provide “boots on the ground” protection and monitoring of Glacier’s wilderness, which is most of the park.

All told, the conservancy is supporting, to date, about 20 projects next year in Glacier. Now that the government shut down has ended, they’ll get back to work with Glacier staff to identify the rest, with funding released in February. Glacier needs the lead time to hire the staff, Mitchell noted.

With the Park Service eyeing possible funding cuts in addition to cuts that came earlier this year, the conservancy’s support is more critical than ever.

Mitchell said the conservancy is also looking toward the future. It now has an account with about $2 million in it in the event of a downturn in the economy. The goal is to have about $4 million in the fund so that it could potentially fund an entire year’s worth of projects without a lapse in the event the economy softens, Mitchell said.

It’s also looking to build a Future Parks Project Fund, that will have funds set aside for other larger projects, like funding a comprehensive wilderness plan for Glacier, or establishing a permanent home for its treasure trove of archives, which sit in various buildings in park headquarters.

The fund is also committed to making Glacier one of the premier places to do scientific research, Mitchell noted.

More information is available about the Glacier Conservancy at: glacier.org.