Montana State Parks Foundation

Headquartered in Missoula, the Montana State Parks Foundation was founded in 2016. A statewide organization dedicated to supporting Montana's 55 state parks, the Foundation is the Montana State Parks' only statewide fundraising partner and helps raise awareness, educate, and support boots-on-the-ground improvement projects for state park visitors.

Firebrand was the exclusive strategic partner to the Montana State Parks Foundation for over five years. With our expertise in creating content, digital and print promotional materials, and running capital campaigns, Firebrand  played a crucial role in supporting Montana's 55 state parks. 

As the Foundation faced a significant $22 million maintenance deficit, Firebrand's holistic team stepped in to provide integrated marketing solutions and website development. Our focus was on building constituents and cultivating donors and partners by curating centralized content for all the state parks.

Firebrand's efforts involved close coordination with park management, tourism regions, government agencies, strategic partners, and donors to raise visibility for the cause, drive visitations, and secure support through private donations and volunteer work for every state park, regardless of location or specific needs.

One of our notable achievements was the development of a comprehensive 55-part email newsletter series, social media campaigns, and targeted advertising programs. These initiatives effectively showcased the unique stories and features of each state park, reaching an organic subscriber base of over 230,000, elevated brand awareness that led to funding from partners like the National Environmental Education Fund, AARP, The Helmsley Charitable Trust, just to name a few.

To enhance visitor experiences and facilitate trip planning, Firebrand also created an interactive map and trip planning tool on the Foundation's website. This tool allows users to search for parks based on location, areas of interest, and amenities. It has also been instrumental in attracting new sponsorship opportunities from outdoor recreation businesses.

These interactive tools were pivotal in allowing the Montana State Parks Foundation to build a robust and financially invested constituency that helped ensure the success of three considerable capital campaign projects over the course of our engagement. 

The first being the securing and protection of BIg Arm State Park. This work included a variety of private fundraising, lobbying, and constituency education to ensure that the Montanans didn’t lose this critical access point to Flathead Lake. This project was spearheaded by the Foundation and ensured that the state did not lose the pre-existing property due to an upcoming lease renewal.  

The second most recent capital campaign project was the creation of a new state park, Somers Beach. Similar to the BIg Arm project, this took shape through a mix of efforts but included a private land deal from area property owners, large endowment gifts, a collaboration of efforts across multiple nonprofit groups, thousands of individual donations and lobbying to ensure this new park would be properly gifted and funded for ongoing maintenance by the State of Montana. 

Lastly, was the expansion and improvement of Fort Owen State Park. This funding source came in the form of a large private family foundation gift to ensure the expansion, preservation and interpretation at the park. 

Firebrand played a vital role in supporting, ensuring the continued accessibility, improvement, and conservation of Montana's state parks for the enjoyment of visitors and future generations. The partnership between Firebrand and the Montana State Parks Foundation has yielded impressive results over the past five years: