National Park Friends Groups Filling Gaps During Shutdown, But At A Price

National park friends groups across the nation are feeling squeezed by the government shutdown, with many being asked to help fund some park operations at the same time they're losing revenues due to visitor centers being closed.

While most national parks are open, at the same time most National Park Service staff have been furloughed, which has pressured friends groups to try to fill in the gaps.

“We want to be good partners to the National Park Service and will continue to see where we can be of help during this incredibly challenging time,” said Brian Hinrichs, executive director of the Friends of Kathadin Woods and Waters. “But as a friends group, ideally, we want to be making strategic investments that are forward looking.”

Hinrichs’ organization has been particularly challenged, as the national monument was only designated late in 2016 and is still growing in terms of facilities and access. Earlier this year, for example, its one and only visitor center, the Tekαkαpimək Contact Station, opened.

During the shutdown, the friends organization decided to make a donation to keep the contact station open through Indigenous People's Day (October 13) because it has become so central to the visitor experience at Kathadin Woods and Water National Monument, which is located in north-central Maine, roughly 2.5 hours west of Acadia National Park in Bar Harbor by car and a 1.5-hour drive north of Bangor.  

The group also stepped in when beavers recently flooded a key road. Hinrichs said that the organization will directly pay a contractor to address the damage in a timely manner. 

“These emergency donations were not planned for and potentially cut into what we can do in the future,” he said. 

It’s no secret that the National Park Service and the parks they protect are struggling. The Park Service has lost nearly a quarter of its staff since January, and nearly 300 more jobs are slated to be cut if a plan from the Interior Department is allowed to proceed. Additionally, Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill rescinded $267 million earmarked for park improvements.

Morale was already low when the government shutdown hit and caused an estimated 60% of park staff to be furloughed. Some parks have remained closed for the duration of the shutdown, while others are partially open and operating with a skeleton crew.

In the face of all of the bad news, friends groups are doing what they can to support the parks they love.

According to the Park Service, philanthropic groups, commonly known as friends groups, provide wide-ranging support for the parks, including “raising funds to rehabilitate centuries-old structures and maintain visitor facilities, to enhancing educational and recreational opportunities, hosting special programs and events, mobilizing volunteers and interns, and accepting donations to support research and restoration projects.”

But these organizations were never designed to do as much heavy lifting as they’ve been asked to do during the past year.

At Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, the park has lost an estimated $3–4 million in visitor fee revenue in October alone, explained Jessica Cocciolone, executive director of the Shenandoah National Park Trust. The group estimates that if the shutdown extends through November, the park could lose an additional $1–1.5 million.

With the park staff furloughed, the Trust is funding a 12-person crew for four weeks to complete critical invasive species and pest management work that must occur during a narrow seasonal window, and has also launched a fundraiser to help offset the fee losses and sustain projects that normally rely on entrance fee dollars. “Though philanthropy won’t come close to replacing what has been lost,” Cocciolone noted.

“The Trust believes the government has a responsibility to provide full funding for our national parks to thrive,” she said. “Philanthropy can be a powerful partner—but it cannot be a substitute for core federal investment. Our role is to provide capacity, not to replace operations.”

Friends of Acadia is also lamenting the loss of park fee revenue. “Because of the peak fall foliage season, October is one of Acadia's busiest times. This makes the timing of the shutdown particularly hard,” explained Perrin Doniger, vice president of communications and marketing for the group. “Acadia National Park has been unable to sell park passes or collect entrance fees. We estimate that the park lost roughly $1.5M in fee revenue in October, funds needed for next year's operations.”

To support the park during the shutdown, Friends of Acadia has been trying to educate visitors on Leave No Trace principles and how to visit responsibly. It has also set up a donation option where visitors can contribute the value of an entrance fee. Doniger explained that 100 percent of those donations will go back to the park to try and make up a small fraction of the lost fee revenue.

While some friends groups are choosing to invest heavily to fill in funding gaps and keep parks open during the shutdown, others have decided that the long-term health of their organization outweighs the need to fill in short-term gaps.

At Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, the Sequoia Parks Conservancy has chosen not to keep visitor centers funded, but that decision comes at a cost.

“The impact of the shutdown on Sequoia Parks Conservancy's strategic financial, philanthropic, and operational objectives is concerning for sure,” said Savannah Boiano, executive director of the Conservancy. “Closed visitor centers mean that the Conservancy's retail stores are also closed, which has resulted in steep staff reductions. By not funding visitor center operations, the Conservancy financially protects the organization in the short term to endure in the long run.”

In many cases, friends groups are stuck between a rock and a hard place. The groups benefit from open parks, as their revenue is bolstered by visitor center income, but they are not built to shoulder the heavy financial burden of park maintenance and operations without government funding.

“Our greatest hope is that the shutdown is resolved quickly, and that the broader staffing and budgetary issues NPS has been burdened with can be addressed,” said Hinrichs. “That is when the public-private partnership can really thrive.”