Joining the Find Your Park Initiative
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20240-0036
January 14, 2016
In Reply Refer To:
8000 (400) P
EMS TRANSMISSION 01/14/2016
Information Bulletin No. 2016-024
To: All Field Office Officials
From: Director
Subject: Joining the Find Your Park Initiative
This Information Bulletin (IB) describes the Department of the Interior’s (DOI) Find Your Park (FYP) initiative and provides information on how the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) offices can participate and further our goals of engaging youth, reaching diverse audiences, and getting more people out of doors.
Find Your Park was initiated by the National Park Service (NPS) together with the National Park Foundation (NPF) as part of the NPS Centennial. However, FYP encompasses all public lands and provides BLM and its partners an opportunity to expand and enhance our ongoing outreach and youth engagement efforts. It is a public awareness initiative that is being promoted through television, billboards, print advertising, social media, and celebrity and staff ambassadors. It includes an extensive suite of tools, including a searchable website, to increase public recognition of locations, events, recreational activities, and opportunities to support individual park units. These tools have been carefully designed to appeal to a younger, multicultural generation, and are simple, modern and well-suited to mobile devices.
The goals and audience of the FYP initiative are similar to those of DOI’s Every Kid in a Park (EKiP) initiative and these initiatives are often confused. While FYP is a NPS initiative that incorporates a broad audience and can benefit public parks of all types, EKiP is aimed specifically at encouraging fourth grade students and their families to enjoy public lands managed by the DOI. A side-by-side comparison of the two programs is attached for your information (Attachment 1). Although the two efforts are distinct, FYP tools can help spread the word on EKiP events and EKiP events can bring attention to opportunities in other units.
Some elements of FYP are specific to the NPS or the National Park Foundation, but others can be easily adapted to the BLM and can be powerful multipliers for the outreach efforts of BLM field units, their partners, and their visitors. This IB forwards information on simple ways to engage in the FYP initiative by adding BLM information to FYP web sites (Attachment 2) and using FYP social media opportunities (Attachment 3) in accordance with existing Bureau policies. Also included are frequently asked questions (Attachment 4) and suggested talking points (Attachment 5).
Additional resources for further engaging in this effort are available on www.findyourpark.com, www.nextcenturyforparks.org and https://sites.google.com/a/nps.gov/npscentennialoffice. In particular, a FYP web-based tool kit is available to anyone who establishes a username and password on the www.nextcenturyforparks.org website. The tool kit includes downloadable templates for posters, banners, publications, and other materials, with detailed recommendations on use of logos, either separately or jointly, by NPS units, staff, Friends groups, and other agencies. By using the FYP logo in a banner or sign, in conjunction with a specific unit’s Look and Feel graphic, and adding the BLM logo and National Conservation Lands word mark to both, the BLM and its Friends groups can reach a broader audience.
We encourage you to take advantage of the aspects of the FYP initiative that work best for your unit, your recreation opportunities, your events, and the experiences you offer to the public. We also encourage you to inform your Friends groups and visitors about the power of this initiative to enhance their outreach efforts and enable them to share their experiences with a broader audience.
If you have any questions concerning this initiative, please contact Robin Hawks, Senior Advisor, National Conservation Lands and Community Partnerships, at rhawks@blm.gov or Anthony Small, Public Affairs Specialist, Office of Public Affairs, at asmall@blm.gov.
Signed by: Authenticated by:
Kristin Bail Robert M. Williams
Assistant Director Division of IRM Governance,WO-860
National Conservation Lands and
Community Partnerships
5 Attachments
1—Side-by-Side comparison of EKiP and FYP (2 pp)
2—Adding BLM Information to the FYP website (2 pp)
3—FYP Social Media Opportunities (1 p)