Communicating the National Park Service Mission

National Park Service

I am pleased to provide you with this notebook that takes what we learned through the Message Project and translates it into simple, yet concrete actions to help each of us tell the national park story even better. The American people love their national parks and are hungry for information about them. Sharing our passion for the parks with our fellow citizens invites them to discover connections and a sense of relevance in the places that they have entrusted to our care. To do that. we must help them learn about the places they own in ways that are compelling for visitors and non-visitors alike. We must ensure that all Americans feel welcome in their national parks, treating them as stakeholders, not simply tourists. This call to action is so critical that it has been adopted as National Park Service policy, Director's Order #52A. Communicating the National Park Service Mission. Your copy is enclosed. This notebook is intended to help you get started or take the next steps in implementing this policy. All managers should ensure that their staff has access to this information. which is also available at www.graphics.nps.gov. I invite every employee to join me in this effort. We are one organization, with one mission. Each of us has a critical role to play in effectively communicating that mission to the public and extending to them an invitation to join us in our stewardship efforts. To put a new perspective on the challenges and opportunities we face, I urge you to read the remarks immediately following this memorandum that Mike Bento delivered at the Discovery 2000 Conference last year. When we first put this notebook together, Mike's excellent talk was Appendix G. After I read it, I wanted it to be "Exhibit An. It shows not only what we need to do. but his approach is fresh and imaginative. That is a best practice we can all adopt.