National Park Foundation Awards $12 Million in Innovation Grants: 30 Projects to Benefit More Than 40 National Parks
The National Park Foundation announced on October 21 that it has awarded $12 million to a second cohort of 30 innovation projects benefiting more than 40 national parks across the United States. The foundation is the official nonprofit charity partner of the National Park Service. Together with a first cohort earlier in 2026 — 18 grants totaling more than $10 million across 21 parks — the foundation's innovation investment in 2026 now stands at nearly $25 million. The new projects focus on natural resource management, public safety, interpretation, accessible visitor information and partnerships. Each is designed to solve a site-specific problem and produce a model that can be scaled to other parks, and participating parks and partners will work in learning groups with the foundation and the National Park Service. Funded projects include an artificial-intelligence hazard forecasting system for Mount Rainier, North Cascades and Olympic national parks, developed by Washington's National Park Fund with the Park Service's North Coast and Cascades Network and scientists, using weather, hydrologic, snowpack, vegetation and lightning-strike data to guide decisions on closures, staffing, emergency response, infrastructure protection and visitor safety. The Lincoln Presidential Foundation will connect six Park Service sites in Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky that tell the story of Abraham Lincoln through a shared network of virtual tours, 3D documentation and multilingual, accessible self-guided experiences. The Rocky Mountain Conservancy will establish thermal infrared aerial survey protocols at Rocky Mountain National Park to monitor moose populations and inform wildlife management and wetland restoration. The Chalon Indian Council of Bakersfield will advance tribal co-stewardship at Pinnacles National Park by training Chalon Indian Nation members in low-impact archaeological sensing and cultural monitoring, and the Independence Historical Trust will build a drone program at Independence National Historical Park for large events, emergencies and inspecting roofs and other hard-to-reach features of historic buildings. Mike Reynolds, the foundation's chief program officer, said national parks have always represented a bold idea and that their future depends on continued innovation. Funders of the round include Lilly Endowment Inc., The Ball Foundation and the Arconic Foundation, along with individual donors. The foundation received more than 200 unique proposals in 2026 and plans a call for 2027 projects in the coming months. In 2025, it funded $100 million in on-the-ground priority projects nationwide, spanning infrastructure, restoration, education and access. The foundation said the innovation program is intended to let individual parks test new tools and approaches, from super intelligence and aerial surveying to digital interpretation, and then share what works across the park system through the program's learning groups.
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：华盛顿州Mount Rainier National Park的野花草甸。该公园是本批资助中超级智能灾害预报系统项目的实施地之一（资料图）。Photo: A wildflower meadow in Mount Rainier National Park, Washington, one of the sites of the SI hazard-forecasting project funded in this grant round (file photo). 图源：Mount Rainier National Park官方Flickr／Wikimedia Commons，美国联邦政府作品，公共领域。
