Route to Parks, Grant Program Impact and Evaluation
About Parks California
Parks California is the official nonprofit partner to California State Parks. Working statewide, it’s uniquely positioned to innovate and work hand-in-hand with communities and experts to bring resources together, ensuring that everyone can experience healthy and thriving parks for generations to come.
This year, Parks California celebrates 5 years of partnering with over 100 nonprofits and tribal groups to help more than 28,000 people experience one of California’s 280 state parks – many for the first time ever – in the hopes of starting a lifelong love of nature.
About Route to Parks
At Parks California, we believe everyone deserves a world-class park experience and the opportunity to create a lifelong connection with nature. However, barriers like limited transportation options can prevent many from enjoying the great outdoors. To bridge this gap, we launched the Route to Parks grants program in 2020. This initiative supports local organizations in overcoming transportation challenges, ensuring historically marginalized communities can visit and enjoy California State Parks.
In just four years, we’ve supported 85 organizations to create transformative outdoor experiences. This program is made possible through a public-private partnership, supported by private fundraising by Parks California, and the California Department of Parks and Recreation’s Waterway Connections Initiative.
Grant Program Structure
- The grants are one-year commitments
- Grant cycle period: January – December
- The total number of grant awards per year varies based on funding available. Over the next two years, we anticipate an average of 30 grantees across the state per year. Average grant awards range between $25,000 – $50,000.
- Outdoor experiences vary from overnight camping to day outings, to relearning cultural traditions in nature.
Request for Proposals
The selected contractor, in partnership with Parks California, will develop an evaluation approach and instruments that will be used to collect and analyze data across multiple grant cycles. We are looking for a contractor and partner to support the following:
Primary: Program
Parks California understands the value of having an evaluation and impact method as part of this program. Through this evaluation process, our objective is to:
- Evaluate individual and collective program impact of the grantees as set by the grant guidelines.
- Individual and collective impact may include but is not limited to:
- Number of participants, number of outings, definition of meaningful outdoor experiences, underrepresented communities reached, preferred transportation methods by grantee, time spent in parks, partnership strength, and potential changes in attitude and behaviors.
- Capture trends experienced by grantees to inform future program opportunities
- Trends may include topics related to overall grantmaking and/or specific to the program such as transportation methods, type of program or experience in-parks.
- Review proposal templates and application review process; offer redesign suggestions.
Secondary: Grant making process
As a grant maker, we want to ensure a smooth and effective grant making process by:
- Having accessible applications and reporting process for applicants.
- Providing a sense of community and platform to share best practice and learnings with and between grantees.
- Offer relevant tools and resources that augment the grantee’s knowledge and capacity.
- Utilize the grant program as a vehicle to cultivate partnerships between community organizations and CA State Parks.
Deliverables included but not limited to:
- Evaluation recommendations and plan per program goals and objectives.
- Inform guidelines, grant application review chart and reporting templates to ensure they capture evaluation and evidence of impact.
- Data instruments for grantees and CA State Parks (staff)
- Data collection, synthesizing, analyzing, and reporting (annual summary and final report)
- The report should assess the value of the program, capture outcomes and evidence of impact. The final deliverables should include – a comprehensive evaluation report that tracks the project by year and potential trends overtime. In addition, a consolidated summary with notable highlights that could be used for fundraising purposes should also be provided. Parks California will use these reports for storytelling, annual reporting, reports to CA State Parks, messaging, explore partnerships and philanthropy efforts.
Timeline
This project will begin no later than January 2025 and be completed by June 2027.
Budget
For the contract, Parks California anticipates allocating a budget of approximately $30,000 per grant cycle; currently this includes two grant cycles. Proposals should be within this range and be inclusive of professional services, project meetings, materials, subscriptions, technology and travel.
Schedule of Events
| Week of November 11, 2024 | Parks California publishes RFP |
| November 22, 2024 | Vendors confirm intent to bid |
| November 22, 2024 | Application questions due from Vendors by 3p |
| November 25, 2024 | Parks California responds to Vendors |
| December 9, 2024 | Proposal from Vendors due |
| Week of December 16, 2024 | Finalist presentation + Reference Checks |
| Week of January 6, 2025 | Signed contract |
| Week of January 13, 2025 | Go Live! On-boarding and project kickoff |
Submittal Requirements
Interested evaluation vendors must submit a proposal that includes the following information, in no more than 5 pages:
1. Experience: Describe your experience in evaluating outdoor access and community focused grant programs/grants/projects. Include when, who, where, and organization.
2. Organizational Capacity: Describe your capacity to provide these services including years in operation, main office location, and two references who can verify your experience.
3. Qualifications: Describe the qualification of the individual(s) that will be assigned to this project. Indicate if you have any expertise in understanding the barriers faced by the target populations.
4. Knowledge: Describe your knowledge of designing data collection systems and evaluating outdoor experience-focused programming/grant programs in your current or prior evaluation work.
5. Developing Reports: Describe your experience in synthesizing grantee report data and writing evaluation and Annual Performance Reports.
6. Method of Pricing: Describe your organization’s method of pricing that is typically used when developing a formal service proposal.
7. Organization/Business: Indicate if and where you are registered and licensed to conduct business in the state of California or in other states.
Submit
Submit Qualifications to Parks California’s online Application Portal. For any questions, please email grants@parkscalifornia.org.
