Friends Policy with Friends Partnership Agreement Approved

By Caroline Brouwer, Vice President, Government Affairs, National Wildlife Refuge Association

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released their long-awaited updated Friends Policy and Friends Partnership Agreement (FPA). Refuge Friends groups, the National Wildlife Refuge Association, Coalition of Refuge Friends and Advocates, and other non-profit partners did an amazing job this past winter directing their concerns, questions, and change requests to the USFWS and the National Wildlife Refuge System staff, and as we go through the new Policy and FPA language, we are expecting to see lots of changes in line with our concerns. 

The updated Policy, 633 FW 1-4, can be found here. Or you can go directly to the individual sections. Some of these pages have exhibits.

• Part 1 Working with Friends Organizations

• Part 2 Finance and Administration Through Friends Agreements

• Part 3 Guidance on Friends Partnership Agreements, with the FPA and supplemental agreements as exhibits

• Part 4 Friends Nature Stores and other Revenue Generating Activities

NWRA and CORFA have been in frequent contact with Visitor Services staff at USFWS Headquarters, and we are working to schedule webinars on the new Policy for Refuge Friends. We expect to schedule the first webinar in August. 

Thank you so much, and please feel free to reach out to Caroline at cbrouwer@refugeassociation.org or Joan at coalitionrefugefriends@gmail.com if you have any questions now. In addition, CORFA has put much of the new Policy information on their website but there is also a huge amount of other Friends policy information on that page as well.