Parks and Wildlife Foundation of Texas

What it reported doing in 2024

TPWFs Engage program strives to engage and inspire all Texans to take an active interest in the natural wonders of our state by offering a wide variety of opportunities to experience Texas great outdoors and to help ensure a thriving future for the wild things and wild places of our state. Through this program, TPWF supports transformational projects at Texas State Parks. Between 2019 and mid-2023, TPWF led a campaign to raise funds through a landmark public-private partnership to open Palo Pinto Mountains State Park. Located 75 miles west of the Dallas/Fort Worth area and sitting on almost 5,000 acres of rambling hills and stunning vistas, this will be the first new state park in North Texas in over 25 years. Palo Pinto is expected to attract 75,000 annual visitors and will support the critical need for more public-use recreational lands for the regions rapidly growing population of more than 8 million residents. TPWF successfully raised over $10 million in private dollars to pair with public funding and broke ground on the vertical construction of visitor facilities in late 2023. Construction is ongoing and Palo Pinto Mountains State Park is expected to open in early 2026. 2023 marked the centennial anniversary of Texas State Parks, and TPWF successfully mobilized a grassroots campaign that raised $1.9 million to deliver significant visitor experience enhancements and priority-need equipment to all 88 parks. TPWF and state park staff worked together throughout 2024 to bring these projects to fruition, many of which were aimed at making parks more accessible, including all-terrain wheelchairs, ADA-compliant wildlife/landscape viewing stations, as well as ADA-accessible trails, kayak launches, and courtesy docks. Other projects included dark sky viewing equipment, mountain bike repair and water-bottle filling stations, archery and kayak equipment, beach and playground shade structures, off-road search and rescue vehicles, and more. TPWF also encouraged Texans to get outside to witness a rare total solar eclipse in April 2024. Over a third of Texas State Parks were directly situated within the eclipses path, and TPWF provided a variety of specialty equipment to enhance eclipse viewing within the parks, including 20,000 eclipse safety glasses, tabletop sun-spotter telescopes, telescope tripods and solar filters, binocular filters, smartphone sun photography adapters, and eclipse-themed books. In addition, TPWFs conservation leadership program, Stewards of the Wild, continues to engage and encourage hundreds of annual members across Texas to take an active role in being good stewards and champions of our wild things and wild places. 2024 marked the programs 11th year, and it is now the largest conservation leadership program in Texas, with member-led chapters in most major metropolitan areas. In addition to educational events, conservation service projects, and statewide outdoor experiences, Stewards of the Wild offers mentored hunting and fishing opportunities that serve to connect novice and lapsed adult hunters with experienced hunters who can teach them practical, ethical and conservation elements of hunting in Texas. To date, Stewards of the Wild has engaged more than 400 participants in mentored hunting and fishing experiences. The program also provides select advisory council members with opportunities to further develop their leadership skills as fellows to the TPWF Board of Trustees. And new in 2024, to further bolster the programs conservation education focus, Stewards of the Wild created the Statewide Conservation Committee. The volunteer-driven committee is comprised of five subcommittees (legislative, game species, private lands, coastal, and native habitats), which meet regularly to learn from Texas conservation experts and channel this knowledge into action through events that create awareness and cultivate support. TPWF has also encouraged the pursuit of conservation careers by launching the Women in Conservation

Financial Efficiency

• Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
• Program expense ratio: 95.9%; rating input score 96
• Fundraising efficiency: $301.5 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 92; 92nd percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

• Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 62nd percentile among comparable filings
• Pay-setting controls: 1 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 17
  • Compensation committee: Missing
  • Independent consultant: Missing
  • Other Form 990s reviewed: Missing
  • Written employment contract: Missing
  • Compensation survey or study: Missing
  • Board or committee approval: Pass
• Foreign activity oversight: Limited
• Grant itemization coverage: 99.8%; rating input score 100; 37th percentile among comparable filings
• Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
• Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

• Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 66th percentile among comparable filings
• Governance controls: 9 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 100
  • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
  • Whistleblower policy: Pass
  • Document-retention policy: Pass
  • CEO compensation review process: Pass
  • Other executive compensation review process: Pass
  • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
  • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
  • Audit committee oversight: Pass
  • Independent financial-statement audit: Pass

Sustainability

• Operating margin: -19.4%; rating input score 5; 5th percentile among comparable filings
• Total-asset coverage ratio: 3.85; rating input score 80; 80th percentile among comparable filings
• Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.12; rating input score 70; 70th percentile among comparable filings
• Officer compensation ratio: 4.7%; rating input score 53; 53rd percentile among comparable filings

Growth

• Program expense growth: 8.2% per year; rating input score 100; 62nd percentile among comparable filings
• Revenue growth: 1.8% per year; rating input score 100; 17th percentile among comparable filings
• Asset growth: 7.7% per year; rating input score 100; 53rd percentile among comparable filings