Mission

Our mission is to work with the City of Minnetonka to ensure that all park visitors can experience high quality, biodiverse places that provide a multitude of positive nature-based interactions, thereby improving the quality of life and the sustainability and ecological resiliency of our parks, park system and community.

We will accomplished this by:

investing in the restoration of our parks and preserving the park system’s ecologically-significant areas because natural landscapes in a suburban context require ongoing management to maintain their ecological quality,
transforming degraded landscapes to high-quality, biodiverse ecological plant communities,
conducting nature-based research to inform our positions and recommendations,
educating park visitors that the investment in and restoration of our natural resources provides the community with a distinctive amenity,
growing the size and involvement of friends groups to assist with research, education, restoration and preservation activities,
helping to streamline communication with the city to coordinate and manage volunteer restoration activities, and celebrating the outcomes.

Jidana Park Preserve

Values

We value a park system that:

is inclusive for all residents,
is sustainable both financially and environmentally,
anticipates, funds, and plans for climate change effects,
provides both active and passive recreational opportunities,
facilitates a long-term investment in the restoration, management and preservation of our natural resources as a defining and distinctive characteristic of our city, and
communicates, monitors and enforces clear expectations and rules for use so that everyone is respectful and feels safe and welcome.

We consider our natural landscapes to be an amenity that can be enjoyed and appreciated by everyone, and also needs to be protected from negligence, misuse, overuse, and overt or benign degradation. Each park and/or preserve in the city may have its own unique, natural, biodiverse features and should have its own unique restoration management plan and guidelines for use guided by a comprehensive, city-wide vision and plan for our park system.

Friends of Minnetonka Parks Nonprofit Formation

Throughout our organizational meetings, our founding members discussed the pros and cons of organizing as a 501(c)3 nonprofit. Discussions included that the City's current (old) NRMP states that a group such as the "Friends of Minnetonka Parks"could help fundraise and coordinate volunteer activities, and the limitation of nonprofits to endorse candidates. Our ultimate conclusion was that the ability to raise funds for all parks under one entity (rather than each individual park group) and eligibility to apply for grants clearly fit our mission. One of our members had recently founded a nonprofit for the shareholders of their employer and volunteered to coordinate the effort.

We also saw strength in numbers. With FoMP, our individual parks groups can tap into the volunteer availability of other groups, help each other by offering a consistent approach with city staff, and coordinate our efforts so as not to compete with each other. As a result, we have provided the City with volunteer buckthorn removal "blitzes" in numbers beyond their imaginations. We hope to continue this trend with significant and meaningful projects for each of the friends of parks groups that will launch the City of Minnetonka into a productive restoration mode. Restore Minnetonka!

2022 By the Numbers

We had an eventful year and produced significant results restoring high-priority areas within our parks in collaboration with the City of Minnetonka. FoMP strives to be a catalyst of positive change in the community, playing an integral role in reversing the trends of environmental degradation in our park system. We are creating a verdant and vibrant community in which ecological stewardship, and community connectedness and partnerships thrive. Read more in our 2022 Annual Report.