The Glacier Fund became actively involved in the creation of a specialty license plate for Glacier National Park prior to January 2002 when the plate was first unveiled. The license plates are available for all county Department of Motor Vehicles offices and cost $35. Five dollars of the fee goes to the county, $10 goes to the state, and $20 goes to the Glacier Fund. Annual renewal fees are $20 which goes directly to the Fund. Plates can be personalized (six characters of less) for an additional fee. Collectors of sample plates can purchase a plate with a $20 donation.
The program brings in about $200,000 annually. The Fund is sent a check on a monthly basis from the Department of Vehicles. According to Jan Metzmaker, Executive Director of the Glacier Fund, checks from the DMV average $12,000 to $24,000 a month. To date, approximately $380,000 has been generated and 19,000 motorists have Glacier Park specialty license plates.
It took about a year to establish the program. The Fund worked with a State Senator to draft enabling legislation to allow nonprofits to have plates. Previously the only groups that were issued specialized license plates were educational institutions. However, two pieces of legislation that were drafted and approved helped get the program off the ground. The first bill scrapped the former method of printing embossed plates in favor of a new digitized system developed by 3M which was more cost effective.
The second bill was the enabling legislation that allowed nonprofits to have specialty plates. The bill allowed a nonprofit to qualify for plates by either paying a flat fee of $1,200 or by collecting 400 applications. Glacier National Park paid the fee and in January 2002 became the first nonprofit organization in the state to be issued a plate. The flat fee has been raised to $4,000 and a bill was approved in the last legislative session that sunsets a license plate program if 400 plates are not sold within four years.
Initially, the Fund was responsible for administering the program. Motorists would sign up for the plate, pay the Fund, the Fund would issue them a receipt which they would have to present at the DMV before they could get a specialty license plate. That process soon became too cumbersome for the Fund.
Applications are now received and processed at the DMV. Motorists can also apply at the DMV's web site. The Fund still has access to personal information which the DMV mails to them on a monthly basis. This way, the Fund can send out thank you letters, and keep in contact with purchasers by sending them their newsletter.
When the new process was originally established, the DMV encountered problems transferring their data on plate holders to the Fund. A new database system was installed which alleviated this problem. There have also been discrepancies with the DMV's accounting system; the revenues from the program and the number of plates sold do not match. Meztmaker and other nonprofits met last week with the DMV to resolve the problem, which can be traced back to the DMV's antiquated accounting system. They are now working on how to finance the installation of a new system.
The Fund doesn't have a marketing campaign for the program, Executive Director Jan Metzmaker said. The program markets itself just by being on the back of cars. The Fund does include information about the plates in all of its marketing pieces. Some ads are periodically placed in newspapers and magazines.
Metzmaker advises that before you begin a program, make sure you have a good advocate in the state legislature that will represent and push forward your interests. Also make sure to involve as many representatives and state senators as possible to back the authorization bill.
Contact: Jan Metzmaker, Executive Director, The Glacier Fund 406-888-7910