Donation Options
When you donate to Pottawattamie Conservation, you can choose how your funds are used. See our list of options below:
A Land Ethic Workshop
Big fan of Ron Cisar and his class A Land Ethic Workshop, huh? Us too. Funds donated here go towards supporting the needs of Ron's class providing materials and equipment for his students.
Arrowhead
Donations will go to support the operations, upkeep, and activities at Arrowhead Park, located near Neola, Iowa. Donated funds may support upkeep for infrastructure and facilities, new attractions to the park (e.g. new footbridge, volleyball courts, etc.), and educational programs that support Arrowhead Park-specific activities like fishing.
Birding
Birding donations will benefit the feathered friends that utilize our parks and habitat areas in Pottawattamie County. Examples of how support may be utilized include bird-specific habitat restoration, new birdseed and feeders, birding education, and bird exhibits.
Botna Bend
Donations will go to support the operations, upkeep, and activities at Botna Bend Park, located near Hancock, Iowa. Donated funds may support upkeep for infrastructure and facilities, new attractions to the park, the bison and elk herds, and educational programs that support Botna Bend Park-specific activities like canoeing and kayaking.
Environmental Ed Scholarship Fund
With help from the Pottawattamie Conservation Foundation, every year Pottawattamie Conservation's Environmental Education program offers free field trips to Pottawattamie County schools. Donated funds will go towards keeping these field trips and their transportation costs free for the students and teachers of Pottawattamie County.
Environmental Education Materials Fund
Pottawattamie Conservation's Environmental Education program provides a wide variety of programming to adults and youth of all ages. Our programming is almost always hands-on requiring an extensive supply of materials supporting our many programs. Donated funds will go towards new or replacement materials supporting education opportunities for our guests.
HawkWatch
Hitchcock Nature Center is home to one of the top 25 hawkwatches on North America. Since 1991, every fall a dedicated group of volunteers donate their time to count raptors as they migrate south following the western edge if Iowa's Loess Hills. Funds donated to this cause will go towards supporting the volunteers in the form of new and replaced spotting equipment, data collection tools, and office supplies needed to collect and submit citizen science data.
Hitchcock Campground
Donated funds will go towards supporting the operations and upkeep of Hitchcock Nature Center's campground. Funds may support new fire rings, picnic tables, tent pads, and signage among other items.
Hitchcock Land Surveyor Exhibit
This is for an upcoming outdoor exhibit at Hitchcock. It will feature some of the old records and information from the original land surveys and show how the Loess Hills has changed over the years.
Hitchcock Nature Center
Donations will go to support the operations, upkeep, and activities at Hitchcock Nature Center, located near Honey Creek, Iowa. Donated funds may support upkeep for infrastructure and facilities, new attractions to the park, and educational programs that support Hitchcock-specific activities like backpacking and understanding prairie ecosystems in the Loess Hills.
Hitchcock Raptor Banding
Each fall during raptors' migration south, a licensed master bander lures and bands raptors at Hitchcock Nature Center. Funds donated to this account may be used for new or replacement banding supplies, replacement nets, volunteer supplies.
Hitchcock Trails
Hitchcock Nature Center's trails sit atop 200-300-foot tall hills of windblown silt (loess). As such, the trails are highly erodible and staff is consistently repairing, rerouting, and armoring trails. Your funds would go towards supporting these efforts and will help keep the trails at Hitchcock in tip-top shape.
Land Acquisition Fund
Help support future land acquisitions that may come available for public use in Pottawattamie County.
Leave Your Mark Tree Scholarship Program
Donations to the Leave Your Mark Tree Scholarship Program help fund scholarships to cover the purchase of native trees for Iowa residents. This program is open to all families in Iowa, but is focused on serving those who are looking to accomplish a memorial planting. Scholarship applications are made available once a year to Iowa families who must apply in order to receive a tree. Trees are provided by the Iowa DNR and Trees Forever through their annual Residential Tree Program.
This scholarship program was created to honor Mark Shoemaker for his contributions to conservation and native tree plantings in Pottawattamie County.
Loess Hills Lodge Gallery Renovation
To go towards Loess Hills Lodge gallery renovations at Hitchcock Nature Center.
Mt. Crescent Ski Area
Donations to be directed towards Mt. Crescent Ski Area.
Narrows River Park
Donations will go to support the operations, upkeep, and activities at Narrows River Park, located on the northern edge of Council Bluffs, Iowa. Donated funds may support upkeep for infrastructure and facilities, new attractions to the park (e.g. new fishing dock) and educational programs that support Narrows River Park Park-specific activities like fishing Missouri River history.
Operating
If you like what we do and you'd like to donate but you're not sure where to donate, this may be your option. Funds donated here go towards the general operations of Pottawattamie Conservation and support the needs of staff, parks, marketing, and education to name a few.
PCF Endowment
The PCF Endowment Fund supports the following three focus points of conservation:
Ecological Restoration/Natural Areas Management - preserving and restoring the integrity of our natural areas.
Environmental Education - educating the public to create stronger relationships between people and the natural world.
Outdoor Recreation - providing positive, impactful, and sustainable outdoor experiences for people from all walks of life.
School of the Wild
This is a new educational program working with 5th grade classes in the area. It is for the School of the Wild which is working on getting kids out in nature to learn about their surroundings. The funds help with the transportation expenses for the schools.
