New Glacier Park Conservancy license plates hit the streets

Montana’s Glacier National Park Conservancy license plate has a new look for 2022.

After sporting an image of the park’s mountain peaks and Lake McDonald as seen from Apgar for the past two decades, the new plate features a nightscape image of Wild Goose Island and St. Mary Lake as well as the northern lights.

The image for the new plate was designed by the Conservancy’s Becca Wheeler, who says she was inspired by the park’s Dark Sky Initiative.

“I knew that I wanted the design to be somewhere recognizable and iconic, so there were also designs for Two Medicine and Hidden Lake,” she said. “I felt pretty motivated to incorporate a dark sky theme with the design and the St. Mary landscape really lent itself to that.”

Wheeler also produced designs featuring Hidden Lake and Two Medicine, but the St. Mary design was chosen by the public by an overwhelming majority.

The Conservancy license plate goes back to the beginning of the specialized license plate program in Montana, with the first plates being produced in 2002. At that time, the Glacier Fund (now the Conservancy) was in its infancy and Executive Director Jan Metzmaker had been tasked to find a way to raise funds for the fledgling nonprofit.

Inspired by Utah’s plate featuring Delicate Arch, Metzmaker approached state Sen. Bob Depratu of Whitefish with the idea to use specialty license plates to raise money for nonprofit organizations. Featuring the Lake McDonald design by Whitefish’s Tim Braun, sales of the license plate immediately took off.

“It was an instant hit and it made me look like a genius,” she laughed. “I think in the first year we made more than $200,000.”

What started with just a handful of nonprofits has grown into a selection of more than 200 license plates now available through the program.

“We thought we could make some money by offering people something other than the boring normal Montana license plate. After the bill was passed, the Glacier plate and the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial plate were the first two they offered,” said Doug Mitchell, current executive director of the Conservancy. “These days, there are a bunch of plates that people can choose from.”

According to Mitchell, the license plate sales have been a significant source of revenue for the Conservancy, bringing in in excess of $100,000 a year and as much as $241,000 in 2010.

Mitchell estimates the plate sales have brought more than $2.5 million to the Conservancy since 2002.

“It’s a great way for people to show their support for the park and it is super meaningful for us,” he said. “An extra $100,000 a year funds things like research, school field trips and the Native America Speaks program. It’s a chance for people to do some good while putting a little fashion statement on their vehicles.”

According to the Montana Department of Justice, the Motor Vehicle Division used the program to raise $5,669,311 for Montana nonprofits last year.

With the new plates already hitting the streets, Metzmaker said it is bittersweet to see the original design retired, but she is proud of how much the program continues to help the Conservancy and nonprofit organizations around the state.

“I couldn’t even guess how much money this has raised for nonprofits in the past 20 years,” she said. “I’m sad that my plate is going away, but it has served its purpose. It’s helped raise quite a bit of money, which was the point all along.”