American Express and the American Express Foundation have announced a four-year, $5 million grant to the National Park Foundation in support of an effort to increase voluntarism in national parks and on public lands.

The grant will support efforts by the U.S. Department of the Interior and the U.S. National Park Service to build a volunteer network in partnership with the YMCA of the USA, which will create community coordinator positions in fifty cities responsible for developing and overseeing plans for events in local parks, at historic sites, and on public lands. The funds also will support an effort to engage a hundred thousand young adults to serve on conservation crews on public lands by 2017, with the dual goal of providing them with valuable work experience and developing the next generation of public land stewards. 

"Community service and historic preservation have had a long heritage at American Express," said American Express Foundation president Timothy J. McClimon. "Since our founding more than a hundred and sixty years ago, American Express has seen how America's parks and public lands contribute to our sense of national and local identity. We are proud to lead an effort to mobilize a new generation of volunteers to protect, conserve, and revitalize America’s public lands and treasured national parks."