With thousands of dedicated staff from wildlife biologists to land managers working year round, federal and state wildlife agencies conduct more on the ground wildlife conservation and habitat…

The U.S. Department of the Interior Fish and Wildlife Service awarded a $318,760 Project Grant to Outdoor Stewards Of Conservation Foundation Inc. under the Multistate Conservation Grant Program (CFDA 15.628). The grant aims to increase public awareness and appreciation for how wildlife conservation efforts in the U.S. are primarily funded through the purchases of hunting licenses and excise-taxed outdoor recreation products, rather than through general taxpayer dollars. To achieve this, the project will create and promote TV and radio public service announcements (PSAs) projected to reach over 215 million TV and 309 million radio impressions. The PSA campaign will utilize proven messaging from prior advertising campaigns, such as "Making It Last", "Hug a Hunter", and "Hunt for Good", which highlight the role of hunters and recreational shooters as the primary funders of wildlife conservation. The grant team includes experts from the Plow Share Group, a leading social issues communications agency, and Shine United, an outdoor industry advertising firm. This project seeks to address the lack of national visibility for the critical role that hunters, anglers, and the outdoor recreation industry play in supporting wildlife management and habitat conservation efforts across the United States.

With thousands of dedicated staff from wildlife biologists to land managers working year round, federal and state wildlife agencies conduct more on the ground wildlife conservation and habitat management work than any other group. Through purchases of hunting licenses and excised taxed products such as firearms, ammunition, bows and arrows, along with donations to wildlife conservation organizations, americas millions of hunters and target shooters contribute more than 2.6 billion dollars to fund wildlife conservation each year, making them primary funders of wildlife conservation. Even though agency staff do much of the work, and hunters and target shooters pay a large portion of the bill, most americans are unaware of how wildlife conservation is managed and funded in america. Agencies, industry, hunters and target shooters need, and deserve, more credit for all they are doing for wildlife conservation. Several terrific advertising campaigns such as, making IT last, HUG a hunter, plus one and hunt for good have been tested and developed to help promote recruitment and inform others how conservation is funded, however, they have yet to garner the national attention they deserve. A primary reason for this is funding. Unlike the fishing and boating industry that has dedicated more than 10 million dollars of excise taxes each year for national advertising campaigns, managed by a single organization, the hunting and target shooting industry does not have any such funding. In an effort to circumvent the high costs involved to reach large parts of the general population, this grant proposes to use proven messages, such as those developed from the aforementioned campaigns, coupled with the grant teams expertise, to create TV and radio ADS that will be promoted through free public service announcements (PSA), to reach the general population in masse. Psas created for this grant will be promoted to a station distribution list that includes 1,640 local TV and local cable, 139 network and national cable and 9,471 radio stations. We are fortunate to have a grant team comprised of key staff from the largest social issues communications agency in the united states, the plow share group, which delivered 1.5 billion dollars in donated, free, PSA media in TV, radio and out of home ADS on behalf of their clients in 2022 alone. Additionally, we will utilize the talented team from shine united to create the TV and radio PSA ADS. Shine united is a leading ad agency for the outdoor industry. Among their many accomplishments is that they are the ad agency that creates the videos for the U.S. Fish and wildlife service (USFWS) campaign, partner with a payer. Promoting nature and conservation is not new to psas. In fact, the USFWS utilized TV and radio psas a decade ago for a campaign called get some nature into your kids to promote visiting national wildlife refuges, and the nature conservancy uses psas to promote a campaign entitled speak up for nature. To better promote our message on how conservation is funded, this project will utilize a 135,000 dollar budget line item for TV and radio PSA media program costs to reach an estimated 215,000,000 and 309,000,000 TV and radio impressions which represents an estimated client return of 5,700,000 to 8,000,000 dollars.