Given staff limitations, state agencies rely heavily on volunteers and mentors to successfully field many education, recruitment, retention and reactivation (R3), and conservation projects

This Project Grant award from the U.S. Department of the Interior Fish and Wildlife Service under the Multistate Conservation Grant Program (CFDA 15.628) provides $155,070 to the International Hunter Education Association - United States of America (IHEA-USA) to develop recruitment and retention strategies for R3 (recruitment, retention, and reactivation) and hunter education volunteers.

The goal is to survey current and former volunteers to identify motivations, interests, and effective communication channels for recruiting new volunteers. The insights will be used to create personas and test pilot recruitment campaigns in two states. The final report with recommendations and recruitment messaging will then be shared with all 50 state wildlife agencies to help increase their pool of volunteers and strengthen R3 and hunter education programs nationwide. This initiative aims to address the growing challenge state agencies face in recruiting and retaining sufficient volunteers to effectively deliver conservation and outdoor education programs.

However, as more and more options become available for people willing to donate time, states are finding IT increasingly more difficult to recruit and retain volunteers and mentors, threatening their ability to effectively deliver hunter education, R3 education programs, and various other labor-heavy conservation projects. To help alleviate this concern, states need information and tested approaches for finding, recruiting and retaining new volunteers and mentors. The purpose of this project is to provide states with tested insights, recommendations and approaches for increasing their pool of R3 and hunter shooter education volunteers. Working with two states per region of the association of fish and wildlife agencies, current and former volunteers will be surveyed to identify the various motivations and interests that drove them to volunteer, along with the communication channels and sources that made them aware of volunteer opportunities with state agencies. The results will group volunteers into personas based on shared motivations and ideal recruiting messages and tactics. The results will then be tested via a pilot campaign in each state to identify effectiveness, potential and improvements. Results and recommendations will then be provided to all states for adoption via a detailed visual-based report complete with recommendations and suggested recruiting messaging and shared via the full range of R3 committees, meetings and non-governmental organization communications. All 50 states R3 programs are the intended beneficiaries with increased volunteers and therefore increased R3 programs and hunting shooting participation being the primary purpose and expected outcomes. The midwest association of fish and wildlife agencies R3 committee is a partner in this effort.