The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has been awarded a pair of R3 program grants by the Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation to support state recruitment, retention and reactivation initiatives to increase fishing and boating participation, a press release detailed.
Texas is one of only nine states to receive a grant and the only state to be awarded funding for two separate programs.
The program grants distributed to Texas will fund initiatives that zero in on the retention of female anglers (with a special focus on Hispanic women) and the use of text messages aimed at reactivating lapsed anglers who bought a “year from purchase” fishing license.
“Women, and particularly Hispanic women, are one of Texas’ fastest-growing demographic groups who like to fish — with this funding, we can reach out to further engage them in the sport,” Janis Johnson, TPWD marketing manager, said in the press release. “Another growth area is millennials, who buy the largest portion of our ‘year from purchase’ licenses. These anglers prefer texting to communicate so we’ll use some of the grant money to explore ways to reach them.”
RBFF is providing Texas with $35,000 in overall grant funding to support both initiatives. To receiving funding from RBFF, the programs must focus on one of three areas:
>> Communicate the relevance of fishing and/or boating to urban, multicultural audiences to increase participation.
>> Implement angler and/or boater customer engagement strategies to retain and/or reactivate anglers and boaters to increase participation.
>> Enhance the capability of agencies to develop and implement effective angler and/or boater recruitment, retention and reactivation efforts.
“RBFF has been instrumental in providing opportunities to states via grants, which allow us to create and implement targeted marketing campaigns that we would otherwise be unable to perform,” Jason Mercer, TPWD R3 boating and fishing coordinator, said in the press release.
The State R3 Program Grants fund sustainable and replicable angler and boater R3 initiatives and plans that focus on increasing fishing license sales, boat registrations and participation. Proposals are reviewed and selected by RBFF staff and a Proposal Review Working Group made up of industry, federal agency and NGO representatives.
These efforts align with TPWD’s R3 strategic plan to “Recruit, Retain and Reactivate” Texas sportsmen and sportswomen.
