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With the help of consultant Mia Axom, AORE established a standing Development Committee chaired by Lance Haynie for the first half of 2017 and by Kellie Gerbers during the second half. The Development Committee was charged with encouraging BOD members to develop and implement personal giving plans, identify a focus (Student Scholarship Endowment Campaign) for the year, and set giving targets for 2017 and 2018.
Compared to previous years, 2017 ushered significant improvements in philanthropic efforts related to organization, focus, and goal-setting. While AORE still failed to reach its fundraising goals on the year, the Development Committee is optimistic that shared ownership among the Board and focused energy on specific projects will continue to cultivate a culture of philanthropy within the Association.
The major thrust of the efforts in 2017 was to identify various stakeholder groups in the industry and develop a number of comprehensive databases that would aid the national office in promoting AORE to them, be it linked to membership, attendance at the annual conference, or more. One of the main stakeholder groups – college and university outdoor programs, had mostly been identified and catalogued in a database heading into 2017 by the AORE Student Development Committee under the leadership of Jason Gosch. Using Google Forms and Sheets products, a second database was created to identify city/county park systems that offered adventure-based programs or something similar (e.g., outdoor education/environmental education). Using a 10+ state area around the 2017 annual conference site (Roanoke), Jason identified cities/counties in the 10+ state area that had populations greater than 50,000 residents (Note: We used this restriction thinking cities/counties any smaller than that are much less likely to have adventure-based offerings much less a developed park system). Approximately 500 hundred cities/counties met the 50,000 cut point
SMART GOAL 4