The ATA has put more than $2,000,000 in grant money, collected from Federal Excise Tax (FET) dollars, to good use by brokering partnerships and kickstarting projects that will help identify industry trends, provide easier access to the sport, and increase participation in archery and bowhunting. Applying for grants helps ensure those FET dollars go back into archery and bowhunting participation efforts.

How the ATA Uses Grant Funding

Development of a Real-Time Data Dashboard: This project with the American Sportfishing Association is ongoing. Through the partnership, a live data dashboard was created that constantly updates hunting license stats so that states and industry members can get an accurate picture of license sales and data. States can quickly identify trends and respond if necessary. There are 14 states currently submitting data for the dashboard with six more slated to start soon.

How ATA Members Benefit: ATA members will learn what the customer market is like in their state so that they can respond accordingly.

Expanding and Improving Urban Archery Ranges: The ATA is partnering with state agencies and non-government organizations to significantly increase the number of urban archery ranges available to the public. Out of more than 70 proposed archery range-focused projects compiled, the ATA seeks to facilitate and broker the development and enhancement of four projects that are strategically aligned and ready to implement urban archery ranges and programming with non-traditional partners in support of state agency priorities. Through leveraging partnerships and providing education on the relationship between state agencies, industry members and NGOs, this could significantly increase the number of urban-centric ranges available for public use.

How ATA Members Benefit: ATA members receive access to a new customer base that will be created by the additional shooting ranges, specifically in highly populated areas. The new ranges will cause a demand in the area for archery equipment that will then drive traffic to the local archery shops.

Converting Target Archery Participants through R3 Efforts: The ATA, in partnership with USA Archery, the Archery Shooters Association, and the National Field Archery Association, conducted a report that studied archers’ interest in bowhunting by surveying current target archery tournament participants. The goal was to gauge a target archer’s level of current participation and potential interest to determine which R3 message resonated the most effectively.  ATA members can find this data through the Member Dashboard by visiting the Resource Library and downloading the “Activating and Converting Target Archers to Hunters” document for free.

How ATA Members Benefit: The report will help members generate relevant content by helping them better understand which R3 message resonated the most effectively with the target archery audience. 

Discovering Family Bowfishing: National Education Initiative: The national public education initiative known as “Discovering Family Bowfishing” fulfilled the R3 strategic priority to engage new audiences by influencing millions of youths and families to discover bowfishing. This was accomplished by using an unprecedented combination of national broadcast educational television, digital channels, peer-driven classroom curriculum, a diverse social media program, and free “How-To” R3 bowfishing videos that were available to every agency in the nation. This program also combines the proven success and educational outreach of several established education programs through the ATA’s Explore Bowfishing curriculum, SCIF’s American Wilderness Leadership School and the Into the Outdoors Education Network’s Emmy-winning television series and national online teacher-student education network.

To impact new audiences, this program used the documented effectiveness of peer-driven mass media and hands-on education to break down social and participation barriers while providing clear pathways to diverse and underrepresented audiences to explore the allure of a sport that combines fishing and shooting sports. Although influencing millions usually costs exactly that — millions — this program is leveraging a remarkable coalition of distribution partnerships with ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, PBS, Apple TV, Fire TV, Roku TV, Smart TV, Google Chromecast, VIZIO, Fubo TV, Sling TV, and YouTube TV, to reach a potential audience of over 8 million viewers nationally. 

To support all agencies and organizations across the country in their R3 fishing and shooting sports initiatives, this program is also delivering a series of open source, short-form, how-to bowfishing videos that empower new audiences with clear, yet simple, information to discover bowfishing. 

How ATA Members Benefit: The initiative will get eyes on bowfishing in unique and unprecedented ways. The additional exposure to the sport will generate interest and revenue for archery shops across the country. 

Final Thoughts

The ATA continuously looks for opportunities to assist other industry members in our universal campaign to increase participation in archery and bowhunting.

If you have an idea for a grant proposal, visit the “Archery Range and Program Call for Projects” page.

Photos by the Archery Trade Association