Diversity Committee Archives - Outdoor Writers Association of America

Diversifying demographics: How outdoor sports and industry can reach more people

OWAA Developer — Tue, 02 Feb 2016 06:09:32 +0000

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BY BILL BRASSARD
Sitting on a diversity panel at the Outdoor Writer’s Association’s conference in McAllen, Texas, in 2014, I was prepared to talk about engaging Hispanics in the outdoors. I was armed with research and numbers, but it was a personal story of a fellow panelist that hit home the hardest.

The panelist talked about an older relative having the opportunity to visit the Grand Canyon for the first time during a driving trip between Texas and California. Yet he decided to pass, basically saying “That’s a place for white people.”

For those of us in the outdoor industry, or for those of who care about future preservation of outdoor places, this is alarming. The Latino population is growing in the United States and they are a group with not only growing economic power, but also a voice in outdoor recreation. They are also a demographic that might not have tried some of our most beloved outdoor activities.

At the National Shooting Sports Foundation, we are working to introduce people from all backgrounds to the recreational benefits and personal defense aspects of firearms ownership. We and others who promote outdoor activities are learning how to better understand and communicate with diverse audiences. We’re working on developing tools to help industry, marketers and media share the activities we enjoy with others in a changing America.

According to a report by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, one of every five Americans is Hispanic.

About two-thirds of those are naturalborn Americans who have a higher level of education and income potential than Hispanics and other ethnic groups less familiar with English and American culture. The Hispanic population is estimated to be 57 million, carrying $825 billion in consumer buying power.

The 1,265 Hispanics who participated in the survey indicated a high level of interest in firearms ownership and use: 30 percent would like to own a firearm and 40 percent would go to a firearms retailer or shooting range if invited by friends or family to give target shooting a try. Of those who said they had previously visited such establishments, a remarkable 91 percent came away with a positive impression. Why? Top reasons were being in a safe, controlled environment and being assisted by knowledgeable staff.

One of the most interesting findings in the report is that language does not appear to be a barrier. Surprisingly, the majority of Hispanics surveyed (79 percent) indicated a preference for obtaining information about firearms in English. One reason Hispanics prefer English is because of the number of varied cultures labeled Hispanics, including Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Dominican, Salvadoran and others, all who might have different dialects or languages.

If you are in the business of promoting your sports, products or services to a Hispanic audience, you’ll need to craft messaging and use appropriate imagery to appeal to the local Hispanic population. According to Rick Tobin, who heads up the Tobintel agency, developer of the report for NSSF, soccer analogies may not play well to audiences of Caribbean ancestry, while baseball references may not be understood by South American Hispanics.

“When marketing messages or imagery are not understood or related to by the target audience, the normal human reaction is to reject the marketer at some level,” he said. In short, you can very quickly alienate the audience you’re trying to win over.

Two other noteworthy discoveries from the report were that 61 percent of Hispanics are aware of their state wildlife agency, and 82 percent have a very positive image of that agency. These high scores imply a positive opinion regarding outdoor activities in general and an opportunity to coordinate outreach efforts with your state wildlife agency.

Five states report the highest Hispanic populations, representing approximately 70 percent of the U.S. Hispanic total: California, Texas, Florida, New York and Illinois. Additionally, projected population estimates for the year 2020 show up to 40 percent of the populations of New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado will be Hispanic. If you want to interest more Hispanics in everything from your products to ideas, developing or expanding outreach directed toward Hispanic cultures in those states should be on your radar.

“A Hispanic Market Study: Firearms and the Shooting Sports” is available to media on request. If you are an NSSF media member, access it via nssf.org/research, otherwise send an email to me at bbrassard@ nssf.org for a PDF copy.
Bill Brassard is a former newspaper editor and reporter and now in his 18th year as a senior communications director and media spokesman with the National Shooting Sports Foundation. He is a target shooter, bird hunter and general outdoors enthusiast.
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Outdoor group gives Latinos voice in conservation

OWAA Developer — Sat, 04 Oct 2014 22:37:17 +0000

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BY JUDITH KOHLER
Rod Torrez and Max Trujillo remember trips to the mountains hunting and fishing with family and friends while growing up. They didn’t, at the time, call themselves “conservationists,” but getting outside and appreciating wildlife was a big part of their lives and the Latino community in general. Today they embrace the label and encourage other Latinos to as well through their work with HECHO — Hispanics Enjoying Camping, Hunting and Outdoors.
The organization, which debuted last fall during the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s annual conference, is meant to provide a voice for people who aren’t always part of the conversation about conservation, said Torrez, who serves as director of HECHO.
“We’ve not really been that involved in conservation as a unified group,” he said. “We need a place to gather. How do we express this long-felt need to protect these lands and aspects of our culture that we don’t want to lose?”
Trujillo can’t remember a time when he wasn’t eager to get outdoors and explore. He’s hunted and fished most of his life, exploring New Mexico’s streams and wilderness areas. It’s a way of life for Latinos in the Southwest.
“Latinos hunt, fish and use our public lands as much as everybody does,” he said. “But I feel like the Hispanic population is grossly underrepresented in the conservation movement. I feel like they need to take their seat at the table. Part of it is they don’t realize that they’re conservationists.”
A HECHO poll released in June showed 93 percent of Latinos in Colorado and New Mexico believe the government should protect public lands for recreation and the health of the environment. Both states have seen significant increases in oil and gas drilling on public lands. More than 70 percent of respondents, no matter their political affiliation, said they would favor a candidate who supported conservation and protecting public land.
The poll highlighted the economic clout of Hispanics who hunt, fish, camp and hike. During the year before the poll, 88 percent of the respondents bought equipment for outdoor activities with 54 percent in Colorado and 57 percent in New Mexico spending more than $250. The fact that Hispanics make up the fastest-growing segment of the population heightens the impact they can have, Trujillo and Torrez said.
The survey confirmed what Arizona state Rep. Mark Cardenas, of Phoenix and a HECHO board member, expected.
“Familial ties with the land, water and agriculture — they’re all incredibly important to the Latino community that’s been here for generations and generations,” he said.
Cardenas traveled to Washington with a group of students pushing for smarter use of the Colorado River, already overtaxed by the millions of people in the West who rely on it.
While the poll results underscored conservation’s importance to Latinos, Torrez and Trujillo say there are challenges when it comes to reaching younger generations.
“I grew up in a family of 11,” Trujillo said. “All our neighbors had big families. It was a weird day if we kids were indoors.”
Torrez, who grew up in the Denver area, said his family spent weekends in the mountains and hunted and fished in northern Arizona and New Mexico.
These days, videos, cell phones and similar distractions can be tough competition for the great outdoors. HECHO is reaching out to families and kids to keep people connected to nature. Torrez recently spent time with college students as part of the Hispanic Access Foundation’s efforts to raise awareness among young Latinos about conserving public lands. He met the students at the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve in southern Colorado.
In August, Trujillo helped organize an outing for families at the Las Vegas National Wildlife Refuge.
“I try to encourage people to get out to our wildlife refuges and national parks,” he said. “People experience things out there that are lifetime memories.”
It’s enough to turn them into conservationists.
— Judith Kohler is the regional communications manager for the National Wildlife Federation in Boulder, Colorado. Before joining NWF in 2011, she covered the environment, energy, politics and general news stories for The Associated Press in Colorado and Wyoming.
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Diversity and OWAA

OWAA staff — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 20:07:12 +0000

BY GLENN SAPIR
Creating diversity within OWAA is a classic chicken-and-egg situation. Outdoor communicators grow out of outdoor participants, in general. Outdoor participants must be mentored or lured into participation, often by parents, friends, or, perhaps outdoor communicators, especially those with whom they can relate.
It is frustrating to try to fit diversity into that equation. Where do minority outdoor participants and communicators come from? Do they exist now?
At the National Shooting Sports Foundation, our research department has reached out to other experts in outdoor research regarding minority participation in outdoor recreation. Studies and statistics are scarce.
So, I can at best offer gut feelings based on my experience.
Cultural traditions are hard to overcome, and there may be a lack of outdoor recreation, especially hunting and, to a lesser extent, fishing, in many peoples’ backgrounds.
I am Jewish. Some may refer to the Old Testament and point out that it says people aren’t supposed to kill for pleasure. Also, an important part of an observant Jew’s religious and secular life is obeying the Jewish dietary laws. In part, that means animals must be slaughtered in a prescribed fashion to be kosher, and killing them with bullet, shot or arrow is not allowed. Throughout the medieval and more modern times, Jewish people were less tied to the land and were more likely to earn their livelihood as merchants, bankers and other traders, losing a connection with killing for their food.
Even without a reliable collection of statistics, I would venture a guess that the percentage of Jewish people who hunt and fish is far less than the percentage of the general white population in America.
Now, let’s look beyond minorities within our white population, which itself is quickly approaching minority status in the United States. Is sport hunting historically part of the Asian or Hispanic culture? The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources hired personnel who spoke Asian languages to administer hunter education courses and to emphasize the existence and need to follow hunting and fishing regulations. For cultures that have long subsisted on fish, livestock and wildlife, a minimum size or bag limit is incomprehensible.
I’ve seen little evidence of active sport fishing or hunting participation in Latin American countries, except for among the very wealthy, or where it exists as part of the economy in order to draw in tourists.
Blacks have been stereotyped as anglers who sat on the bank with cane poles and baitfished. They were not the target of lure manufactures, for example. Most non-white ethnic groups have had to fight their way up the socioeconomic ladder, with limited discretionary income for equipment and travel for outdoor recreation.
I have sat in meetings where people of these ethnic backgrounds are referred to as the fruit at the top of the tree, meaning that they would be the hardest to pick and put into the basket — in this case, the basket of hunters and anglers.
I have been sensitive to the lack of diversity in our own organization, but when looking about during a dinner at an OWAA conference, it is quickly obvious that neither I nor anyone else has done much to diversify the composition of our membership. And I still don’t have any magic solution to do so, but I do have some suggestions:
Encourage our membership to find subjects of ethnic minorities for their articles and broadcasts and show these minority participants in magazine cover photographs and photos that run with articles. My kudos to the Missouri Department of Conservation, for being one of the first to feature minority sportsmen on the covers of their publications. This is a way to create role models.
Use our Excellence in Craft contests to create a category for published writing and photography where minorities must be the subjects. Blatant? You bet. But it could help as much as anything I can think of to get our members to write about and photograph these subjects, thus creating more exposure and role models.
Have panels at conference sessions that intentionally include members of minorities, allowing them, again, to become subjects of our coverage. n Identify existing minority outdoor communicators and make a special effort to recruit them into OWAA membership.
n Be mindful of all significant religious and/or ethnic celebrations and observations when planning organizational events.
Though I am not advocating special consideration in the evaluation of scholarship applications submitted by minority students, I am advocating a special effort to promote our scholarship program to colleges and universities with a particularly significant minority student body. I would also make a special effort to promote our student membership availability at these institutions.
Consider holding Becoming an Outdoor Communicator seminars at colleges with a significant minority component.
When I proposed what became the Norm Strung Youth Writing Awards competition, my hope was to get young people writing about the outdoors in communication with their peers. Such support of the writing competition needs to be directed at more communities through our HQ staff and our members. ◊
An OWAA member since 1975, Glenn Sapir is from Putnam, N.Y. He is the director of editorial services for the national Shooting Sports Foundation. Contact him at gsapir@ earthlink.net.

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Outdoors R&D

OWAA staff — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 17:34:11 +0000

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BY DEB FERNS
There are two key words for this article: recruit and diversity — my version of R&D. Definitions of the word recruit include “to restore or increase the health, vigor, or intensity of,” and “to enlist new members.” One definition of the word diversity is “the inclusion of different types of people (as people of different races or cultures) in a group or organization.”
My personal opinion is that the majority of people involved in outdoor activities live fairly fast-paced lives. To actively go out and recruit people to go with you on an outdoor adventure takes time — and first you have to find a group that is willing to hear your offer! Add in potentially recruiting from groups with a background totally different than your norm and the workload increases but it is NOT insurmountable. If you’re reading this and shaking your head, thinking, “Just no time, not my thing,” know that that is a defense mechanism many of us share. As an experiment, stop shaking your head from side to side and instead take 30 seconds to think of civic or religious groups where you might offer to be a speaker on your topic of outdoor expertise.
I actively recruit inexperienced women to the gun range. As the co-founder of Babes with Bullets, women’s action shooting camps held across the United States, I’m asked to speak at a variety of events. Most of these events are for pro-gun groups, like Friends of the NRA, or programs at Cabela’s.
But I also seek out speaking opportunities at group events that might be a bit more anti-gun in nature and often those requests are granted, probably more out of curiosity than anything else. These groups aren’t quite sure what to think of a woman who shot a gun for the first time at age 45, has a master’s degree in business administration, plus a white collar career — someone who was basically a soccer mom for many years. During the first few minutes of our time together, I explain that fortunately I am not a product of some horrific event; rather, I’m determined not to believe everything I see on television or read in a newspaper or online. I don’t get into pro-gun versus anti-gun statistics (BORING) and instead I relate a personal story about my on-going education. The story is short; if I’m not educated about firearms or hunting or fishing, then how can I make a decision about whether it’s right for me?
I reiterate several times that any tool, whether it’s a car, a gun, or a golf club, for that matter, is a learned skill. You have to become educated about it because most likely you didn’t arrive here on Earth already equipped as Annie Oakley. Willingness to share your skill and to help educate people about the outdoors is part of the recruiting effort. Deliberately approaching groups of people who are from a different background than your own adds an element of diversity to your recruiting efforts. It all takes time but the outcome can be nothing short of startling.
For instance, in looking back at the 2,200-plus alum from Babes with Bullets, I saw areas of the country where women of color came to camp a few years ago. They went back to their hometowns, became NRA handgun instructors and the following year came back to our firearms training camp with four additional women of color. This group of women have sent additional women from a variety of ethnic backgrounds on to camp. The popular phrase of “build it and they will come” has merit to it!
I’m often asked why my recruiting efforts are strong even in non-gun environments. It comes down to being authentic in my passion for our Second Amendment rights. As a mom of two daughters, along with eight years of experience with our camps, I believe that American women from every walk of life can be empowered a bit more if they are properly introduced to firearms. I believe God gives each of us special blessings that we can share and I already know that being born a woman in America is one of those blessings.
Here is my challenge to you: Prepare a short bullet point presentation on your area of expertise and offer it at least twice this year to a different club or group. From your short interfacing with new groups and clubs, you will — over time (nothing happens instantly) — get new people to go outdoors with you. Can you make that one event special for someone new or different to your normal group? That’s how diversity begins; one new outdoor enthusiast at a time!
—Deb Ferns is co-founder of the women’s action shooting camps, Babes with Bullets, held across the country. She also writes a column, “Outside My Comfort Zone,” and is the executive producer of the Babes with Bullets webisodes hosted at OutdoorChannel.com. Contact her at dferns@earthlink.net.
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