Pay off debt, buy mom a new house, get that truck you always wanted, and travel the world. That pretty much sums up the majority of Americans answers when it comes to what to do with lottery winnings. However, if you ask an outdoorsman what they'd do with their winnings, the number one answer might change.
I performed a little data collection and while I didn't ask all 40 Million licensed outdoorsmen, I was able to collect data from 50 of them. While a plethora of different items were submitted, all 50 participants said they would purchase a ranch or land to hunt and fish on.
Makes sense to me! What outdoorsman doesn't want more land to hunt and fish on. And in all reality it's not really the ownership aspect so much as it is, just more ground. If someone tells me I can access an additional 1,000 acres without having to personally purchase all 1,000 acres, then I can guarantee that I'd be just as excited as if I had wrote out the whole check myself.
So what's the punch line you ask? Simple! Out of the 50 participants, all 50 had heard of 4Progeny. Only 3 of those 50 had signed up to be contributing members at a minimum of $3.oo a month. Does this anger me? No, it's just frustrating that the simple numbers game is not coming across as easy as we thought it would. What this tells me is that the American Outdoorsmen have more faith in spending $3.oo on a slim chance of ever winning the lottery than they do in our ability as outdoorsmen to join together communally to purchase the land.
Last year, just the 15 Million registered hunters, spent 49.4 Billion dollars on hunting purchases. This number tells me that we have more than enough money to accomplish our goal. Simple math says that if 4Progeny had just 1% of those funds that we could add an additional 500,000 acres of new publicly accessible hunting and fishing land per year. Now I don't know about you all but I don't have anyone in my inner circle that's buying a half million acres per year and allowing me to go hunt and fish on it.
As a person who was born and raised in the outdoor community, I have heard numerous times in my life, whether in jest or seriousness, that if you want something done right, you've gotta do it yourself. While this statement can make sense from an individualistic standpoint, it most certainly makes sense from a communal standpoint.
If you break up the US into groups, the outdoorsmen group makes up roughly 11% of the population. That's licensed hunters and anglers. When comparing our group to the other 89% of the population, it's easy to see how our way of life could fall to the wayside without a care in the world. If 9 out of 10 people want to build a Starbucks and 1 out of the 10 wants to leave the land in native grasses...it doesn't take a rocket scientist to determine that the latte's will be served up soon. However, the big scary monster that we refer to as private land ownership, plays nicely into our hands if we could just shake each other into reality.
Sure, we only make up 11% of the total population and only around 50% of us participate in our way of life more than once or twice a year. Yet, even at the most miniscule of percentages, we are still left with around 20 Million American Outdoorsmen who claim to find our way of life important to their existence.
Now let's say those 20 Million outdoorsmen weren't full of bull and actually did find the preservation of our lands and animals extremely important. Let's say we all got on the same page and determined that more acres per outdoorsman was imperative to continue our traditions and safeguard the lands, animals, and opportunities from outside sources. In addition to this we will say that the average outdoorsman has an expendable $3.oo per month that they could let go of in order to protect this way of life they've deemed so valuable. If this was the case, then one can easily see that our communal buying power would equate to 60 Million dollars per month. Or...if you've paid any attention to our Project 1, we could purchase 80,000 acres per month at the Project 1 price point.
Pretty fascinating isn't it? To think that the power is in the palm of our hands and all we have to do is come together as a community to accomplish the goal. I'm sure by the time I die one could perform an experiment of individual vs communal goal attainment by the research and results of 4Progeny but I hope that I live long enough to see the answer play out in a positive manner for future generations.
The next time you hear someone complain about overcrowding, an orange army, congested boat ramps, trail heads, or access points...ask em if they're a member of 4Progeny. If the answer is no, then you'll know that we still have work left to do.
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