Why You Should Join a Membership Organization

In the last few months, the public's interest in civic engagement and advocacy is through the roof. At Outdoor Alliance, we do a lot to make sure that you are plugged into the issues you care about on public lands, and our community has been incredibly responsive. Our work on H.R. 621 (the bill to sell of 3.3 million acres of public lands) was instrumental in Rep. Chaffetz withdrawing it, and we sent 20,000 letters to lawmakers about rolling back the public process on BLM lands.

We've gone through a number of ways that you can help do more to protect public lands, but there's one big thing you can do that means that you are supporting the work to protect public lands all day, every day:

Join a membership organization.

Being a dues-paying member for organizations that represent paddlers, climbers, backcountry skiers, and mountain bikers doesn't just help these awesome organizations keep the lights on; it's also an essential marker of a group's credibility that helps for working with decision makers and attracting other funders. When we go visit decision makers in DC, a key metric they care about is the number of people we represent. (That's part of why the Outdoor Alliance coalition exists in the first place, to give us more political power by joining the voices of different membership groups together).

Right now, we collectively have about 200,000 dues paying members, but imagine if we had 500,000, or a million, or even 5 million! That would give policymakers another metric for understanding how important outdoor recreation is, and give the outdoors more influence over decision makers.

By joining a membership group, you'll also be kept in the loop for more sport-specific opportunities to help out. So check out the issues you care about, and join today. It costs about as much as a burger and fries to join most membership organizations, and does a lot for protecting your outdoor adventures.

advocacy 101Tania Lown-HechtAdvocacy1 Comment