USA Archery
USA Archery is the national governing body for Olympic archery. It fosters strong athlete participation, competition and training. With 22,000 members and 21,000 instructors and coaches, USA Archery helps educators teach archery to beginners and provide them a foundation to excel.
The ATA, along with Easton Foundations, helped USA Archery create a self-sufficient, sustainable outreach program in 2011. The collaboration increased archery participation, revamped Level 1 and Level 2 instructor-certification courses, and created Explore Archery, an educational program that introduces beginners of all ages and abilities to this lifelong sport.
USA Archery’s outreach team certifies instructors and introduces communities and state park associations to programs like Explore Archery. The ATA outreach team then approaches the communities to teach archery academies and offer Explore Bowhunting, Explore Bowfishing and S3DA certification as next-step programs.
Mary Emmons, chief of sport performance at USA Archery, oversees USA Archery’s outreach team. She considers the effort a success, saying: “USA Archery’s partnership with the ATA increased our ability to improve the accessibility and visibility of the sport at the community level. It provided next-step program opportunities for not only target archery, but also bowhunting and bowfishing to help advance R3 efforts.”
National Field Archery Association
The NFAA is a nonprofit corporation with 49 chartered state associations and nearly 1,000 affiliated clubs, making it the world’s largest field-archery organization. It promotes many shooting styles, offers a full slate of age divisions, and hosts hundreds of indoor and outdoor tournaments annually, including the 3 Star Tour.
As with the USA Archery partnership, the ATA helps this nongovernmental organization build an outreach team to increase club and tournament participation. The NFAA team better serves its members and helps make archery more accessible.
The NFAA also protects bowhunting, and improves and increases participation while offering educational programs on conservation and wildlife management. These efforts make NFAA a natural fit for running ATA’s Explore Bowhunting and Explore Bowfishing programs in the future. The NFAA is also creating an awards program for Explore Bowhunting and Explore Bowfishing participants.
In a recent article about the partnership, Brittany Salonen, NFAA’s event and marketing director, said the knowledge and experience of ATA staff in outreach and program development is invaluable.