Imagine having the power to educate and reshape perceptions in millions of American households using the nation’s only 17-time Emmy-winning outdoor youth educational television series. Then imagine that you also have the power to penetrate classrooms and home-schoolers across the country using PBS LearningMedia with week-long peer-driven curriculum that inspires our next generation of anglers, boaters and aquatic conservationists.

We don’t have to imagine anymore. Over the past four years, America’s Getting Families Fishing & Boating Initiative, created by the Future Angler Foundation and the Into the Outdoors Education Network, has been pivotal in building an unprecedented educational media production and distribution network that delivers the one-two punch of a national television series and interactive classroom curriculum that’s recruiting millions of new anglers and fisheries conservationists.  And the numbers are astounding. So far, the Getting Families Fishing & Boating Series has been telecast across the country 884 times on 165 channels, making 30,115,483 half-hour impressions. Plus, many of the newer shows are still waiting to cycle into PBS distribution, boosting the number another 10 MILLION a year!

Fortunately, the Getting Families Fishing & Boating Initiative was launched by the Future Angler Foundation in 2018 in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service and the Into the Outdoors Education Network. In 2019 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service joined the program through a Sport Fish Restoration grant. The success expanded in 2020 as state DNRs and the RBFF also partnered in the content creation of the program.

The end result so far... is a combined total of 40 half-hour Getting Families Fishing & Boating television shows and classroom education videos with lesson activities, distributed nationally, including 91 PBS Channels and PBS LearningMedia that have made over 30 MILLION impressions. And although it’s a "youth education" series, metrics reveal that half the audience are in fact adults… parents and mentors who can take kids fishing or boating, and are the ones buying fishing licenses. Judge for yourself the production quality and the recruitment techniques by watching some of these youth fishing programs.

Because new family fishing and safe boating content is key to continued success of any series, this program needs content funding partners. PBS and the 165 channels in the network demand new programs or they can no longer air the series. In fact, the TV distributors are already contributing $300,000 of in-kind airtime value for each half-hour episode. That's another reason this one-of-a-kind program is so rare. It's because everybody wins... state and federal agencies, orgs, conservation programs, educational television, classroom education, the entire R3 fishing-boating community and... the collective futures of fishing and boating. So please, take a moment to see all the ways this program inspires and empowers our future anglers, boaters, and next generation of aquatic conservationists along with your role in helping fund the continuation of this program by becoming a content partner... so that you can tell your getting families fishing and boating, and aquatic education stories to millions.