Funding differences led Pheasants Forever to suspend Red River Valley chapter, conservation group says
Jun. 1—Members of the Red River Valley Chapter of Pheasants Forever got a surprise back in February, when they received postcards indicating chapter activities had been suspended, and the organization was seeking new local leadership.
Signed by Renee Tomala, the conservation group's North Dakota senior field representative in Bismarck, the postcard indicated the Red River Valley chapter and all events on its calendar were on hold until the chapter could be restarted.
"If you, or someone you know, are interested in creating and enhancing quality habitat and giving back to conservation in a fulfilling way, I'd love to talk with you," the postcard stated. "Please reach out to me ... to hear about all the opportunities to have a great impact on habitat conservation at the local, state and national level as part of our strong network of grassroots chapters. I look forward to hearing from you soon as we look to further our mission delivery in the area."
While not stated in the postcard, the announcement was the culmination of a long-brewing dispute over philosophies between Pheasants Forever and the Red River Valley chapter's officers. Despite numerous accolades from Pheasants Forever for its fundraising and volunteer efforts to promote school trapshooting teams and other youth programs, the chapter wasn't giving enough money to the organization's habitat mission, according to Jared Wiklund, communications director for Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever in St. Paul.
Since 1996, the Red River Valley chapter has raised $2.4 million in net revenue, Wiklund said, with only $94,000 — 3.8% — allocated toward habitat. The chapter last contributed dollars toward habitat in 2001, he said.
A change in direction was needed, but philosophical differences aside, chapter officers did nothing wrong, Wiklund said.
"There is absolutely no wrongdoing in this scenario," Wiklund said in an email to the Herald. "Volunteers of Red River Valley Pheasants Forever have invested in their community through shooting sports and have been commended over the years for their work. The long-running issue — and the decision for doing a chapter restart — is the reluctance to fund any habitat conservation priorities, which is the basis for Pheasants Forever's founding in 1982.
"We see the need for a more holistic approach to chapter expenditures in the Red River Valley."
The parting of ways hurt after 26 years as a Pheasants Forever volunteer, said Brian Nelson of East Grand Forks, who was the chapter's treasurer at the time of the February shakeup. Because there's not much wildlife habitat in the Red River Valley, the chapter historically chose to spend its fundraising dollars in other ways, Nelson said.
"The mission of our chapter has always been kids — it's always been youth shooting, archery, trapping, fishing, hunter safety, scholarships," he said. "We thought we were doing very good things, and to be removed was just a shock to all of us."
Those good things led to numerous awards over the years. In February 2023, the chapter was honored with Pheasants Forever's 2022 "Path to the Uplands" award during the National Pheasant Fest and Quail Classic in Minneapolis. Path to the Uplands is an initiative aimed at engaging and recruiting new participants into upland hunting and conservation through a variety of mentorship and hands-on educational experiences.
In addition, Nelson was recognized as Pheasants Forever's Volunteer of the Year for 2018, and in February 2015, the chapter
received Pheasants Forever's 2014 No Child Left Indoors Award
for its efforts to promote youth outdoors programs.
There have been state awards, as well, Nelson said.
"We've worked real hard at this," he said. "I took many hours away from my kids and grandkids and my wife."
Until its suspension, the chapter worked with the
MidwayUSA Foundation,
a Columbia, Missouri-based nonprofit, to raise funds for youth shooting programs. In exchange for helping to sell tickets for gun raffles and other kinds of raffles, the chapter provided participating high school trapshooting teams across northwest Minnesota and North Dakota with funds that were matched 1 to 1 by MidwayUSA and deposited into a Foundation endowment.
Teams were allowed to use up to 5% from their respective Midway endowment accounts annually to offset costs for purchasing ammunition and other trapshooting expenses, Nelson said. The Red River Valley chapter helped as many as 35 schools over the years, he said, giving away $337,000 in 2022 and $382,000 in 2023 to youth shooting programs.
Three of the Foundation's 10 "Rockstar Teams" for 2023 — the Coyote Clay Target League in North Dakota, and the Warroad Warriors Trap Club and the Ada Borup West Trap Team in Minnesota — were shooting squads the Red River Valley Pheasants Forever chapter supported.
Chapter volunteers also sold raffle tickets at gun shows, sports shows and other events.
"Here you have a chapter that leads the nation in youth money, works their (rear ends) off nine months out of the year and most chapters work one month out of the year — two weeks before the banquet, two weeks after the banquet," Nelson said. "They make $20,000, they give away their money. It's a social event for those little towns in North Dakota, which I have nothing against, good for them.
"We took this beyond and we did this nine months out of the year."
In a letter to chapter leadership dated Feb. 5, 2024, Matt Christensen, director of Chapter and Volunteer Services for PF and QF, issued a formal notice that "chapter officers and committee board members must relinquish all chapter-related activities and responsibilities immediately."
The officers within 14 days were required to turn over chapter bank accounts, all records (financial or otherwise), merchandise and all equipment and supplies. That included guns from a scheduled raffle the chapter had to cancel and an enclosed trailer wrapped in Pheasants Forever artwork.
Christensen's letter indicated chapter websites and social media accounts were to be closed immediately. In addition, a $54,000 check the chapter wrote in late January to the MidwayUSA Foundation from the proceeds of a raffle was stopped, Nelson said, only a week after a $52,000 check to the Foundation cleared.
"Eight schools in Minnesota never got their money because (Pheasants Forever) stopped payment on the check," he said. "And that $54,000 would have turned into $108,000" with the MidwayUSA Foundation match.
Nelson and other officers, including former chapter president Jason Dettler, who lives near Casselton, North Dakota, blame lack of communication — especially between the chapter and Tomala, the state field representative — for the shakeup.
"There was no directive from her or communications of wrongdoing," Dettler said, adding he and Nelson both attended the state Pheasants Forever meeting in January, less than a month before the chapter was suspended.
"They had every opportunity to sit down and talk to us if there was an issue, and say, 'We know you just sent two checks to Midway, that's great, but where's our check?' " Dettler said.
"That's all they would have had to say. But there was nothing mentioned at that meeting."
Out of respect for the most recent chapter volunteers, Tomala said she wouldn't discuss anyone by name, but said there were "several conversations over the course of a few years" about the need to shift financial support from shooting teams to habitat.
"Our wildlife habitat conservation mission is, first and foremost, our priority, and our chapters need to be supporting that habitat conservation mission," said Tomala, who recently received an Executive Excellence Award from PF/QF. "The chapter leaders were doing great things for shooting sports, but we need to stay true to our habitat mission."
Nelson said he thinks "the writing was on the wall" that a change in chapter leadership was brewing.
"In their eyes, we weren't following along with butterflies and bumblebees," he said, referring to the conservation group's habitat mission. "And we're not not doing butterflies and bumblebees when land sells for $10,000 an acre around here. You're going to raise sugar beets and corn and potatoes and wheat and edible beans on it. You're not going to take 20 acres and make a pollinator program."
Wiklund, the PF/QF spokesman, said the situation facing the Red River Valley Chapter of Pheasants Forever isn't unprecedented. The organization has "restarted" other chapters in recent years, he said, when efforts strayed or did not align with the group's habitat mission.
Every conservation group has evolved over time, he said, and Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever are no different.
"The (Red River Valley) chapter has made a massive, positive impact for the shooting sports community — probably one of the largest impacts in the country — but is absent for our mission of habitat conservation in an extremely important region," Wiklund said. "For that reason, we are headed a different direction, and that's OK. We can do our mission work under the Pheasants Forever brand, and multi-million-dollar support for shooting teams can still ensue under a different organization with a more suitable vision."
For now, the Pheasants Forever website lists Tomala as the contact for the Red River Valley chapter. Plans are in the works to conduct some "Hands-On Habitat" work days, she said, and Seth Owens, Pheasants Forever's education and outreach coordinator who is based in Grand Forks, hosted spring sharptail viewing trips to active leks nearby.
"He and I are working together to see where we can do some Learn to Shoot and Learn to Hunt events and some habitat work day projects," Tomala said. "So, (we're) kind of slowly chipping away, basically, right now, seeing what opportunities are out there and trying to get our pheasants in a row, if you would."
Meanwhile, the legacy of previous chapter officers and volunteers continues, Nelson says, because funds the Red River Valley chapter raised and gave to area trapshooting teams in exchange for helping to sell raffle tickets will continue to accumulate interest in the MidwayUSA Foundation's endowment.
That takes some of the sting out of the bitterness he feels.
"Technically, this Red River Valley chapter and officers that did this will be giving money to these shooting teams every year forever," Nelson said. "I'm glad we got the shooting teams on board. I'm glad we got their money built up in their Foundation account, and I'm so thankful for the MidwayUSA Foundation because these teams are set up, and the parents are going to pay less for their kids to shoot on all the schools that got on board with us."
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