How to grow without losing what made you great with Pheasants Forever's Jared Wiklund | Ep. 103

Jared Wiklund: at the heart of any partnership is a is a personal relationship that you build over time. And I don't care if that's with an employee, if that's with a nonprofit like Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever. it could be any of those things. but I think the more that you invest in personal relationships, dropping somebody a Christmas card, dropping somebody a thank you note, good things arise from that. I've seen it in my time at Pheasant Forever and Quill forever over the 16 years that I've been here. that even the even the smallest things can can blossom into a partnership that's providing, you know, places for people to go and open spaces for bird dogs to hunt.

Chris Lee: Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Parks and Restoration Podcast. I am Chris Lee, your host. I am joined today by Jared Wickland. He is the director of communications for Pheasants Forever. Jared and I actually go way back. I've been involved with Pheasants Forever for most of my working life. In fact, my first career-based job was with Pheasants Forever. I was Farmbill Biologist. This would have been back in like started in, I don't know, 06. And the Farm Bill Biologist program was still fairly new then. I was there for a few years before moving to Des Moines County and getting on with Des Moines County Conservation, where I've been ever since. But my involvement with Pheasants Forever goes all the way back to then. I've been chapter leader in some capacity ever since and been in various leadership roles. I'm wearing my hall of fame hat right here. If you can if anybody's on the video you can see it. I've been

Jared Wiklund: I like that.

Chris Lee: inducted into the Iowa Pheasants Forever Hall of Fame, I don't know, last year or something like that, which I think I'm way too young to be in that place with the legends that are in there, but that's neither here nor there. Jared, welcome to the show, man.

Jared Wiklund: Thank you. Thank you very much. And by the way, you're a hall of famer in my book all the way. So just so you know. But yes,

Chris Lee: thanks, man.

Jared Wiklund: we do go we do go way back. you actually you you predate me as a farm built biologist. I think I started in two thousand and ten. so I've been on for for sixteen years now and it's it's been a a a joy and a ride and I still love what I do today. But yeah, it's always great connecting with folks that have worked here and also chat volunteers which you were you were one of the better ones in my book so I appreciate you.

Chris Lee: Well we'll we'll leave the accolades for for later. But so Jared, I wanted to dig in. So we we we both came through the pharma biologist ranks and the the program has grown a whole lot. I mean Pheasants Forever has grown tremendously since since I even you and I were pharma biologists or when I was pharma biologist back in the two thousand aughts and and mid two thousand aughts. With that growth has had to have been some growing pains and some learnings along the way. I want to look at this through a leadership lens. What has the organization done and learned along the way through this through this massive growth? And maybe we should start by describing the current state of pheasants forever. What's the employee count? how has that changed over the years? I remember hearing a statistic that PF is now the second largest employer of biologists in the nation. Is that true?

Jared Wiklund: Yes, we are we are currently the second largest employer of private lands biologists in the country, second to the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Chris Lee: Holy smokes, man. So

Jared Wiklund: Yes, we've got we've got four hundred plus biologists on the landscape. total number of employees is about six hundred and twenty five. And that's everything from biologists to regional directors, to the chiefs that we have to our CEO, a lot of people behind the scenes for regional reps, which I was back in two thousand ten when I started working with chapter leaders such as yourself, very, very rewarding career. and Yeah, everything from grants to communications, which I'm in now, so yes, we do have a we do have a very large amount of employees at Pheasants Forever and Coil Forever. To give you an idea of the growth, I would say back in two thousand and ten when you and I first met, I would say we were at probably a hundred and fifty to a hundred and seventy five employees at that time, probably about

Chris Lee: Total.

Jared Wiklund: a hundred yep, total, probably about a hundred and members and right now we just surpassed a hundred I think it was a hundred and seventy two thousand members here last month and like I said we've got six hundred and twenty-five employees so yes we have gone through some considerable growth over the years

Chris Lee: Yeah, for sure. So along with that, like what has the organization had to do or how has it structured leadership systems in order to to manage that growth? I mean, you don't just go from 125 to 625 employees without building some infrastructure and things like that. What does that look like?

Jared Wiklund: Yeah, infrastructure I think is probably a good way to describe it. so I think in the early beginnings, especially as you get into just before twenty twenty and then up till now we experienced a really sharp rate of growth. And one of the things that we learned from that is that we had plenty of positions, but we didn't have enough kind of internal support staff to support all those positions. So at the time I would say back when you were a biologist. I don't even think we had we didn't have a biologist manager at the time. You guys reported to sort of an oper operations head at our at our national headquarters, and we figured out very quickly as we continued to grow, especially over the last decade, that that was a miss. So back back in your time, I don't even think we had you know biologists one, two, and three. We just had farm bill biologists, and that's what we called them. And we were We're in such a growth phase with we we always have acted and we still do today as sort of I don't know if you want to call it a contractor or a cooperator or a partner, it doesn't matter if it's with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, USDA, state agencies. we s we sort of fulfill that niche and think we do a very good job out of it. I mean even this last year between all of our biologists on the ground, they did and and with our chapters as well. they did about 2.4 million acres, which is a lot of getting conservation practices on the landscape. But yes, the internal structure has been a big thing for us. So we've the past couple of years we've stepped back and said, hey, what can we do internally from a leadership perspective to number one make growth possible, to provide stepping stones for people within the organization to come up through the ranks? Because honestly, I d we'll go back, I'll I'll tell you straight out, I don't think we had that. back when when you were biologists, you know, 2006, 2007, 2008. Correct me if I'm wrong. And so our structure has changed dramatically. So I'll just give you an idea of the farm bill biologist track. So right now as an entry-level biologist, we've got you'd be like a farm bill biologist one or just a farm bill biologist. So we've got Farm Bill Biologist 1, 2, and 3. Those are the different rankings and it has more to do with sort of the amount of time and the amount of acres that you're putting on the ground and work up through the system. We've got Farm Bill Biologist managers per state that work within w work within those biologist teams to ensure they have everything that they need to be successful. They work on partnerships at the state level as well and with our local chapters. We've got state coordinators. which is a brand new phenomenon probably in the last five years, five to six years. so our state coordinators oversee sort of all aspects of of partnerships and the field delivery side. and they act as sort of this they oversee the managers, the managers oversee the biologists, they sort of oversee biologists in general in the state and the partnerships that come with those. We've got regional directors I believe we have five of those right now for different regions that are identified throughout the country. and the state coordinators report up to the regional directors. and then from there it goes up to our vice president level. I think we've got 12 to 15 vice presidents throughout the country, and that's everything from conservation operations to government affairs to everything that we do in marketing and communications, development, so on and so forth. And you've got chiefs and then obviously our president and CEO is who's man and better.

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm. with an enormous growth of an organization like that, going from you know, 125 to 625 employees and then and then building in hierarchical structures and stuff like that, the the risk that organizations face is losing that for lack of a better term, losing culture. Right. So I

Jared Wiklund: Yep.

Chris Lee: look back to when when I was one of the early Farmville biologists and there wasn't hierarchy. I mean, I answered directly to the national office. I I would, you know, send my timesheets and stuff to the national office, and the the people in the national office were the ones that I would call if I had an issue, right? And

Jared Wiklund: Mm-hmm.

Chris Lee: now there's there's hierarchy, people are more separated from the people at the top. How do you how do you maintain that? that camaraderie because what what I I see in organizations is as they grow, that unfortunately bureaucracy builds. And sometimes

Jared Wiklund: Mm-hmm.

Chris Lee: that becomes detrimental to to the culture of an organization. And and I get that that some of that is just required. Like in order to operate a larger and growing organization, you have to build in hierarchy and you have to build in structure. But you can avoid some of the some of the bureaucratic stuff that sometimes comes along just for the sake of bureaucracy sometimes.

Jared Wiklund: Yep.

Chris Lee: how how has the organization navigated that either well or otherwise? Because there's always going to be missteps. I mean, as you grow, like like, you know, we're all just making this shit up as we go, right? And just trying just trying to figure things out. and so like

Jared Wiklund: Yep. No. That

Chris Lee: how how has that gone and and where have been some of the wins and missteps maybe along the way?

Jared Wiklund: That's a great question. you know, I think you know this, but since the beginning of time we've always defined ourselves as Pheasants Forever and Quill Forever, the Habitat Organization. We're we're a local organization with national results and to a very large degree we like that we like to carry that over into our internal culture as well. So culture culture I think is a fairly new phenomenon, at least it is for Pheasants Forever and Quill Forever. we've done a couple different things. So number one One, we still hold regional meetings. we haven't done a national meeting for about a year or two. It's just very hard to find a place to go that fits everybody to put 625 employees in a room. we like to keep our overhead costs down, so we've switched over to regional meetings in order to check in with everybody. number two, we've instituted a internal culture working group to be able able to figure out like what the pain points are and one of those like you hit the hit the nail on the head is like they want they want to be able to know what's going on every day be able to check in with employees so I've been a I've been a part of that working committee and I do all the internal communication as as well as external for Pheasants Forever and Quill Forever as a whole and one of the best parts of my job is getting to check in with our internal team so before this podcast Today actually, a couple months ago, we instituted sort of a a new way of connecting. We call it horizontal collaborations, like we want to be connecting with teams across the country. we don't want to be doing things in a bubble. because a lot of times whether it's the communication side, the graphics side, partnerships, anytime we do a new partnership, our public access to habitat program, a land acquisition, there's a lot of different facets of that. So one of the things we instituted a couple months ago is called coffee chats, where especially director, VP level and above, we've contacted the entire organization and assigned lists to people and it just basically randomly randomized lists to set up a 15-minute coffee chat. I I would like to call them like ask ask me anything meetings, where we really

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Jared Wiklund: just get to sit down and meet with people and teams from across the country, figure out what may them tick, what are some cool things they're working on right now? and I've had really, really good feedback from our from our director and VP team on that as well as from the field. they've enjoyed the time to be able to sit down, ask a question that might be on their mind that maybe they haven't asked of of their direct supervisor. So that's really been one thing that we've done as well. We hold we host town hall meetings like two to four times per year right now with our entire leadership team. team to be able to we have people submit questions of that and we'll be able to answer all those questions sort of over an hour hour and a half time frame so you're absolutely right I think as organizations continue to grow you don't want to you don't want to lose lose ground on sort of the the local homegrown beginnings of where pheasants forever and quail forever came from so that's probably been one of our largest pain points as we've continued to grow as an organization. But as you and I have talked, you know, the structure we've put in place, we've got internal working groups. we communicate regularly over everything that we do, all of our news releases, all of our internal information that needs to go out. We've instituted a internal company newsletter, and that's everything from what are some cool stories that folks are working on and projects they're working on throughout the country to off-the-cock photos. I mean I just put out a submission here, I think it was two weeks ago now. Got all sorts of awesome off the clock photos, people getting married, new b new babies throughout the organization, people taking taking trips and telling us about things that they're doing. you know, the hunting on the outdoor side of it I think is near and dear to a lot of us at the organization as well. So those are just a few of the things that we've tried to institute to have that horizontal collaboration across the country, and it's worked really well. And one of the ways we try to measure that. is through sort of our our internal surveys that we do. And I'm pretty proud to report that does it forever our internal survey that we use. It's outsourced to a company that that helps us do it. We've got very very high scores compared to the average across the country.

Chris Lee: Hm. So that's like like an employee engagement survey, kinda like what Gallup does. Yeah. Okay. Yep.

Jared Wiklund: Eng Yep, engagement survey. Yep.

Chris Lee: well that that's cool to hear. because I you know, that is what I see sometimes is is as organizations grow and evolve and and you know, just get bigger, the people that were involved in it when it was small and and

Jared Wiklund: Mm-hmm.

Chris Lee: they they enjoyed it at at that level, sometimes resist that that growth and and and stuff like that. And I'm frankly I'm guilty of this. Of, you know, like one of the reasons that that I've been involved with PF for so long is that it is that local model. You know, like if if you were to just like if I if it was just a species thing, honestly I should, I, I, and and I am a member of the Turkey Federation. but Because I I I spend more time turkey hunting than I do hunting anything else. But I grew up duck hunting. And so I a member of DU for a long time and I was on my my college DU committee. But it was PF that has that local model, you know, so a local a local chapter raises money locally and it's always been that like small, scrappy local impact stuff, and and that's why I've it's what drew me to it. And that was one of the things I love so much about when I was a farm biobiologist that this organization was like small and scrappy, but doing these big crazy crazy things on the landscape. And, you know, it was like, man, we're we're like we're this small but powerful little group of it felt it felt a lot like a what I think a startup company would be, you know? And

Jared Wiklund: Yep. I I love the I love the turn scrappy. and I

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Jared Wiklund: think that speaks to I don't want it to have a negative connotation either. I I I think the really unique thing about that local model is that we can move really quickly to initiate a partnership or help pull down a a land acquisition on a cool piece of property or a landowner comes to us and says, Hey, I I've got, you know, three months, I I need to move move this property, I wanna create a a conservation legacy for the future, you know, can Pheasants Forever and Quill Forever help me with that? Absolutely. so So I think that's one of the things that have have branded us, that's what speaks to people, is our ability

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Jared Wiklund: to to move quickly with partnerships, with land acquisitions, with habitat projects, and help help create like this tangible acre, this tangible project that you can see and touch and feel and experience. I think that

Chris Lee: Right.

Jared Wiklund: really speaks to to who we are as a conservation group.

Chris Lee: Yeah, and and I and I think that has resonated with so many people that have been involved in this organization, especially those that have been around, you know, for a couple of decades. and the the the risk, and this is why I wanted to have this conversation, the risk with as you grow is that that that scrappiness starts to fall away. Like a bigger organization just moves slower sometimes. And you know, and so that's kind of why I wanted to have this conversation, you know, what systems are you building in? What you know, so as far as like engagement with chapters and and staff relationships with chapters and stuff, how has the organization built mechanisms to, you know, to kind of keep that connection going, you know, because it was you know it's always been that that you know, chapters make the organization and the national office kind of exists to to to serve the chapters, you know, because of that local model that that PF has always had, which is different from any other organization out there. What what systems have been put in place to, you know, to maintain that, to to cultivate chapters and and help them continue to be successful. And I'm gonna use that as a segue into you know, what recommendations you may have for helping chapters going forward because I'm in a particular situation that I wanna pick your brain about.

Jared Wiklund: Yeah, absolutely. You know, I'll start on sort of the new chapter side first. we've had a lot of success, especially over the past few years. I think getting getting the right people in place as regional reps, finding people that are personable, understand our model. we've got a lot of wonderful people as regional reps across the country right now. and we've also expanded our regional reps into like particular fields. Like they're they're all meeting with chapters, but some of like, hey, how can we make our event system that, you know, chapters go on and sign up with their events and we help them market those different things. How can we make that easier for them? How can we make it more efficient to reach more people? we've got we sort of got a new chapter chapter playbook or chapter start book that is it just came out. I just saw the the draft of it, I guess the final draft the other day. and for new chapters that are starting out, or maybe for chapters that have existed for a while that are looking for new new ways to talk Target new audiences. It's like a 35-page booklet that gives you everything from like here's how you start a chapter, here's how you go about running a meeting, here are some of the like if you want to figure out a way to do some quick fundraising to sort of jumpstart your efforts on the habitat side, here are some quick quick ways to do it without a lot of overhead. So this chapter playbook I think has been a a really unique idea that's been coming for a long time. chap our chapter regional representatives have started to sit down with chapters too and just sort of assess assess organizational health or chapter health with them what they're spending what they're spending money on i think one of the things we've done really well as an organization in the past few years is we've sort of gotten away from mission drift where we really want chapters focusing on our our main event which is habitat conservation and there's a lot of things that fit inside Of there. It's habitat projects, land acquisitions, public access, and then the education component as well. And I think we've done a pretty good job on that side instituting new programs. So hands-on habitat is a really special one to me. I've done some I've done some wonderful events as part of that up here in my new chapter, or maybe not new chapter, but the chapter I've been a part of while I've been in the Twin Cities. And that hands-on habitat, we've connected. With groups like you know, XL Energy and some different construction conglomerations where they're really willing to help us with big equipment and manpower to bring out men, women, children, families, and really get people involved. And when you can do an awesome project and show the benefits of that, I know it's helped our chapter tremendously pick up new people from the community that want to reach out. One of them worked at this past. weekend with me at a thing called Game Fair here in Minnesota. He's actually two brand new people that haven't worked with us in the past that came out to those events, got on board. They're pheasant hunters, they have dogs, they understand it and they they want to be find some people in their community that share those similar interests. And we're actually all going to sort of the the regional regional meeting tonight with our regional rep at a at a place not Too far from the house here tonight. We're gonna see a lot of different chapters. And I think success builds success to some degree. and I've seen that whether it was at the Northern Folk Chapter in Anthony that I used to be a part of, you know, it was used to be a 125, 150-person banquet. We had quite a few guys on the organiz on the chapter, and we just decided, like, hey, we've got so many contacts, let's try to blow this thing up. And in one year, you know, you went from a hundred and fifty-person banquet to a five hundred person banquet to hosting a sponsor golf event to doing women women and youth mentored hunts to first time mentored hunts to doing hands-on habitat projects and I've seen that trajectory from a couple different chapters and then the other thing I would say too is that we've done a really good job at starting new chapters across the country. I think you will know as being a chapter guy that should come as no surprise that at one point like our systems weren't up to snuff sort of our CRM

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Jared Wiklund: our our our banquet systems, our ticketing systems. Yeah, I can see a I can see

Chris Lee: Hmm.

Jared Wiklund: you smiling about it 'cause I'm of the same way. I've I've dealt with that in the past and we asked our chapters to help us support financially moving those systems in the right direction. We've got it to a point now where we can pinpa pinpoint people that are coming to chapter banquets that don't have one and they've consistently come to chapter banquets let let's say in like Des Moines County for instance. but

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Jared Wiklund: maybe there's an hour away and they don't have a chapter locally, that's where we've been able to like find those different people in our system, send them and send them a message or call them up and say, hey, would you guys like to have a meeting? You've been coming to this Pheasants Forever Banquet for a long time. What do you think about starting one in your own community? And we've got a lot of success with that to more than a hundred chapters here in the past two years.

Chris Lee: Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Well and that I mean that gets back to, you know, just data and and systems. And you know, you look at any company out there, like they're really gonna focus on that. You know, d data is going to help you figure out, you know, where best place to put chapters. You mentioned this the Northern Polk thing and going from a hundred and fifty person banquet to a five hundred person banquet and then all these events and and I I love hearing that. But hearing that automatically sends alarms off in my brain of, my God, that is so much more work. How

Jared Wiklund: Hehehehe

Chris Lee: How have you navigated that? Because here's because here's the situation I'm in. You know, we're we're we're kind of an older chapter. or I mean not really older, but like we've we've had the same kind of people with the chapter for a little bit. There's whatever half a dozen of us that, you know, we do our banquet every year. And it's a successful bank. We have 250 people and we have it at the local convention center and we do a prime rib dinner and and you know, we we we do well. but we've been doing this over and over and over and over. And I mean i a a lot of it's

Jared Wiklund: I'm still holding on to some of your some of your prime rib from back in the day too in here. I've I've still got it, so keep going, sorry. You are Wuchi Yeah.

Chris Lee: Right, yeah. It's it's it built you into what you are literally speaking, right? Yeah. And and it it's we're we're kind of hitting the point where and I I just reached out to to some of our chapter members, you know, I'm like, hey, where are you guys at on this? Because, you know, regional meetings rolled around and the email came out but hey, here's the you here's the regional meeting schedule. I forwarded out to the team and I got zero reply. And so then I said, Hey, I don't You know, I don't want to drive down to the to the regional meeting that's two chapters away or two counties away, which is the closest one to us. let's just attend the virtual one. Want everybody come on out to my house, I'll I'll we'll stream it. And you know, we'll we'll kind of kick off our our PF season with this regional meeting. And it was like crickets. And you know, and I get it's it's July, everybody's busy. or it's August, I guess. And everybody's busy.

Jared Wiklund: Busy can, yeah.

Chris Lee: but Like I I keep bumping up against that. Like we're burning out. I'm burning out. I love Pf. I've been involved in P F for a while, but but so much of this feels like an extra job, you know?

Jared Wiklund: Mm-hmm.

Chris Lee: And how how have you navigated that or how have you seen chapters navigate that volunteer burnout that that i know is prevalent across and it's not just pf like the this is every organization out there whether it's a whether it's a county park foundation or it's ducks unlimited or turkeys or delta or anybody like they're all up against this in some capacity not you know not all the chapters but they all bump up against that how how have you seen chapters navigate that or or what recommendations would you have to chapter people that that are are just they're they're in that position.

Jared Wiklund: Can I ask, from from your own experience, how many different

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Jared Wiklund: like engagement events could be hands-on habitat, those different things are you guys doing throughout the year?

Chris Lee: well, it's basically gone down to pretty much zero, because we couldn't we couldn't get the help. So we used to do

Jared Wiklund: Okay, gotcha.

Chris Lee: a big youth jamboree event down here and it would have I mean, we'd have a thousand people come to this thing. And over the last three, four, five years, the participation numbers have just been declining, declining, declining. We got down to the point where it was just a few hundred and it wasn't it it it wasn't worth the massive volunteer lift plus the the the committee people it was kind of a a collection of the different wildlife organizations in our community

Jared Wiklund: Hm.

Chris Lee: that you know they were they were fried and it just they weren't seeing the the bang for their their time and it ended up being that the county conservation department was kind of leading it and I couldn't justify the staff time into into this event that was declining. we used to do a bunch of shooting events. so, you know, we they would be like, back when PF was doing the young guns thing when John Linquist was still around. or the we started the the local trap team shooting sports. They're all self-sufficient now. They don't really need us. The we have, you know, every school in our county

Jared Wiklund: Mm-hmm.

Chris Lee: has a shooting sports team, thanks to, you know, in part to us getting them up and running. But they're self-sufficient now. They don't really need us. We're not really involved. we don't have any coaches. You know, I used to be a coach for the local trap team, but then I I got out of that. And so we're not so much involved in that anymore. We're not doing these introductory programs because it's just it's hard to, you know, we try to put something on the calendar. I'll sit down with my nature center manager who's who's kind of involved with our chapter and we'll try to get some events on the calendar and be like, hey, who's available for these dates? And, you know, it'll be like, sorry, I'm I'm on a family vacation that weekend or, you know, whatever. It's just we couldn't get the bodies and it ended up like we're just we're not really doing anything but putting on the banquet now.

Jared Wiklund: Yep. Gotcha. so I think probably a couple different things that that I can point to. number one is taking advantage of people reaching out or looking for opportunities to partner with other groups. So I mentioned XL Energy earlier on. just a couple years ago I had a couple life members that I knew worked for worked for XL Energy in the Twin Cities here. It's one of the biggest energy companies in the country, and they're housed out of the Twin Cities. and And they

Chris Lee: Have their own stadium, don't they?

Jared Wiklund: yeah, well it was Excel Energy. I th I don't know if they renamed it now. I can't remember. Anyways, I've been down I've been down to watch hockey lately.

Chris Lee: Yeah. Anyway.

Jared Wiklund: one of the things I found speaking with them is that there's a lot of groups out there, a lot of bigger companies, that will pay their employees their hourly wages or their salary, and they will also contribute that same amount of money to some type of nonprofit five one C three. so as a group, our chapters really leaned into that. so we met with Excel Energy in some folks that knew were on that chapter. one of them was on our one of them was on our committee. The other one was a life member that was just interested in doing some more work and volunteer work on behalf of their company. So we just met with them for breakfast one morning and they said, hey, we we're hunters, we're outdoors people and some of the projects we've been doing lately haven't really been fulfilling to us. So you know we're looking for an opportunity to partner and and do some fun things. So we put on a we did our first hands-on habitat event I think more than a year ago now. and we had we had almost forty people on the ground and they brought skid they brought skid steers and chainsaws and all these other things. and as part of that, you know, I quickly realized like picking up some trash in a parking lot is probably not gonna do it for this type of event. We need to think a little bit bigger. so that's where we started to form a relationship with our County Park system and we signed a an MOU with them to do habitat work. We also signed one with a DNR on an 1800 acre management area that's right next to this county park. So very quickly we got the masses involved, and from that we picked up three or four different committee members that have been coming to all the different events we've been doing, whether that's the chapter banquet, could be bingo, we went out and did a habitat day. helping the DNR put brand new signs on this management area. So I think doing doing trying a success trying a successful event, even if you don't have people to begin with, all it takes is a few to try to amass an army of volunteers that are interested in doing habitat work and being outside. We found that that that really works works for us

Chris Lee: Mm.

Jared Wiklund: extremely well. So that's that's been a big one. Also So when we started partnering with the DNR and the county, we found some other folks within their ranks that were interested in doing something. I think here's one of the biggest things I would point out is that One of the main reasons we do development training at Pheasants Forever and Quill Forever, probably once a year, just because it's a it's an important aspect of what we do and creating partnerships and those types of things. Do you wanna know the number one reason why people aren't involved with Pheasants Forever or maybe don't wanna give a donation? 'Cause

Chris Lee: Where's that?

Jared Wiklund: they haven't been asked. That's the num honestly, it's the num it's it's the number

Chris Lee: Yeah. Yeah.

Jared Wiklund: one reason. So our chapter I think does a really good job. it wasn't that long ago that our committee was a lot smaller. we were just doing the banquet, we were maybe doing a youth hunt, contributing to maybe like a veterans hunt. We do all those things, plus three hands on habitat, plus two bingos, plus a couple other things now because we brought a bunch of people into our tent from doing these from doing these local these local projects and we've reached

Chris Lee: Mm.

Jared Wiklund: out to these big companies we've reached out to the DNR and our county system we've reached out NAVDA Navda and and dog trainers throughout this region because the the place that we're working on right now used to be part of it was like a 600 acre dog training area and they s they still have the dog training area there. It's downsized a little bit as part of this public area. but we've gotten a lot of dog trainers on board as well that come out and help us with habitat events, come out and help us at the banquet. so sometimes our meetings are still a little light on the number of people that are coming to those, but our email list on the people that want to be involved in like hands-on projects has been pretty incredible. So I think that's

Chris Lee: Mm.

Jared Wiklund: where we've found success with recruiting folks is giving people something to do and delegation has been a huge part of it too. We've got a chapter president here named Garrett that I've become very close friends with. We've got a new we've got a new treasurer that stepped up who's just retired. he loves to fly fish and bird hunt. Those are his two favorite things. so working with pheasants forever goes well. and we've got a we've got a youth chair that wanted to be find a like minded group of people. and he does the same thing that we've done a lot of outreach and setting up you know accounts for our local shooting shooting sports teams

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Jared Wiklund: but with that we're still running a raffle with all of our shooting sports teams throughout the year and providing this last year I think we raised twenty nine thousand for eleven different teams here in the in the metro area and because of that we also have I think three different trap team coaches on our board as well. So

Chris Lee: Mm.

Jared Wiklund: utilizing what Pheasants Forever has put in place, working with our regional rep and doing like quality hands-on habitat projects that give back to the places that these people recreate in has been a winning recipe for us.

Chris Lee: you hit on something that that I inherently know. Sometimes you just gotta be taught lessons over and over and over again. is that it does. It requires an ask. And and not just, hey, come to our banquet planning meeting and join our committee so that we can plan this banquet and have a bunch of meetings and you

Jared Wiklund: Mm-hmm.

Chris Lee: know, but it's that ask of, Hey, come do this. Come and do this habitat project with us. Let's go outside and and you know, cut honeysuckle out of this prairie that's been invaded or or whatever the the work ends up being. And it's and it's an it's an immediate gratification because at the end of the day they can turn around and and see what they've accomplished and then You know, there there's nothing that's more bonding than doing hard work together. Right. I mean, this is why why

Jared Wiklund: Mm-hmm.

Chris Lee: soldiers are are are so tight with each other and and you know, why the you hear about, you know, those people that that, you know, did some big you know, project together, or overcome some big obstacle together are are, you know, pretty tight knit oftentimes. And so

Jared Wiklund: Yeah.

Chris Lee: yeah, I think that's that's a a good angle and one that I haven't taken. I've like, I gotta find somebody that's interested in bird hunting, which we're not a big bird hunting communic community down here. Like we're we're kind of in that transition zone between like you got up in the northern part of Iowa, you a lot more birds. Even one county north of us, there's a lot more birds, but you get down in here, our landscape

Jared Wiklund: Yeah.

Chris Lee: changes a little bit, we get a lot more trees. Like, I mean, we're a we're more of a whitetail county, and then you go south of us down into down into

Jared Wiklund: White tail and turkey, yep.

Chris Lee: northern Missouri, you get into the quail world. You you lose pheasants completely. in that transition zone so that we don't have a huge bird hunting community around here. And I'm like, man, I just I don't know anybody that's gonna want to come to a banquet planning meeting, but I'm asking the wrong question. Like, what I need to do is

Jared Wiklund: Yeah, the

Chris Lee: find somebody that wants to come do some cool thing with some like-minded people.

Jared Wiklund: The awesome part about Pheasants Forever's mission and our model is that it transcends the bird itself. you know, we exist

Chris Lee: Right.

Jared Wiklund: to put habitat on the ground and put more pheasants and quail and all the other upland birds. and the byproduct of that is more deer, more turkey, more pollinators, cleaner water, better

Chris Lee: Right.

Jared Wiklund: soils, like all those different byproducts that come from it. But I've learned really quickly here that like if you don't I've gotten a lot better at the ask over the years and I should be Decent at it as a regional rep because, like, we come to the chapters, obviously, right, to support

Chris Lee: Right.

Jared Wiklund: different programs that we have, and we have some very good programs right now from Build the Wildlife Area to some of the hands-on habitat stuff to the education component to LAF Legislative Action Fund. Don't need to use acronyms,

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Jared Wiklund: but we found a lot of success locally here. Like, hey, how about we just reach out to this company and we're having this big hands-on habitat day? Do you think like they've got all this rental equipment? equipment, do you think they would borrow any any of it? It's like, well, if we don't ask, you're never gonna know and

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Jared Wiklund: you make the ask and all of a sudden we've got three skid steers with tree shears on showing up and three three more behind that with grapples. Like you can do a lot of work in a day removing volunteer trees and treating and stacking and burning in a single day when you got forty people doing it and that much mechanical help. So,

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Jared Wiklund: We found a lot of success in that. That the the art of the ask to some degree it it's not dead or at least it shouldn't be. you have to make the ask, otherwise people aren't gonna know. And it we've I've had plenty of people in the past too on local committees, on chapters that I've worked with as a regional rep too where it's like they'll never they're not responding to anything, they're not coming to meetings. It probably means they're not they're not all that interested. and that's where like we try to find the people That are and do more outreach. The more outreach the better is what I've found. And we've built a a very solid committee and group of people that love hanging out together, share similar interests. and by the way, we're getting a lot of stuff done. We're applying for for grants through foundations and other things, and we're we're turning

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Jared Wiklund: and burning tens of thousands of dollars a year locally, upgrading our wildlife areas, helping out youth shooting sports, contributing to land acquisitions and advocacy efforts. And I don't know. To me, where I've moved up to here in the Twin Cities, I'm more pumped up than ever and going to the regional meeting tonight I think is probably just gonna enforce that. So

Chris Lee: Yeah. Yeah. No, that's that that's great. That's that's that's good insight and definitely something I'm that you know I'm gonna look into is I I think I just y you get stuck in a rut sometimes, you know, and

Jared Wiklund: Mm-hmm.

Chris Lee: and you know sometimes you just gotta you gotta stop and pick your head up and look around. I want to so one of the things that's been brought up from a couple of different folks I've talked to 'cause I've been exploring this This concept of how do you revive a chapter? one of the things that's been brought up is is getting away from the traditional banquet. you know, like like chapters just they put on a banquet, they raise some money, and then they turn around, they spend that money on some habitat projects or youth shooting sports or whatever.

Jared Wiklund: Mm.

Chris Lee: and One of things that was brought up was there's there's endless number of options beyond just a fundraising banquet that a that a chapter could do. And

Jared Wiklund: Yep.

Chris Lee: you know, and I'll reiterate here, this isn't just a PF thing. This is for any NGO out there, could you know, or even even park foundations and friends groups. what are some of the successes? I mean, you've mentioned, you know, obviously hands-on habitat events, but what are some of the successes you've seen other chapters utilize that has been successful fundraisers that weren't just your traditional banquet with an auction and a silent auction and some raffles and a you know, a meal and an open

Jared Wiklund: Yeah.

Chris Lee: bar.

Jared Wiklund: Yeah, no problem. we've done a couple locally here and we also have a few coming up. So bingo events. bingo events are really fun. You pick a local establishment that's got a good customer base. You're sending out to your your customer or member member list in your county. You're putting up signs, you know, at that establishment and some of these other areas. people people love playing bingo, so the one that we have coming up, we're doing it around the the Vikings Packers. game the three three hours before so it's gonna be a fun event. I sent out we just sent it out yesterday and we're a month out it occurs on September 13th. I think yesterday alone we just had like 11 people sign up just off the get-go. we're gonna shoot for 75 and just between the people of the committee that are gonna be there and other folks that we I've already talked to we know we're gonna we're gonna hit that mark. So bingo is a fun one. pint night pint nights are another fun one where you can just run a couple run a couple raffles. you know, especially for chapters that are getting started. you know, we work with Shields and other partners out there. We've got like banner raffles that you can get on get for the cheap. and I think they every chapter comes with seed money when you're starting out here. I forget what the number is, but they hook you up with some seed money to get started. And you know, just putting putting up advertising a pint night Facebook or social media platform or you know just getting out the community and putting up signs and stuff. It's easy to do. There's people there, everybody wants to win a gun. that's always that's always been something that's uniform across the board or

Chris Lee: yeah.

Jared Wiklund: or win something fun. So doing pint nights and just running a banner raffle is easy. You can raise money, you can meet people. that's the biggest thing. so yeah, I mean we're just we're not a banquet. We we still run on. Awesome banquets throughout the country. we put on an awesome one here locally in April, and there's all sorts of you know, September, October, November, and then kind of January through April is a pretty big one. But yeah, there's all sorts of fun things you can do. Adult learn to hunt events, family oriented events, pike nights, bingo bingo events. I've seen chapters do kind of all all sorts of crazy. stuff that brings people in the door. you can run a raffle or two and and make some funds and make some connections is probably the biggest biggest part of it.

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Good. I like that. so stepping back to organizational leadership again. So we're gonna step away from the the the chapter stuff. I wanted to explore that just because that's my own particular situation. it's not really

Jared Wiklund: Absolutely. It's mine too.

Chris Lee: necessarily organizational leadership, which is what this show is all about. but nevertheless there's a lot of overlap. Because I know, you know, a lot of people that are in conservation or parks world, they're also members of these organizations. They're committee members and stuff like that. So it's it's probably applicable. But getting back to the to the organization, you had mentioned before we hit record about PF you know, like pharma biologist positions oftentimes are stepping stones into agency positions. I mean, that was certainly my case. You know, I came, I worked for PF for just shy three years and then I got on with Des Moines County Conservation, which is, you know, home for me and always where I wanted to get back to. And I've watched a lot of people kind of come through, you know, serve in a PF role for a while and then move on to the DNR or to the Fish Wildlife Service or whatever. And those of us in the world of parks and conservation, we often have these what I'll call lower level positions, tech positions or things like that, which sometimes are a stepping stone, especially if there's not a lot of hierarchy in the organization. Like, you know, I mean here at Des Moines County Conservation, we have we have technicians, we have division supervisors, and then me as director, right? So there's there's not you're not gonna be moving up into a manager role. How has PF navigated that? Because that's a tough thing to do is to have employee churn. how have you navigated that and any recommendations you might have for organization leaders? you know, things they should consider if they do have those roles that are often stepping stones, or how they might structure a a workplace so that there is kind of a tiered structure so that people get an opportunity to move up into different levels of a field position without maybe necessarily moving into a higher level banishment position.

Jared Wiklund: Yeah, no problem. yeah, I think we can talk about a couple of different things. One would be I have an awesome I have an awesome career and awesome friends and co-workers at Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever. And you know, shout out to some of the leaders that we have there now. You know, Marilyn Better is great and got a great relationship with her. Bob Saint Pierre leads our marketing and communications department. We've got about twenty-five to thirty people in there. but I think one of the aspects of being a really good leader, and I think Marilyn and Bob and many others throughout our organization are great at this is that a lot of those decisions are not made in a bubble. they're very good at ask asking their asking their employee team like where do you you know and you get the standard quote like where do you see yourself in three years or where do you see yourself in five years or ten years. but it's you know especially when we come around to annual review time I think our team and and myself too like I always I've got a six person communications crew with regional communications specialists Throughout the country. I've got a public public relations specialist, I got a public relations manager, and then you know I sort of work with all of them. But one of the things is that's unique at Pheasants Forever, or maybe hopefully it's not unique, is that like you can kind of carve your own path to where you want to go. If there's something in the organization that interests you outside of let's say you're a farm built biologist, but like, hey, I really enjoyed working on habitat projects with my local chat. And maybe you know, I was thinking about that regional ref low looks looks pretty awesome. I'd love to be able to meet more of our volunteers throughout the country. I think developing sort of that stepping stone, that flow chart of where you want to go for the future, and like and developing it before that's the lesson that we've learned, I think, over probably the last decade is like it's better to have these things in place, and they change over time, but it's better to have these things in place to know what you and sometimes you don't. know what you need until it's hit smacks you right in the face. But

Chris Lee: Yeah, for sure.

Jared Wiklund: being able to being able to say like, hey, I think this is the way we should go, running that past. maybe somebody else in the organization, or maybe you have an influencer from the outside that you're working with, a strategist, like, hey, what's the what's the best way to go here? and building those things in advance. Be like, here's where you are now, here's where you want to get to, and sort of These are the positions that and these are the steps that you need to take over this this five years in order to get there. So you know, for me as for me as communications, I was always I was always like inside looking out, like what types of information are we getting out to the media, getting out to our members. and we quickly learned as we grew that like internal communication is key. So setting up setting up these coffee chats, setting up our town hall meetings, keeping people abreast of like things that are going on in the organization, what's going on at our headquarters. So being able to like identify those things and then your your sort of role changes and you you you graduate sort of up the scale I guess as an employee I think is really important. So getting that getting that buy-in from your employees and even you know we just got done talking about don't don't be shy about making to ask. I think a lot of times That's missed with employees like going to their managers and being like, I love this organization, I want it I want to be able to give it more. here's where I want to get to with my career at such and such organization. How can I get there? I think that's a really important step of leadership and vice versa is being able to have good employees and be able to have honest, down to earth conversations about what's bothering you, how we can change it and and maybe where you want to get to in the future.

Chris Lee: Hmm. So I I like that. And that that jives with a lot of things that I've talked about on the podcast and and through some of my leadership programs that I do is that it's it's people focused. You know, we a nonprofit exists for a mission, but there is no mission without the people to deliver it. And in the world of work, oftentimes

Jared Wiklund: Mm-hmm.

Chris Lee: I feel like we get this backwards is that work oftentimes or or or management is looking at it, people are a resource or a means to an end. So we don't accomplish our mission without the people. And so therefore we need some people to do this. And and it's like it's extractive. You know, like like we need to harvest this oil out of the earth so we can power our cars, right? We need to we need to get people working for this organization so we can provide for the mission. And the and the mission comes first, mission mission first and all this stuff. And yes, it needs to be mission first, but what you're saying is is What I espouse here is that we gotta turn that on its head and the people have to come first. And so you're saying that having that conversation of where do you want to go as an individual? What is important to you? What's what's your desired career track? And then focusing on, okay, let's let's figure out how to get you there, because if we invest in you to try to get you there, that's going to serve us and deliver on our mission, even if sometimes that sends that person right on out of your organization, which we see a lot. Let's, you know, let's face it. but nevertheless, you're it's giving you an opportunity then to bring someone in who sees that you value them as a person. And when they feel valued and they feel like they're their their interests are front and center, then they're going to give their all to the mission. And and

Jared Wiklund: Yep. And

Chris Lee: and so you you've got to get that people first mentality in there.

Jared Wiklund: To that point, one of the things and hopefully I haven't hopefully I haven't said it in this podcast because I tried to do a good job of not saying it, you know, it's been imprinted upon me like I I don't refer to my team members as staff. I forget who it was back in the day, but I had somebody tell me that the word staff, like the first thing they think about is staff infection. Like we don't we don't want we don't want staff. Yeah. We we

Chris Lee: A Ph

Jared Wiklund: we want we want engaged team members that are engaged

Chris Lee: Mm.

Jared Wiklund: like engaged team members that care about our mission and the things that we do. And what's the way to do that is to number one, we want them to be happy, we want them to be healthy, we want them to feel like they're part of a team. And if we can do those things they're going to be engaged in the mission because they they care about who they work for and and and what they're doing on the landscape. So

Chris Lee: Mm.

Jared Wiklund: that's been imprinted on me and I've tried to tried to live by that. You know, checking checking in with people, doing the coffee chats that I talked about. If if you're an organization who hasn't done that before and this was our first time doing it, I had a lot of awesome feedback from people at the beginning who were like, hey, I wasn't sure how this was was gonna go but my ten or fifteen minute coffee chats went into an hour and we learned about people's families, what makes them tick and that's the type

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Jared Wiklund: of horizontal collaboration and the type of organization

Chris Lee: Right.

Jared Wiklund: that I personally want to be a part of.

Chris Lee: Yeah. Yeah. It's it's it's building it's building that connection and it's building that tribe, right? And and I mean this is a a core component of one of the things that I teach is that humans are wired for connection. Like like we we only exist as a species because of our ability to work together. Like physiologically,

Jared Wiklund: Mm-hmm.

Chris Lee: we are not adapted to survive the wilds. Like I don't know how we manage to survive the forces of natural selection. But it's because of our ability to work together. You know, the the early human walked out of his cave and come face to face with a cave bear, he's got no chance. But the minute six of his tribe mates come out and stand there shoulder to shoulder with them, now suddenly that bear is a resource. And we don't do that within our organizations enough to build that that that camaraderie, that, that sense of team. And I and I love this concept. I'm I'm totally gonna use this because I do use the word staff too often. But you're right. It's either you look at it as as you know, staff and pH with a staph infection, or staff is like, you know, that that thing that Moses held and you know it's a it's a tool to browbeat people with, or you know, it's a it's a it's a device to, you know, it's it it's a tool, versus team, that's a collection of people. And that's a

Jared Wiklund: Yeah.

Chris Lee: that's a very different dynamic. And and you're right, words do matter. So I I I might take that to heart. I hadn't I hadn't heard that before. I'm I wanna use that. Yeah.

Jared Wiklund: in engaged engaged team members. we have a lot of them at Pheasants Forever and Coil Forever. And the nice part about it too is that like I work with some of my best friends.

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Jared Wiklund: I've formed like the people that I herd hunt with and you know, elk hunt with and and like do some of that stuff. not only not only my teammates, but my chapter members as well. we're we're you know, we decided we're like, hey, what what if we all we've got this we've got a landowner that one of knows out in South Dakota and he invited us out and said, Hey, why don't why don't if the chapter wants to go out there and do some bur not on the chapter dime, it's all on our own. But getting like

Chris Lee: I sure yeah.

Jared Wiklund: like minded people together to go out and you know, sort of experience the fruits of your labor. it's important. It's really important.

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And y you know, you mentioned the coffee chats, and you know, I think the the the concept there is don't expect one of them to be be life-changing, but it's the consistency of showing up, having those chats, coming in From a place of curiosity, asking the questions, you know, how how are you really doing? What's going on in your life outside of work? And and humanizing the person on the other side. And over time, that's what builds trust. It's that consistency. You know, it's no different than doing habitat work. You go out there and you do a habitat work day. It's not like you can just never step foot on that property again and never manage it again, because the minute you walk away, it's already starting to change. And next year,

Jared Wiklund: Mm-hmm.

Chris Lee: the trees are gonna start coming back and you do a prescribed fire this year. It doesn't mean you don't ever get to do a prescribed fire again. Like that it's it's it's that consistency. And that's that's I think where a lot of leaders miss the mark is yeah, I did I did a coffee chat last year and then you know and I learned some stuff and that and that's great. But it's it's when you do those quarterly and you're constantly asking those questions, you're showing that curiosity, and you show that you that you give a damn about the person on the other side of the screen or on the other side of the table. and over time that's that's what builds. Like I just this episode that just came out here recently, the the guy I talked to, Matt Dody, he says the the compounding value of these type of things. And, you know, it's just no different than investing,

Jared Wiklund: Couldn't agree more.

Chris Lee: right? Like you put a dollar in and that dollar is just a dollar today, but over time the compounding effect turns it into, you know, millions. And that's it's that time and consistency. I always like to ask this question at the end of things. If you had the ability to give one message out to parks and conservation leaders out there, it could be a a billboard that they would all see or some sort of message that would get out to all of them, what would your parting message be to any current or aspiring leader in the parks and conservation world?

Jared Wiklund: Whew, that's a tough one, Chris. Putting me on the spot.

Chris Lee: Right?

Jared Wiklund: I would say that at the at the heart of any partnership is a is a personal relationship that you build over time. And I don't care if that's with an employee, if that's with a nonprofit like Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever. it could be any of those things. but I think the more that you invest in personal relationships, dropping somebody a Christmas card, dropping somebody a thank you note, for even something nominal that that might have happened, good things arise from that. I've seen it in my time at Pheasant Forever and Quill forever over the 16 years that I've been here. that even the even the smallest things can can blossom into a partnership that's providing, you know, places for people to go and open spaces for bird dogs to hunt. So I guess I would leave it with that is like don't ever take for granted like a a a a personal relationship that you have that that could spark into something that's a lot larger and meaningful in the bigger scheme of things.

Chris Lee: Yeah, that's that's great. And and you're spot on is that, you know, this this is all just human systems and that's that's where it all starts. I love that. Jared, thanks for joining me on this and thanks for what you do with with PF and growing helping being part of the growth of that organization. if someone wanted to get in touch with you, find out more about you, find out more about PF, where would they go?

Jared Wiklund: yeah, you can go to pheasantsforever.org to check us out or quail forever dot org or you can reach out to me directly at J Wickland, J W I K L U N D at Pheasants Forever dot org. I'd be happy to speak with you.

Chris Lee: Awesome. I will be sure to include all that in the in the show notes. And for those of you listening, thank you for joining me today and thank you for what you do. I will talk to you again soon. Take care. Wait, wait, wait. Don't go yet. Don't start that next episode. I've got something for you. The Parks and Restoration Better Meetings Field Guide. See, most meetings just suck. And I'm going to wage war on crappy meetings. Go to parksandrestoration.com, enter your email into the next level leadership community mailing list, and you'll get access to the free PDF download, which is the Better Meetings field guide. It will walk you through what meetings to get rid of, how to make the standing meetings better, and just all around get things done and not just sit there twiddling your thumbs and wondering why. Did I get myself into this? The Better Meetings Field Guide from Parks and Restoration. Go to parksandrestoration.com, join the next level leadership community, get the download. See you at the next episode. Take care.