About - Pheasants Forever Linn County

A Local Iowa Chapter

Welcome to the Linn County Pheasants Forever website. We are Linn County Pheasants Forever Chapter #45, proudly serving our community through conservation, education, and outdoor engagement.

Our mission is to:

Conserve critical habitat for wildlife, pollinators, native plants, and flowers
Preserve outdoor heritage traditions
Engage our community and support initiatives such as No Child Left Indoors
Educate youth and adults
Advocate for and provide community outreach aligned with our mission

Pheasants Forever is the only national conservation organization with a chapter model that allows local chapters to retain 100% of the funds they raise. While benefiting from the strength and voice of a national organization that influences federal and state conservation policy, local chapters identify and fund projects that directly benefit their communities. Iowa chapters fully embrace this model, investing funds locally and across the state to maximize conservation impact.

You can support our mission by becoming a member and attending our annual Linn County Pheasants Forever Banquet. This event is essential to funding our R3 (Recruitment, Retention, and Reactivation) efforts in the community. Our R3 goals are twofold:

Increase participation among current outdoor enthusiasts

Learn more below under R3 to discover how this effort supports our chapter, Pheasants Forever across Iowa, and our national organization.

Follow us: @IowaLinnCoPF Facebook Page

View Officers

Our Local Habitat Projects

We actively partner with local organizations, neighboring chapters, and Iowa conservation groups to support and participate in a wide range of habitat projects, including hands-on habitat field events. Through these collaborations, we engage youth in education, safety training, and field-based conservation projects while working to restore and preserve public lands for future generations.

Our fundraising efforts directly support habitat initiatives across six area counties, including projects in Buffalo Creek, Jones County, Linn County and Delaware County. These initiatives include critical land acquisitions that conserve habitat for wildlife, pollinators, native plants, and flowers, while also expanding public access to outdoor spaces.

These efforts are made possible through our annual fundraising banquet, Heroes Hunt, and generous contributions from our local community. Each year, nearly 240 people attend our annual banquet, helping us raise the funds that are reinvested directly back into our community to support conservation, education, and public land stewardship.

Learn more of our R3 efforts

Conservation and outdoor recreation go hand-in-hand. As public land stewards, we face many challenges managing America’s natural resources for recreation. Participation rates in many outdoor activities are changing. Demographic changes, competing hobbies and interests, and shifts in popular American culture have all contributed to the decline in participation rates of several outdoor pastimes. Currently, champions of the outdoor recreation community are focusing their efforts to strategically increase participation in hunting, angling, and the shooting sports through a national movement referred to as“R3.”

R3 (recruitment, retention and reactivation) describes everything from a specific program to an organization’s entire strategic vision to engage and serve customers.

True R3 efforts focus on the needs of individuals and the process required to ensure their adoption of, and continued participation, in a new outdoor activity. This outdoor-specific adoption process is referred to as the Outdoor Recreation Adoption Model (ORAM), and is based on more than fifty years of research documenting why and how certain activities or ideas are adopted by people and cultures. The ORAM illustrates, in a linear fashion, the steps an individual moves through as they learn about, try and then adopt a new activity or behavior and can be used to understand the difference between recruitment, retention and reactivation.

By understanding the ORAM and the processes critical to an individual’s adoption of an activity, R3 program managers and organizations can build strategies that effectively engage individuals in outdoor recreation and increase the reach and impact of their R3 efforts. To learn more about the ORAM and R3, join the professional R3 community at www.nationalR3plan.com.

Leave your Mark with a Donation

Because of generous supporters like you, Pheasants Forever continues to protect and enhance habitat for pheasants, quail, and other wildlife you care about. Your financial support ensures that vital conservation, education, and land-management efforts can thrive today and well into the future.

You can make a lasting impact by including a charitable gift to Pheasants Forever in your will or overall estate and financial plans. This simple and meaningful act creates a legacy that supports habitat improvements, public awareness, and conservation programs for generations to come.

“Contact” above to connect with your local Linn County chapter. With thoughtful planning, your generosity will help sustain and grow our mission for years ahead.

What Can You Do To Help?

Please explore our website and discover more about the Linn County Pheasants Forever. You'll find detailed information on all our activities and upcoming events.

Become a Pheasants Forever member or sponsor
Attend our annual banquet
Volunteer your time or resources to our chapter

Organizational History

Our local chapter, Pheasants Forever #45 was founded in 1983, in Linn County, Iowa. Our Chapter's board and volunteers assist in our communities to conserve critical habitat for wildlife, butterflies, native plants and flowers, preserve outdoor heritage traditions, acquire land to create wildlife areas for public use and enjoyment, engage our community and assist with initiative that "No Child is Left Indoors".

Pheasants Forever was co-founded on a national level in 1982 by co-workers at the St. Paul Minnesota Pioneer Press and Dispatch. Outdoor editor Dennis Anderson and national advertising director Jeff Finden were the co-founders who both recognized a need for habitat restoration and preservation to ensure the future of pheasants and other wildlife.

PF's first publication entitled "Rooster Tales," published in February 1983. This became the forerunner of today's Pheasants Forever Journal of Upland Conservation. The fledgling PF held its first banquet on April 15, 1983, drawing 800 people at the inaugural banquet. In January 2007, PF's third-ever National Pheasant Fest in Des Moines, Iowa, became the largest event in PF history, drawing over 24,500 attendees over a three-day span.

Twenty-five years after its inception, Pheasants Forever has become a grassroots, nationwide upland conservation movement - a national conservation powerhouse. The organization has grown to 110,000 members with over 600 chapters across the U.S. and Canada. Nationwide, Pheasants Forever has spent $260 million on program expenditures, which have helped fund 347,000 habitat projects affecting 4.4 million acres across North America. Along the way, PF has continued to employ the same unique organizational model of empowering local chapters to determine how 100 percent of their locally-raised conservation funds are spent. This local control allows chapters to see the fruits of their chapter efforts in their own communities.

Linn County Pheasants Forever - About Us Page

A Local Iowa Chapter

Our Local Habitat Projects

Learn more of our R3 efforts

Leave your Mark with a Donation

What Can You Do To Help?

Organizational History