The Refuge Association had a record revenue year of nearly $3.3 million in operations and helped turn that into nearly $1 billion in public finance for fish and wildlife conservation. We've worked on local, regional, and global scales in partnership with the FWS, national and local conservation organizations, and always with a "big tent" approach where sportsmen, ranchers, students, birdwatchers, hikers, and nature-lovers can work together to support important conservation programs. With a lean staff that focuses on bringing maximum resources to achieve strategic conservation and policy milestones, we accomplished the following:

• Led efforts to approve the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Comprehensive Conservation Plan, which resulted in the President's creation of a 12,400,000-acre wilderness study area.
  
• Helped expand the 373,000,000 acre Papahānaumokuākea National Marine Monument and added it to the National Wildlife Refuge System, which is now the largest protected area network on planet Earth.
  
• Conserved over 5,300 acres of land in central Florida as part of Everglades Headwaters National Wildlife Refuge.
  
• With an authorization area of 920,000 acres across three states, Bear River Migratory Bird Conservation Area became the 565th unit of the Refuge System.
  
• We jumpstarted our Urban Wildlife Refuge Program around the nation to elevate the importance of wildlife refuges in urban areas.
  
• We trained refuge Friends organizations nationwide in fundraising, advocacy and board development and brought many to Capitol Hill to advocate for the Refuge System.
  
• We established a program in the Caribbean to conduct community outreach and public engagement activities throughout Puerto Rico, working closely with the Puerto Rican Parrot Interagency Working Group, the Caribbean Landscape Conservation Cooperative, and the FWS to build and enhance a connected conservation constituency.
  
• http://refugeassociation.org/