Best Practices

Tool Kit

The Best Practices Toolkit will help state agencies and their partners design and implement effective programs and assure that existing efforts are as effective as they can be. Produced in cooperation with experts in the fields of research and education, the Best Practices Toolkit provides everything needed for program planning, including staff considerations, implementation and evaluation.  The Best Practices Tookit includes: Best Practices Workbook, Trainer's Guide, Fact Sheets and Audio-Visual Presentations.

Best Practices Workbook

The "bible" of Recruitment and Retention (R&R) Best Practices, this binder contains all the research-based Best Practices and recommendations for programs and efforts that work. It is an essential tool to help develop effective programs and/or evaluate existing ones and translates technical concepts into simple, interactive, reusable guidelines that can be implemented in any situation. The workbook addresses everything from building a new program from scratch to helping an ongoing program identify and tackle difficult issues using real-world examples and interactive, problem-based learning models. The Best Practices Woorkbook is designed and presented in a user-friendly modular format that allows practitioners to easily apply it to their current programs.

Trainer's Guide

Best Practices are only useful if staff and cooperators know about them and know how to use them. This guide contains everything staff needs to conduct half-day to two-day training workshops. This delivery mechanism will keep the Workbook and other tools functional -- otherwise they might find a permanent spot on a dusty shelf. This Guide is the "cookbook" that walks end users through the Best Practices Workbook.  The "train-the-trainer" format will help staff deliver Best Practices throughout their departments and partner organizations, providing maximum reach to end users in their state.

Fact Sheets

This series of "one-pagers" describe the most critical Best Practices concepts. They can be used as teasers and information sheets, encouraging new audiences to get the Workbook and learn more. This format helps address single Best Practices as needed, depending on the situation.

• Building Your Program on Solid Ground
• Creating Opportunities and Access
• Diverse Audiences and People with Disabilities
• Enhancing Hunter Education Programs
• How Do You Know If Your Program Is Working? Evaluation!
• Integrated Department-Wide Programs
• Mentoring
• Outreach and Marketing
• Make Your Hunting Recruitment and Retention Programs the Best in the Nation!
• Planning Ahead
• Shooting Sports in Schools and Special Events
• Well-Trained Instructors with Good Leadership Skills

Audio-Visual Presentations

This is a series of three PowerPoint presentation "modules" for trainers. These modules are designed to be customized for specific audiences to illustrate the benefits of using Best Practices. Topics covered in the presentation include:

• What are Best Practices
• Why are they important
• History and development of Best Practices
• What is needed to implement Best Practices
• How they can be applied

The Best Practices PowerPoint presentation has three separate modules:
(Right-click, select "Save Link/Target As")

• Module 1: Overview of Best Practices: Make Our Program the Best It Can Be

• Module 2: Best Practices: A Guide to Effective Programs

• Module 3: History of Best Practices in Hunting and Shooting Sports Recruitment and Retention

Recommended narration is included for each slide as applicable.

These presentations should NEVER be used straight "out of the box." Each is intended to be customized for use with specific target audiences.

Print versions of Best Practices materials can be requested by contacting:

National Shooting Sports Foundation
Best Practices Toolkit Order
11 Mile Hill Rd.
Newtown, CT 06470
203-426-1320

Supporting Research

Think Tank Report: Meeting the Challenge to Increase Participation in Hunting and Shooting (June 2000)

Summary of Key Recruitment and Retention Research (April 2007)