Richard King Mellon Foundation Grant Supplemental 2025

So excited and honored to be working with Outdoor Recreation Roundtable on the Trail Map for Rural Development. Proud to share the report below that summarizes the Summit in Pittsburg, PA last fall. It featured many Rural Development Hubs and PA Wilds Center for Entrepreneurship hosted all of the tours for participants!

One of the most important values centered in the report and all of the conversations is that outdoor recreation needs to work for rural regions first and foremost and not just be a tool to drive visitation or second home development.

Chris Estes, Co-Director, Aspen Institute Community Strategies Group

Good news continues for rural places on the outdoor recreationfront. This vision released by the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable provides an excellent roadmap for strengthening rural development through the outdoor economy, with opportunity intact off the removal from the reconciliation package of the proposal to sell off public lands & the addition of the president's executive order on preservation of those spaces.

This vision leads w/rural voices and is rural-centered. Kudos Chris Perkins & the entire team.

Tony Pipa, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution

Last October I had the honor of being invited to speak at the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable’s first National Leadership Forum on Rural Development. Since then our own Longwood Universityhas joined the Outdoor Recreation Workforce Consortium from ORR. And now the Trail Map born of the efforts of many across this country has been published. Thank you Jessica (Wahl) Turner and Chris Perkins for all of your efforts from legislation to public lands advocacy and to caring so deeply about rural America.

Brian Vincent, Mayor, Farmville, Virginia

Congratulations, Chris. This is a fantastic body of work which I am looking forward to sharing with our community here in Maine.

Lucas St. Clair, Board Chair, Trust for Public Land

Your email was still on my mind this afternoon when I met with staff to review the panel proposals submitted for HAC's National Rural Housing Conference.  

I think you, and the trail map, would make for a great session. We have attendees that develop housing in a fair number of recreation economies. And we have 1-2 possible presenters on the topic already lining up to take part.

It would be great to have you join us and ORR involved.

David Lipsetz, President & CEO, Housing Assistance Council 

Chris – this is fantastic and congratulations to you and the team for pulling this all together!  The video is very well done, and I am excited to review the full trail map.   Looping in others on the team as well for their awareness.

I really appreciated the opportunity to join you in Pittsburgh last fall, and we look forward to continued collaborations with you on all things rural development and outdoor recreation across the West.  Thanks for your continued leadership! 

Jack Waldorf, Executive Director, Western Governors Association

Great to see community-centered outdoor recreation elevated nationally through the work of ORR. Great work Chris - we're excited to be part of this effort.

Rob Riley, President, Northern Forest Center

Chris: This is incredible work, I’ll definitely checking it out. Thank you for thinking of us and we’ll share internally. I hope all is well with you. Take care,

Tee Thomas, Chief Executive Officer, Quantified Ventures

Great stuff and exactly what I’m seeing in my role. And I’m glad that you called out the need for maintenance and operations to be built into projects. One thought is that it can be challenges for the industry to “pick” rural communities to invest in and that FAPL and NPF are great conduits to partner with industry to identify and direct resources to communities that are ready to “break ground”: -- meaning, NEPA  is done, etc. 

I Ling Thompson, Chief Executive Officer, Foundation for America’s Public Lands 

I love how this design leads with the voice and vision of rural communities. It's innovative local-meets-global approach addresses the need for ecological and economic resilience at the core of sustainable outdoor recreation. This is how we honor and celebrate thriving communities. Bravo!  

Jennifer Lanas, Cisco

Congratulations on the release of the Trail Map! . This resource is really great and looks amazing! I know these things take a lot of effort to do! 

Thank you for sharing, Chris, and congratulations on the release of the Trail Map!  It's terrific and just the kind of framework needed for our sector to accelerate results for rural communities.  

Thanks for including me in the Forum and for bringing everyone together on this important work.

Ryan Chao, President, Rails to Trails Conservancy 

This week Outdoor Recreation Roundtable released its Trail Map for Rural Development in America.\

The Trail Map distills conversations from last year's National Leadership Forum on Rural Development and lays out key opportunities and next steps for communities, states and regions to leverage the outdoor recreation economy.

(And it does it all in 25 easy to consume pages!)

Thank you to Chris Perkins, Jessica (Wahl) Turner and the ORR team for including Firefly Outdoor + Economics in the leadership forum and highlighting our work as part of the Trail Map. 

Firefly Outdoor + Economics

Thank you so much for so generously inviting me - and Hawaiʻi Island to be a part of your work. This beautiful publication is full of gems and really valued memories of being in place with brilliant folks.  

Sending you and your family much aloha,

Janice Ikeda, Executive Director, Vibrant Hawai’i 

Thank you so much for forwarding. Very well done. We will be sure to forward to our communities.   

Cheers!

Matt Dunne, Founder and Executive Director, Center on Rural Innovation

I will continue to share with our networks and thank you so much for including ChangeLab! 

Shauneequa Owusu, Chief Strategy Officer, ChangeLab Solutions 

I’ve already started sharing this around as a resource, and will continue to do so! Awesome work!! 

Stephanie Bertaina, Program Director, Recreation Economy for Rural Communities, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 

Excited to see this effort come to fruition! Outdoor recreation can be a major driver for economic development, as well as conservation, and I can’t wait to see how communities use this tool.

Dawson Metcalf, Director of Enterprise, Colorado State University Warner School of Natural Resources

Thrilled to see this come out! So many great recommendations here. Thank you Outdoor Recreation Roundtable for continuing to uplift rural places and voices and advance strategies for how intentional outdoor recreation development can be a force for good in rural communities!

Ta Enos, Founder and CEO, PA Wilds Center for Entrepreneurship

We are proud to help contribute to this report, and hope more communities use this guide to develop relationships with vested partners to help rural communities become healthier and more resilient by investing in outdoor recreation.

And be sure to check out the amazing Pennsylvanians featured so prominently -- congratulations team!

Nathan Reigner, Director, Pennsylvania Office of Outdoor Recreation 

I’m impressed with the work of the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable — it keys in with the theme of my June blog series on conservation & the great outdoors.

John Shepard, AICP

Lots of familiar PA faces in this video! There’s a reason Outdoor Recreation Roundtable held last year’s outdoor rec forum, which led to the excellent Trail Map for Rural Development, in Pittsburgh. We’re glad to have been part of the conversation!

Pennsylvania Environmental Council

PA PROUD ⭐ JARI is proud to be a partner and supporter of this great initiative! It was an honor to host the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable National Leadership Forum in Cambria and Somerset County for a tour of our outdoor recreation haven along with a few historic pit stops like the World's Steepest Vehicular Inclined Plane in Johnstown, PA!  What a fantastic, collaborative initiative focusing on some of our nation's most serene, beautiful areas. This video was such a fun reminder of our visit with the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable National Leadership Forum 🫶 Thank you for sharing & inspiring. 

Check us out on pages 9, 10, & 25 of the ORR's Trail Map for Rural Development in America.

Johnstown Area Regional Industries

Outdoor recreation is a powerful driver of rural resilience and economic development, something we see firsthand here in BC.

That’s why I was excited to dig into the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable’s new Trail Map for Rural Development. It’s packed with practical ideas to help rural communities harness the US$1.2 trillion outdoor rec economy through local vision, strong partnerships, and long-term planning. 

The resource breaks it down into five focus areas: education, community vision, financing, resilience, and innovation, with lots of ideas we can learn from and apply here in Canada, too. 

If you’re working in rural development, planning, or the recreation sector, it’s well worth a read. 

Louise Askjaer Pedersen, Executive Director, Outdoor Recreation Council of British Columbia

Our friends at the Washington, D.C.-based Outdoor Recreation Roundtable just dropped a useful guide for anyone working to strengthen rural communities through outdoor recreation. 

With the US outdoor rec economy now topping $1.2 trillion, there’s huge potential, especially for rural towns, to build resilience, diversify local economies, and boost quality of life. The Trail Map for Rural Development is all about how to make that happen.

 It breaks things down into five key areas: Education, community vision, financing, resilience, and innovation, with ideas, tools, and examples to help turn outdoor access into long-term community benefits.

Lots of takeaways here that can spark ideas in BC too. Worth a read! 

Outdoor Recreation Council of British Columbia 

Get to know outdoor recreation's powerful role in rural development with another resourceful tool from Outdoor Recreation Roundtable!

What is one key element that makes it successful? Community-driven involvement.

Alex Brown, Executive Director, Texas Outdoor Recreation Alliance