FY 2023-2024 Annual Report

Message from the Chair

When I was elected to serve a second term as your Chair of the Board of Directors for the Wild Sheep Foundation, I asked the board and staff to focus on the Wild Sheep Foundation Vision.  What is our desired future state?  

WSF Vision: To be the best managed most respected, influential, and relevant conservation organization benefiting wild sheep worldwide.  

I challenged everyone to be intentional about improving and adapting to be better at what we do and how we do it.  What do you aspire to do in your role with the Wild Sheep Foundation?  As you’ll see in this FY 2023-24 report, no one was idle!  Thank you, staff, and board for rising to the challenge for the betterment of wild sheep and the Wild Sheep Foundation!

I’d like to reflect on a few specific areas of aspiration:  

• Tell Our Story—This one is not going away and is so critical!  The Wild Sheep Foundation is deeply involved with such a wide range of projects and issues related to our purpose and mission.  We must do a better job telling our story, telling our members and our donors what we do each and every day to promulgate our purpose and mission.  We can’t do it without you, and we owe it to you to keep you informed on our progress.
• Today Funding—It has been my goal as Chair to continue to add to our Grant-In-Aid budget every year.  As I recall when I first got on the board, the allocation was $200,000 and for the second year in a row, we will allocate more than $1.6 million in funding to support wild sheep on the ground!  Thank you to our state and provincial partners and to our chapter and affiliates for bringing such great projects to fruition.  We rely on your connection to the resource, and it is paying off!  Remember, this is just one of many mission funding programs that WSF is committed to but it is the one that impacts wild sheep directly.   I want to thank our volunteer Professional Resources Advisory Board for the commitment in evaluating and recommending funding levels with input from conservation staff. 
• Keep Climbing—As our Marco Polo program sunsetted with the amazing $1 million auction item at Sheep Show 2024, the obvious need to build something bigger and better for the future was well underway.  You’ll learn more later in this document about the “Keep Climbing” campaign which will fund our endowment and provide considerable “Today” funding for our mission, but I wanted to take this space to thank Kevin Rinke and Bryan Bartlett plus staff members Gray Thornton and Paige Culver along with WSF board vice-chair Charlie Kelly for their commitment to this project. 

In closing, I am very excited, motivated, and humbled to serve as your Chair of the Board for this next year so thank you to our board for the vote of confidence.  We have a board of directors that is highly motivated, engaged, and committed to make sure our conservation and grant model is efficient, effective, and relevant to our purpose and mission.  We are continuing to evaluate every aspect of our business model to make sure we are maximizing every dollar donated to ensure the future of wild sheep and your foundation.  

Yours in Conservation,
Glen A. Landrus
Chair, WSF
 

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MESSAGE FROM THE president & ceo

The Wild Sheep Foundation (WSF) enjoyed another record year of fundraising, and consequently and more important, dollars directed to our Purpose and Mission. Through the generosity of our membership, Society members, donors, sponsors, and industry partners, WSF directed more than $11 million to wild sheep restoration, habitat conservation, youth education, advocacy initiatives, and public outreach programs benefiting the wild sheep resource and our hunting and conservation heritage. This bested our previous high of $7.53 million in Mission Program Funding set the prior fiscal by 47%.  An impressive accomplishment and one the wild sheep family can be justifiably proud.

Pages four and six of this annual report show, in graphic format, the continued growth of dollars to our Mission, more than $63 million during the past ten years alone, and where those dollars have been directed. 
 

 
Details of FY 2023-2024 Mission Program Funding

 
Launched in 2022, our revised focus and process of soliciting larger, bolder, and multi-year legacy Grant-In-Aid (GIA) projects continues to better engage our Chapter and Affiliates who serve as WSF’s boots on the ground and point of the spear for conservation action and impact. 

During the twelve months of July 2023 to June 2024 WSF funded $1.6 million to fourteen Grant-In-Aid programs requested through our Chapters and Affiliates. Five of these projects were legacy grants of $200,000 to nearly $300,000 benefiting desert bighorn sheep in Texas, Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep in Colorado, Stone’s sheep in British Columbia, and multi-jurisdictional, multi-year projects benefiting bighorn sheep in the Tri-State of Washington, Oregon and Idaho, and California bighorn sheep in Idaho, Oregon and Nevada. These and other projects, and their impact to the wild sheep resource, will be highlighted in our second annual Conservation Impact Summary curated and distributed to our members in the fall of 2024 and available on our website.

The balance of WSF’s fiscal year $11+ million in Mission Program Funding, included $2.35 Million directed to advocacy, research, education, and industry support GIA, $1.25 Million to the Wild Sheep Legacy Foundation to help fund wild sheep conservation in perpetuity, as well as a record $5.9 Million directed to our state, provincial and tribal/First Nation partners through 2024 conservation permit sales.

This is your legacy and your work through your generous support. The Wild Sheep Foundation is only able to accomplish our Purpose To Put and Keep Wild Sheep on the Mountain® because of you, the wild sheep family. Thank you.

Yours in wild sheep and wildlife conservation,
Gray N. Thornton
President & CEO