MeatEater Gives is a company-wide initiative that works to organize, facilitate, capture, and expand our contributions toward the causes and efforts most important to our company and its employees.
We are committed to protecting the rights of hunters and anglers while enhancing wildlife resources and public access to America's woods, waters, and mountains. We strive to encourage a strong conservation ethic among future generations of hunters and anglers; we support our veterans and first responders, and we help our local communities through the support of initiatives that adhere to the basic principles captured in the MeatEater Creed.
We support the preservation of and access to the natural world. We are committed to conserving our resources and ensuring continued accessibility to those resources. We’re actively working towards increasing public access for every hunter, angler, and lover of wild places.
We're dedicated to youth empowerment and continued education and mentorship to ensure outdoor opportunities are accessible for all that wish to pursue them.
We are grateful for the servicemen and women who protect our country and we aim to support veterans and first responders, especially when it comes to their connection with the natural world.
We strive to give back to the communities where we work and operate.
We are working to give back on an ongoing basis via annual initiatives that support conversation, education, veterans and first responders, and our local communities. Each of these initiatives makes an impact via boots on the ground or by facilitating donations to organizations and programs that align with our mission.
2021 $330,000 Dollars facilitated*
2022 $690,000 Dollars facilitated*
2023 $750,000 Dollars facilitated*
2024 $485,000 Dollars facilitated*
On arguably the hottest day of the summer, the MeatEater workforce in Bozeman came together to clean up litter and debris at the Logan Landfill Shooting Range. The Range is public land where many of our employees and many Gallatin valley residents go to shoot clays, sight in rifles, and overall get in their shooting practice. With that comes A LOT of shells, litter, debris, and stray blown up household items. Nearly every Bozeman employee attended the event. We partnered with DNRC who led a presentation on State Trust Land, its user groups, and the importance of keeping these sites clean. At the close of the event, the MeatEater team filled up an industrial sized dumpster with over 1,500lbs of trash.
In tandem with the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, MeatEater has raffled off a Michigan Turkey Hunt for the past four years to help raise money for TRCP and its conservation efforts. TRCP & MeatEater raised $85,550 in 2024 for TRCP while raffling off a Mississippi turkey hunt with MeatEater Crew members Steven Rinella and Janis Putelis. You can learn more about TRCP's work by clicking this link. Our founder, Steven Rinella, sits on the board for TRCP and it has been a meaningful and impactful partnership.
DSD worked with Ducks Unlimited and Alaska Department of Fish and Game on a radio collar project for Lesser Canada Goose. They used our Lesser and Cackler Decoys to lure birds to the capture area and net them. The program helps identify migratory patterns, survival, and population, It also helps point out key areas of habitat for the birds in Alaska and down the west coast. DU and ADFG will use the information to help improve habitat in these critical areas.
DSD's also auctioned off the Limited 25th anniversary hen raising $2k and the limited hens, raising a total of $3,985. The funds were donated and supported wild turkey studies in several states.
In 2018 First Lite employees kicked off Brush for Bucks in collaboration with Hushin. Since 2018, we've been working to rehabilitate winter range in Southern Idaho degraded by fire and invasive cheatgrass. To date, we've planted more than 50,000 native shrub seedlings across hundreds of acres. You can learn more about it here.
Brush for Bucks 2024 was a resounding success. In collaboration with Hushin, Idaho Fish and Game, 130 volunteers, agency personnel and hunting industry folks planted 25,000 sagebrush and bitterbrush seedlings for an important big game winter range degraded by fire and invasive grasses.
Supporting veterans and first responders is core to our philanthropic mission and we are so thankful to partner with one of the many great local organizations that supports veterans healing and spending time in the great outdoors.
FHF and MeatEater joined forces to present at Hunt for Purpose at WQW. Hunt for Purpose is an intensive, 6-month pursuit to support veterans in planning, preparing for, and executing a successful archery elk hunt in Montana’s backcountry. Along the way, six participants will learn the basics of elk hunting and backcountry survival, improve their physical fitness, and work alongside fellow Warriors and loved ones toward a common goal. We host a Hunt For Purpose Sayonara Dinner where our employees cooked recipes out of the new cookbook for dinner for about 35 people. MeatEater and FHF donated FHF gear, MeatEater hot sauce, ME stickers and donated the Warriors the new Outdoor Cookbook!
In 2024, members of MeatEater and FHF were able to join in a secret mission with The Station Foundation, a Veteran organization that helps the Special Operations Community. The Station Foundation helps participants navigate the rough terrain of transition and reintegration back to civilian life. Offering experience, strength and hope to individuals as they identify and translate strengths to new arenas. Our team joined a group of Veterans with their kids on a secret mission and hiked up Ramshorn Peak. The kids were the real troopers hiking 10 miles through mud and snow to get to the peak at 10,000 ft elevation! We cannot wait to continue to work with them in the future.
Janis Putelis and Hilary Byrne demonstrated field dressing for a group of youth bowhunters as part of the Jack Creek Preserve Archery Skills Camp JCPF in 2024. “We led a field dressing demonstration to twenty-five 12- to 14-year-old campers at the Skills Camp put on by the Jack Creek Preserve Foundation. It was a 2-hour class. We covered field dressing in the first hour, using a domestically raised ewe. The kids’ favorite part was passing around the heart and prodding the guts. We also discussed hunter ethics, and then we skinned and removed a leg off of the ewe. More than half of the kids were doing this as part of their MT bowhunter education class. Great staff, great organization; and what I really liked is how all the activities include discussions around hunting and fishing being a big part of conservation.” - Janis Putelis
The First Lite office spent four April mornings counting Sage Grouse on local leks, reporting the data to Idaho Fish and Game Department to help set tag allocations and keep tabs on shifting lek locations. They targeted a few miles of fence line adjacent to some prominent leks where they have now added flagging to reduce future fence collision mortality when the sage grouse fly to/from the leks.
RealTruck and MeatEater partnered up to auction off the firstever MeatEater, Inc. and RealTruck heavily modified 2019 Chevy Silverado. The auction raised $42,000 to benefit nonprofit Folds of Honor, an organization that provides life-changing educational scholarships to the spouses and children of fallen or disabled U.S. service members and first responders.
With support from Bozeman HRDC, the Bozeman office set up a giving tree for the 2024 holiday season. Clothing, hunting gear, and toy donations were given to a local family in need. We also offered an option to help our friends at The Station Foundation with donations for a toy drive to help families who lost everything in the North Carolina hurricane and floods in 2024.
Current issues we are working to fight against are; landlocked properties that would otherwise be accessible to the public, creating accessible opportunities for the next generation of hunters and anglers, supporting our veterans, and giving back to our local communities. We are working to make additional impact this year by launching several new charitable opportunities for our workforce and audience to participate in through the MeatEater Inc. family of brands.
MeatEater's Land Access Initiative identifies and funds access opportunities that need a boost. It doesn't matter if the project is big or small as long as it provides more access to hunting and fishing.
In 2024, LAI elected to aid in the acquisition of "Wildcat North," through Pheasant Forever's Build a Wildlife Area program. Wildcat North is a 328-acre property consisting of high-quality riparian habitat that provides for a diverse array of huntable & non-huntable species that is now open to the public.
One of our fundraising mechanisms is the MeatEater Auction House of Oddities, a fun and eccentric online auction filled with donations from our fans and friends. In 2024, the Auction House of Oddities raised $66,700 for LAI projects. Bringing the grand total of Auction House dollars raised to $224,700.
We cannot thank our amazing fans and friends enough for participating in our Auction House of Oddities. It was an incredible success and a mammoth-sized step towards increasing public land access for all. Past years items have included artwork, hand forged knives, guided trips, bear and raccoon baculum jewelry, and even a signed guitar from country artist Luke Combs.
Keep an eye out for this year's auction.
The Working for Wildlife Tour, led by Mark Kenyon, ran for the second year in a row and highlighted volunteer conservation events across the country focused on improving fish and wildlife habitat with onthe-ground projects. In 2024, the Working for Wildlife Tour brought together between 150-200 volunteers over the course of three different public land habitat improvement projects across Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Kentucky. Old fencing was removed, oak regeneration was enhanced, hundreds of trees and shrubs were planted, invasive species were managed, and new access points created.
The tour continues in 2025 — stay tuned for event dates and locations and to learn how you can get involved in the year ahead.
MeatEater Trivia, "the only game show where conservation always wins," lived by its motto in '24, donating $110k to various conservation orgs across the map. While we all love to compete in the studio or from afar, the impact of MeatEater Trivia contributions has been a meaningful byproduct!
MeatEater's Trivia show was introduced in 2021, giving employees and podcast guests alike an opportunity to compete in the name of conservation. The winner of each round donates their $500+ prize to a conservation organization of their choosing. Below are the orgs that received MeatEater donations in 2023. Another round of donations was made during the MeatEater Live Podcast Tour where OnX partnered with us, sponsoring an additional $20,000 to various organizations. On top of that, the MeatEater Trivia Board Game launched in 2023 and contributed $1 per game sold to various conservation projects.
Listen to MeatEater trivia, purchase the board game, and follow along to give back to conservation!
For appearances, speaking engagements, or charitable requests, please submit your inquiry via our MeatEater Gives Request Form below or click here.
Join us in our commitment to a stronger future by making a donation to the organizations that MeatEater proudly supports. You can learn more about our Round Up for Conservation Donation Program by clicking the Donate button.
