ORR Launches “25 in 2025” Campaign to Create Outdoor Recreation Offices

Outdoor Recreation Roundtable (ORR), along with the Confluence of States and over 110 leading outdoor recreation organizations from across the United States, launched the ‘25 in 2025’ campaign with a challenge to states to create the 25th office of outdoor recreation in this calendar year, following 24 other states who have created such offices since 2013. In the coming months, the campaign will highlight the accomplishments and importance of existing offices of outdoor recreation with new resources and research that will culminate in a convening this fall to celebrate the 25th state.

The first state office of outdoor recreation was created by Utah Governor Gary Herbert in 2013, recognizing the critical role of outdoor recreation to Utah’s identity, economic competitiveness, and community health. Since that time, nearly half the country has created these offices through executive action or legislation, placing offices or divisions in various agencies to catalyze new growth in their states’ outdoor recreation economies and access for all. A map with all states that have created offices of outdoor recreation can be found here.

The campaign launch also includes the launch of a new resource called “How to Create an Office of Outdoor Recreation.” This new tool aggregates best practices that helped other states create offices of outdoor recreation and will be displayed alongside several other resources that ORR has created in partnership with the Confluence of States, including A Guidebook to Developing Offices of Outdoor Recreation, Strategies to Support Offices of Outdoor Recreation, Pathways and Structures for Offices of Outdoor Recreation, The Value of Offices of Outdoor Recreation, and more, located on ORR’s state resource page. During the year, additional resources related to the importance of offices of outdoor recreation will be released to help stimulate new investment in existing offices of outdoor recreation.

’25 in 2025’ follows a historic year for the outdoor recreation economy that included passage of the EXPLORE Act, the most comprehensive update to outdoor recreation policy in recent history, as well as a new data release from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis showing that outdoor recreation generated $1.2 trillion (2.3% of GDP) and 5 million jobs for the U.S. economy in 2023, growing 36% in real terms since 2012.