I don't see 55 year old duck hunter in speedo.
That's worth at least $2.47.
Patagonia spreads their money around and they fund a ton of hunting groups. Most of the major donors work like this - spread the funding & cast a wide net: Wyss, Wilburforce, Hewlitt, etc.
A lot t of those funders are moving away from funding hunting orgs though, as those funders move to a more DEIJ focused push, or want to go with federal lands conservation. Issues like season setting, corner crossing, etc aren't funded by those big donors and so it makes what
@BuzzH is doing that much more difficult. Add in the politics and it gets murkier.
The $35 member model used to work when there were smaller populations & less competition for donations. Now, as folks have mentioned, there's a big race to separate people from cash with prizes. Which is ridiculous to me as those prizes are huge costs (guns, etc are purchased at wholesale) and so the ROI on raffles, etc is minimal.
Buzz ain't wrong. Some of these groups can drop a fundraising email and in 48 hours pick up $50k. That's a function of scale as much as fervor. When hunters are about 10% of the population, you have a tremendously limited pool.
BHR isn't wrong either. Some groups can do similarly in the hunting world (WSF for example) through other means. WSF is one of the best examples of fundraising as is RMEF in the sporting world.