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Question: How does DU benefit Morgan County?  Answer from Aaron Dynes, DU Regional Director:

"Great question. It is a constant battle to educate our generous supporters.  Most folks don't understand that waterfowl, unlike turkeys, deer, pheasants, quail, etc., are migratory critters and do not spend their entire life cycle in one place.  This is unique and requires a different management plan to affect ultimately how many waterfowl are passing through Morgan County each year.

All chapter event proceeds across the country go directly to DU national.  The conservation decisions are science based not geographically where they are raised.  There are priority areas that sync up not only with our science but our conservation partners as well.  This unlocks matching funds and allows us to do exponentially more work.  In the end, it is about effecting waterfowl populations positively, not just creating a wetland.

Here in Ohio We have been consistently spending more in the state than we are raising.  Last year, for example, we raised about 2.3 million through our events and spent approximately 7 million dollars on projects just in the state of Ohio.  Without doing the work where the science and consequently the matching money was available, we would not come close to results like that.  Based on this, spending the money in a county where it was raised like Morgan County would actually result in less waterfowl opportunity for folks in Morgan County.  No other fur or feather organization comes close to spending this kind of money in the state of Ohio.

The fact that we actually use our funds for the mission we fund raise for,  is a strength of the organization.   At a minimum, 82 cents of every dollar raised goes to that mission.  You would be hard pressed to find any non-profit who can make a claim like that.

On a side note,  we did a study a few years back, and the average DU banquet has an economic impact of approximately $20,000 dollars on a local economy.  That is nothing to sneeze at."