The purpose of this project is to boost hunting participation by reducing no-show and dropout rates among hunter education registrants. Anecdotal feedback indicates about 40% of registrants do not show up for their in-person course, and we have no current understanding of online dropouts. With over 275,000 in-person graduates annually, as many as 110,000 potential hunters could be walking away every year. Reducing these numbers by retaining and guiding these people through to successful hunter education certification will boost hunting participation. Activities to be performed include first determining regional and national rates of no-shows (people who register for but do not start) and dropouts (people who start but do not complete) for hunter education courses – statistics that are currently unverified and undocumented. To date, 13 states across all regions have committed to participating and providing data, with more expected given the limited time available at this writing for states to secure approval. Twenty states maximum are allowed in the proposed budget. We will also catalog state approaches to handling abandonment cases. We will then use a quantitative survey of registrants who did not show up or dropped out to determine why, to measure their interest levels and attitudes to hunter education and identify perceived challenges and intentions toward future hunting participation. Results will be categorized by course delivery methods and fee structures, where feasible, to help states understand if any aspects of program delivery are creating barriers to course completion or hunting participation. The expected outcomes will be actionable information that helps states and non-governmental organization (NGO) partners, with the International Hunter Education Association (IHEA) support, develop intervention strategies and tactics each state can employ to reduce no-show and drop-out rates, and to help guide these people towards successful completion of an approved hunter education course. This will ultimately lead to greater hunting participation at state, regional, and national scales. Deliverables and communication platforms will include: a technical report of methods and results and a graphics-based summary that conveys key findings, with both distributed to hunter education administrators and recruitment, retention, and reactivation (R3) coordinators from all 50 states; custom survey results for each state, presentations at relevant regional and national committee meetings; and a virtual webinar to be recorded and housed on the IHEA and R3 Clearinghouse sites. The intended beneficiaries are state hunter education programs, their supporting non-governmental organizations, and people who complete hunter education as a result of this effort. The International Hunter Education Association-USA will lead this effort, in partnership with grant subrecipient Southwick Associates, based on their extensive experience in hunter education and R3 research.