2022 Annual Impact Report

Read this year’s letter from ACA Board Chair Liz Fogel and ACA President/CEO Tom Rosenberg to learn how this has been another year filled with staffing challenges and supply chain issues in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic — but one also filled with opportunities for knowledge growth, for finding solutions, and for leading with compassion.

Read the Message

Collectively, ACA impacts 26 million campers annually. ACA helps you make an impact in the lives of the children you encounter every day in your work. ACA provides educational resources, research, advocacy, and outreach to parents, families, and other professionals to build safer, healthier, more fun environments where children and youth can become leaders, environmental stewards, and a socially, emotionally skilled population. More than 2,900 new individual members joined the association in fiscal year 2022.

Learn about the Benefits

Photo of girl with horse and number of accredited camps in circle

The ACA accreditation program is an independent national peer-review program of camp operations. The Annual Accreditation Report is an integral program component; this program support and emphasizes accredited camps’ ongoing improvement of their policies, procedures, and practices. More than 450 trained volunteers reviewed 1,800+ Annual Accreditation Reports of currently accredited camps. Additionally, summer 2022 site visits maintained rigor, integrity, and educational emphasis; 1,100+ trained volunteers implemented 550+ on-site visits to camps.

Find Out More

ACA made quite an impact being able to return to in-person events while continuing to offer online courses, webinars, special events, and three COVID town halls. Additionally, in response to needs coming from the field, we also offered some special virtual events: I Survived Summer – And I Need Help with Bob Ditter, our first Staffing Summit, a Wildfire Symposium, and the Camp and Gender Institute. We also began a collaboration with the Redwoods Group to be able to offer online safety training courses through the ACA Learning Center allowing us to keep more campers/youth safe throughout the year.

Start Your Learning

Two campers in canoe with business affiliates number

ACA’s sponsors, advertisers, exhibitors, and corporate and brand partners provided over $1 million of support to the Association. These funds are used to support research, education, and training that promotes the highest level of health, safety, and risk management at camps. This work could not have happened in 2021–2022 without the support of our corporate and brand partners like Quaker, Trinity/HPSI, and The Redwoods Group, just to name a few. ACA collaborates with a diversity of organizations, including businesses, agencies, associations, foundations, and educational institutions.

Partnership Resources

Two campers smiling and pointing at camera

Learn about the next steps for the Youth and Staff Impact Study, how the Camp Program Quality Initiative is implementing sustainable systems of continuous program quality improvement, the ways in which the Leadership Pathways Project is supporting CIT programs in its second year, how camp-based experiences support students in the Camp-School Partnership Demonstration Project, and what the Indiana Youth Programs on Campus Initiative is doing for youth in colleges and universities.

Read the Summary Learn More About Our Research

Affiliate Letters

Message from ACA, New York/New Jersey

Message from ACA, New England

Message from ACA, Illinois

Individual & Camp Supporters

Foundation Supporters

Business/Corporate Supporters

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Acorn Society & Living Endowment Supporters

Contact Andrea Stearley at [email protected] or 765-349-3305 for any corrections to the supporters lists.

Download the PDF

A Message from the Board Chair and President/CEO

Membership

Camp Accreditation

Education

Business Development

Research