For Immediate Release: Ducks Unlimited Receives $500,000 Challenge Grant from The Kresge Foundation

For Immediate Release The Trustees of The Kresge Foundation recently approved a grant of $500,000 to Ducks Unlimited toward the purchase of the Goebel Ranch in South Dakota. The grant was made on a challenge basis to assist Ducks Unlimited in raising $2.2 million by January 1, 2002.

For Immediate Release

Memphis, June 4---The Trustees of The Kresge Foundation recently approved a grant of $500,000 to Ducks Unlimited toward the purchase of the Goebel Ranch in South Dakota. The grant was made on a challenge basis to assist Ducks Unlimited in raising $2.2 million by January 1, 2002.

Recently Ducks Unlimited had the extraordinary opportunity to protect, in perpetuity, a virtually untouched native grassland, through the acquisition of the Goebel Ranch. The 8,500 acre ranch represents one of the largest remaining contiguous grassland tracts on the Missouri Coteau, the best of the best" remaining habitat in North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana.

Because our prairies are disappearing, and along with them the wildlife and the historical ranching tradition they sustain, Ducks Unlimited purchased the ranch, which was to be subdivided and sold. It is now conserved and protected in perpetuity by Ducks Unlimiteds ownership. Learn more about the Goebel Ranch online by clicking on conservation" at www.ducks.org.

In 1992, Ducks Unlimited received a $750,000 challenge grant from the Kresge Foundation for the construction of The International Center for Waterfowl and Wetlands Conservation, Ducks Unlimiteds national headquarters in Memphis.

D. A. (Don) Young, Ducks Unlimiteds Executive Vice President, said, As a past recipient of the Foundations generous support, we know first-hand what a Kresge Foundation challenge can do. We are grateful for the validation of our conservation mission that this challenge grant bestows, and we thank the Foundation for their confidence in Ducks Unlimiteds ability to meet the challenge."

At the time of the March, 2001 grant announcements, the Kresge Foundation had awarded 54 grants in 2001 for a total of $44,337,000. It will continue to make new grant commitments during the balance of the year.

In 2000, the Foundation reviewed 667 proposals and awarded grants totaling $133,525,000 to 213 charitable organizations in 41 states, the District of Columbia, Canada, England and Africa. Grants are made toward projects involving construction or renovation of facilities and the purchase of major capital equipment or real estate. Grants are then made on a challenge basis, requiring the raising of the remaining funds, thereby insuring completion of the projects.

The Kresge Foundation is an independent, private foundation created by the personal gifts of Sebastian S. Kresge. It is not affiliated with any corporation or organization.

Learn more about the Goebel ranch online by clicking on conservation" at www.ducks.org.    

With more than one million supporters, Ducks Unlimited (www.ducks.org) is the worlds leading wetland and waterfowl conservation group. Wetlands are natures most productive ecosystems, but the United States has lost more than half of its original wetlands, and continues to lose more than 100,000 wetland acres every year.