The private sector has been a really successful source of funding for Earth Rangers over the last five or six years since we've begun to focus on that area. As I said at the beginning, really sometimes our biggest barrier is that we are a national organization so even though we're headquartered in Vaughan, we have members in every province and territory, and really our membership follows pretty accurately the population of Canada. We're a little bit under-represented in Quebec because we're just now truly becoming bilingual.
The biggest barrier for us is geography. Oftentimes businesses—and this makes perfect sense—want to support organizations that have a local connection to where their head office is or where their operations are.
The one thing I would say is that oftentimes we get questions about whether our programs are competing with smaller, on the ground, access to nature programs or things like that. Our answer to that is that we feel the Earth Rangers program actually reinforces all of those global programs because we provide a broader kind of perspective on biodiversity nationally, and we provide kids and families with a brand and organization to associate themselves with.
You probably saw in the show—and thank you for saying those kind words about it—that kids across Canada self-identify as Earth Rangers. They will send us letters and sign off Ranger Katie or Earth Ranger Joel. I think the program creates that initial awareness and connection, and then it can serve to support local initiatives even more just by staying top of mind with families all year-round.