The Camp Enrollment Cliff

There's a shift coming, and it affects camp in significant ways. On this episode, we'll talk about why, how, and when it's coming, and leave you with some ideas to get ahead of it.

When you lay out the story thread of camp over the story of demographic shifts through our past and present, you can wonder with wisdom about what's next. As we follow things like rate of live births, replacement data, diversity, as well as the impact of milestones like the late '90's and early 2000s participation swell, the 2007 peak birth rate, the 2016 election, the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent decline in birth rates, and more, we can then extrapolate the potential camper numbers that follow.

We'll unpack the conversation and learning that Jake had with respected demographer, Ken Gronbach, who had deep insights based on waves of historical demographic changes and the impact of recent shifts for what's ahead for industries like camp. Jake then got the chance to join our friends from GoCampPro on the CampHacker Podcast to begin this conversation with fellow camp leaders. Today, we dive even deeper and bring some context to this reality for Christian camps in particular.

Here's the truth - we have to get ahead of this. We'll leave you with seven things we can begin to do in our ministries to help us thrive in the midst of this opportunity. Buckle up.

Our #StatOfTheWeek sets the table for our conversation with the stats on demographic differences in Christian affiliation. Our #QuickQampQuestion is flipped this week, and at our site you can see the list of camp-leader-crowd-sourced ideas for podcast to listen to, books to read, professionals to follow, and other communities to connect with.

Quick Links

CampHacker Podcast Enrollment Cliff Episode

Demographer Ken Gronbach

Pew Religious Landscape Study

#StatOfTheWeek

Camp Crowdsourced Leader Resources