RELEASE: Great Outdoors Foundation Announces Inaugural Water Quality Summit
Watershed26 to take cross-sector approach at addressing water quality.
DES MOINES, IA (Oct. 17, 2025) – The Great Outdoors Foundation (GOF) announced last night at the Wild Prairie Showdown, its fundraising event in partnership with ICON Water Trails, that it will host a multi-sector summit focusing on advancing water quality efforts in the Mississippi River Watershed. Watershed26 will be a two-day conference featuring keynote speakers, breakout sessions, and most importantly, tangible action steps.
“The Great Outdoors Foundation has acted as a convener throughout its existence. We don’t have all of the answers, resources, or capacity, but we can certainly act as a connector for those who do. Urban and rural. Upstream and downstream. Right and left. Ag and conservation,” Hannah Inman, CEO of the Great Outdoors Foundation said. “It will take radical collaboration to move the needle on water quality at the pace and scope that these circumstances demand. And we’re ready for the challenge.”
Watershed26 is a continuation of GOF’s commitment to water quality as well as its valued stakeholders. Already GOF’s innovative capital stacking mechanism, the Conservation Acceleration Fund (CAF), is being used across the state to implement voluntary conservation practices, largely on private agricultural land. Watershed26 is meant to complement the CAF and other tools addressing funding shortages and backlog through integrative thought leadership and intellectual scaffolding development.
Watershed26 is set to be held at the Iowa Events Center on June 30 and July 1, 2026. Receive updates by subscribing here: greatoutdoorsfoundation.org/newsletter/.
