Big Change ahead for Outdoors Empowered Network
December 6, 2019
Dear Friends of Outdoors Empowered Network,
I am writing today with important news: In 2020, after seven amazing years of growing our national network, I will be stepping down as Executive Director of OEN. I will shift my role to one of a volunteer, as I usher in new leadership. I owe an immense debt of gratitude to so many of you, who have supported me and this Network over the years.
Growing this network has been both an honor, and an incredible journey. It has afforded me the pleasure of traveling to many communities and getting to know both small non-profits and large park districts excited to create access to the outdoors through our powerful training and support program model that has spread throughout the country. I could not be more proud of what we have done together.
I also know that I am an entrepreneur and that my strength is in bringing new ideas to life. When OEN started in 2013, there were three organizations that did this work (two in California, plus YOP in Boston/NYC). By the end of this year, we will have grown to ten member organizations as we welcome The Mountaineers, from Seattle, Washington to the Network. Collectively, we are reaching 50,000 youth annually, providing them with immersive outdoor experiences and building communities that increasingly see public lands and the outdoors as a shared treasure.
In the coming year, we will focus on three priorities:
Supporting current member organizations with continued gear acquisition and distribution.
Growing the network by adding new member organizations
Evolving our Summit to make it more sustainable for everyone involved. We are thrilled to announce that the 2020 Summit will be in Chicago, hosted by the Forest Preserves of Cook County.
I share this news with mixed emotions, including great excitement about the future of Outdoors Empowered Network. The OEN Board is the strongest it has ever been. They are excited to lead a search for a new executive in the coming months that will help write the next chapter for the Network. We will need your continued support as we navigate this important moment, with recommendations for new leadership and donations that will help make my transition successful.
Feel free to contact me with questions or reach out to our Board Chair Mitch Mitchell at <mitch.mitchell@gmail.com>. I look forward to talking with you more about our important, shared work in the coming months.
We are the Network!
Warmest regards, and best wishes for a Happy Holidays,
Kyle Macdonald
The 2019 Summit is in the Books!
The workshops, outdoor time with amazing, passionate people from all over were illuminating. Rafael Salgado, from Calwood gave us a lesson on bilingual education, and our Keynote speaker - Autumn Saxon Ross, drew rave reviews as she walked us through power and privilege through the "Crapshoot of Life". Read the whole story!
Harry (aka Carolyn Auwater) from the Appalachian Mountain Club and Phil Henderson, from Osprey
Because the summit fell on Halloween this year, Harry Potter raised her wand to cast some magic over the three days of snow-covered workshops, program shares and new connections at the Calwood Education Center, in Jamestown, CO.
Despite over 12 inches of snow in the 48 hours before the event, the opening reception at REI was the perfect welcome! With folx from Latino Outdoors, Outdoor Afro, Next 100 Coalition and many more in force to welcome people to the Summit from around the country. And they truly came from far and wide: Detroit (one person by train!), Baltimore, Seattle, The Bay Area, Chicago, Florida, New York City, Kentucky and towns from all over CO were represented.
The trip up to Calwood, in the mountains above Boulder was wild, with snow-covered roads and a stop to put chains on the BOAT Bus, our amazing outdoor-outfitted school bus, we head up the snow-covered dirt road. The chains fell off. We put them back on and finally made it up the hill!
The chains go on!
Program shares, where all programs with gear libraries or plans for them, share about their work, were a great part of the three days.
Colorado was there in a big way: Mighty little Get Outdoors Leadville shares its work.
The workshops, outdoor time with amazing, passionate people from all over were illuminating. Rafael Salgado, from Calwood gave us a lesson on bilingual education, and our Keynote speaker - Autumn Saxon Ross, drew rave reviews as she walked us through power and privilege through the "Crapshoot of Life".
Autumn Saxon Ross "Crapshoot of Life".
We held our first annual OEN Awards Night and honored some incredible people for all they've been doing to further our mission. Awardees included:
Brian Arnoldt and Andrew Pringle: Network All-stars, for their long-standing work to make the Network thrive!
Osprey Packs: Corporate partner of the year!
The Appalachian Mountain Club’s Youth Opportunities Program: For starting the model way back in 1968, and providing a model to follow ever since!
Garrett Dempsey: Network Weaver 2019!
Brian Arnoldt of the Forest Preserves of Cook County was one of five honorees at our first Awards Night.
People enjoyed late, late nights by the fire, sharing and learning from one another, and built new relationships that we'll leverage for months and hopefully years to come.
Our members have told us, through surveys and stories, that the Summit is hugely valuable to them. It leaves them feeling like their work is bigger than just the day to day of what happens in their town. They meet people with similar challenges. They learn about new solutions. They are inspired to go back to their communities to work even more effectively to get even more young people outdoors!
The organizations represented at the 2019 Summit included:
Appalachian Mountain Club’s Youth Opportunities Program
Avid for Adventure
Bay Area Wilderness Training
Detroit Outdoors
Forest Preserves of Cook County
Get Outdoors Leadville!
GOCO!
Washington Trails Association
The Mountaineers
First Descents
Westy Power/Poder
Garfield County Outdoors
Montezuma Inspire Coalition
My Outdoor Colorado
Gowild Northeast Metro Coalition
The Nature Connection
Switchback Gear Exchange LLC
North Carolina Outward Bound
Metro Denver Nature Alliance
The Boat Bus
Frameworks and Considerations for JEDI at Work
In the midst of the ongoing attacks on immigrants and so that OEN might focus on being inclusive, examining our own bias, and so that we might be the most active participants possible in dismantling institutionalized racism, sexism, homophobia and all forms of oppression, we’re sharing as many resources as we can to that end.
Jose Gonzales, founder of Latino Outdoors shares, through a recent webinar (August 2019) , a framework for considering JUSTICE EQUITY DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION (JEDI) in your work.
Enjoy and thank you Jose and the Coastal Conservancy for hosting.
Be Bold in the Creative Act of Decolonizing your Imagination- Jose Gonzales
The Time is Now!
The video that accompanies REI's 2017 Report "The Path Ahead-The future of Outdoor Life"
Outdoor access for All. The Outdoor Industry’s moment is Now!
I am on my way home from the Outdoor Retailer Show. Its somewhere in the ballpark of show number 30. And things feel different. Yes, we’re in Denver, not Salt Lake, but that’s not what I mean. I’ve been working to connect young people – in particular, young people of color- to the outdoors for 20 years. And at this show, the industry’s leaders have put out a different kind of call. A call for action, where everyone, every brand in the outdoor industry, is involved. It’s a good thing, because addressing the growing disconnect from nature, and creating outdoor access for all is absolutely going to take the entire outdoor retail industry.
At the industry breakfast on day one, Sally McCoy, the former CEO of Camelbak and one of the most respected leaders in our industry stood up and said, in effect, “This is going to be very hard. The problem is complex, and it is a big one.” Later I to spoke Steve Barker, long time OIA and OIF board member, who said “this problem is connected to, and is as big as climate change.” I couldn’t agree more.
Lise Aangeenbrug, the new executive director of the Outdoor Industry Foundation seems to agree as well, and is up for the challenge. In her short tenure at OIF, she has already secured multi-year, five and six figure gifts from Patagonia, Thule and the VF Corp, and has industry leaders like REI and others committing to support the effort as well. She aims to partner with organizations both at the national and local level. The problem however is much bigger than a few million dollars, and there are only two or three foundations working on the national level to move the needle. Structural and societal problems add to the challenge. Public schools around the country are underfunded and stretched to the bone. In Chicago, public school kids aren’t allowed to ever touch water, never mind trying out a kayak in Lake Michigan, or a canoe on a local river or stream.
Yet this industry has acted powerfully together in the past on key issues like public lands. The most recent example was the move of the OR trade show from Salt Lake City to Denver. The industry shook off Utah’s regressive politicians who took aim to shrink public lands. The formation of the Conservation Alliance is a powerful, unique example of an industry coming together. Over the past 29 years, it has had powerful impacts, helping to protect 51 million acres and 3,102 river miles, to name a few. These are accomplishments we should be inspired by. Ones we need to applaud, and learn from.
But it’s not a zero-sum situation. This can’t be a moment where we choose between conservation or access. This is a “both-and “moment. John Sterling, executive director of the Conservation Alliance said to me years ago “in the long term, we have to do both”. If we don’t work to break down the barriers to the outdoors for all people we’re going to continue our big gamble: that our species, that maybe all species, will survive our departure from the natural world. REI, in collaboration with Futerra, released “The Path Ahead, The Future of Life Outdoors” a well-researched report in 2017 that was “designed to provoke discussion by exploring nine ‘brutal truths’ juxtaposed with nine ‘beautiful possibilities.’” We don’t know we can escape these brutal truths, but we can be certain the beautiful possibilities won’t become reality without action.
It’s time for the Outdoor Industry to get together again around a common vision of insuring that the outdoors is a place that all people want to visit. We need to make sure that all children can get outdoors early and often, so that they know what so many of us know: that when you compare an experience outdoors, unplugged, adventuring with people we love, to an experience online, in front of screens, it’s not even close. Outdoors wins every time!
In the non-profit, or social benefit sector, we have been testing collective impact, and network theory, the idea that when we share a common goal, and work cross-sector, with government, non-profits and the private sector all collaborating, with the support of a backbone organization, powerful change can occur. It requires setting aside short-term goals and oversized egos and working towards measurable change over 5, 7, 10, maybe 20 years. This is what it will take to turn the tide.
In its broadest sense, the outdoor industry and all its connected public, private and non-profit partners need to work with new organizations and the organizations that have been getting people outdoors for years – for decades in some cases- and replicate what works. The Children and Nature Network, which hosts the largest international conference in the world addressing the issue, and is a leader in the movement to connect young people to nature needs exposure, and more funding. They didn’t attend this last show, because it’s not worth it. Many brands just aren’t giving to the cause, or hardly at all. Let’s change that. Let’s work together. Let’s work together in a way that rejects the savior complex, and instead, funds, supports, and acknowledges outdoor experiences of all kinds – near, far, short, long, easy and challenging- as relevant.
I’ve seen more articles about diversity, equity and inclusion in the last year than I have in the last decade combined (see Outside and the OR Daily). But the old guard needs to promote more women, and young people, and people of color to lead. Camber, Outdoor Afro, and Latino Outdoors, and an exciting host of newer efforts (Natives-Outdoors, Outdoor Asian, The Venture Out Project and more!) are visible now, in ways they weren’t five years ago. REI, The North Face and Patagonia are being joined by more and more brands that are contributing to not just conservation causes, but those that create outdoor access for all. The industry is trying. There are new leaders here. It will be hard. But the time is now.
Lets do this!