Explore Fund

We are helping build free, public climbing boulders within city parks to make climbing more accessible in U.S. communities. Our first climbing boulder was designed by local youth in partnership with The Trust For Public Land and Enviromental Learning for Kids, in the Montbello Open Space Park in Denver, CO.

Climbing culture is rich with traditions—some worth celebrating, and some that need reexamining. Oppressive route names, underrepresentation in imagery and story, and practices that limit access to climbing are some of the ways that women, people with disabilities, Black, Indigenous, people of color, and LGBTQ+ individuals are made to feel unwelcome and unsafe in the climbing community. We’re working with the American Alpine Club (AAC) to help change this through Climb United.

The Conservation Alliance works within the outdoor industry to fund and partner with the most effective conservation organizations to protect wild places for their habitat and recreation values. Since we co-founded the group in 1989, The Conservation Alliance has helped preserve more than 51 million acres of wildlands.

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is considered by many to be America’s last wild frontier. Iconic for explorers everywhere, this land is home to Gwich’in people who have lived in the region and depended on the Porcupine caribou herd for generations. The Arctic Refuge is home to polar bears, muskoxen and migratory birds that travel to every continent. This fragile landscape is one of the first areas to feel the effects of climate change and extractive industry. We support the Alaska Wilderness League and many others working to protect this region.

Climate change is affecting how we spend time outside. For years, we’ve been working with Protect our Winters on the Hot Planet/Cool Athletes program, connecting high school students with athletes to learn about climate change. Our athletes help educate by sharing firsthand accounts of how climate change is affecting their sport, making climate change digestible and providing concrete actions for students.

In 2020, we helped launch Justice Outside’s Liberated Paths Grantmaking Program with an eye towards creating a more just and sustainable outdoor and environmental movement. The Liberated Paths Grantmaking Program aims to shift resources to and build power with Black, Indigenous, and Communities of Color. Meet the inaugural grantees.

In 2018, we launched the first Women’s Rock Guide Course in partnership with The American Mountain Guides Association (AMGA) to help create more inclusive spaces and communities in our vertical landscapes. The grant-driven course, which was the first of its kind, is designed to bring more individuals who identify as women into positions of power in guiding professions.

In 2010 when Rue Mapp launched her new blog called Outdoor Afro, she was also receiving one of the first Explore Fund grants. Since then, Outdoor Afro has grown from a blog into a national movement empowering leadership and connections for people of color in the outdoors. For over a decade, we’ve supported this growing network of leaders and the meaningful outdoor experiences they create for local communities.

Our outdoor spaces benefit when more people with diverse perspectives and experiences are represented. Together, with the Greening Youth Foundation, we are working to build opportunities for more self-identified women of color to enter into environmental and conservation careers through the Women of Color Environmental Leaders grant.