Serving the Community: How Avid4 Adventure CEO Partners with Non Profits

In this message, I will share with you:

• A couple of the nonprofits that I currently work with, and what guides my choices for community service.
• Some of the nonprofits that Avid4 Adventure has chosen to support.

Nonprofits where I currently serve

Throughout the year, I look for opportunities to be of service, and I tend to end up helping various organizations in smaller and ad hoc ways. In addition, I try to have a deeper, more committed relationship with just 2 or 3 organizations each year. Here are two of the nonprofits I am currently serving:

• Association of Outdoor Recreation and Education (AORE). Providing guidance and leadership around advocacy, professional development, networking, and career advancement, AORE strives to empower leaders to connect people to the outdoors through recreation and education experiences. I serve on the Board of Directors for AORE.

Why have I chosen to work with AORE? With AORE, I am able to give back and affect change on a large scale since AORE members live and work throughout our country. It feels good to be a part of national (and international) conversations. Being active in these larger conversations, I am able to not only give back, but also broaden my own perspective and understanding.

• Boulder Food Rescue (BFR). BFR aims to create a more just and less wasteful food system. They “save” food from local grocery stores and deliver that fresh (and delicious) food to people, organizations, and housing units that struggle to provide their own healthy food. I serve BFR by volunteering time to deliver food.

Why have I chosen to work with BFR? Unlike AORE, my work with BFR serves my local community; it directly serves people who are my neighbors. My work with BFR also combines two things that I truly love—bicycles and food. A piece of advice that I often give to others is to find a way to bring your unique abilities and unique passions to your community service.

Nonprofits that Avid4 Adventure supports

Similar to my personal belief, institutionally at Avid4, we believe that it is our duty and responsibility to be of benefit in our greater communities. In fact, as a Public Benefit Corporation, making decisions that provide benefit to our communities, the environment and our employees is written into our articles of incorporation.

We support community service in multiple ways. We organize community service events (e.g. river or climbing crag clean up days, food service at homeless shelters, etc.) for both our full-time and seasonal staff. We empower our salaried staff to engage in community service activities as part of their work day to further promote work-life balance. We pay our seasonal staff to attend community service activities to incentivize them to attend.

Over the years, Avid4 has supported many great nonprofits. This will definitely be a partial list (in alphabetical order), but here are some of the nonprofits that we are currently supporting:

• Access Fund - keeps climbing areas open and conserves the climbing environment.
• American Whitewater - protects and restores America’s whitewater rivers; enhances opportunities to enjoy them safely.
• Big City Mountaineers - provides under-resourced youth with opportunities to have transformative experiences in the outdoors.
• Bay Area Wilderness Training (BAWT) - provides equitable access to outdoor experiences for youth of color and low-income youth.
• Center for Diversity & the Environment (CDE) - harnesses the power of racial and ethnic diversity to transform the US environmental movement by developing leaders, catalyzing change within institutions, and building alliances.
• Children’s Forest of Central Oregon - unites our community to inspire lifelong connections to nature for kids.
• International Mountain Bike Association (IMBA) - creates, enhances and protects great places to ride mountain bikes.
• Latino Outdoors - inspires, connects, and engages Latino communities in the outdoors and embraces cultura y familia as part of the outdoor narrative.
• Leave No Trace (LNT) - provides research, education and initiatives so every person who ventures outside can protect and enjoy our world responsibly.
• Loppet Foundation - creates a shared passion for year-round outdoor adventure in the Minneapolis area, focusing on underserved youth and families.
• Native Women Outdoors - inspires and raises the voices of Native Women in the Outdoor Realm; encourages a healthy lifestyle grounded in the Wilderness; educates Natives and non-Natives on the rich beauty and heritage of the Ancestral Lands beneath our feet.
• Next 100 Coalition - works to create an inclusive vision for the next 100 years of conservation and stewardship in America.
• Outdoor Alliance for Kids (OAK) - advocates for equitable and readily available opportunities for children, youth and families to connect with the outdoors.
• Outdoors for All - enriches the quality of life for children and adults with disabilities through outdoor recreation.
• Protect Our Winters (POW) - helps passionate outdoor people protect the places and lifestyles they love from climate change.
• She Jumps - increases the participation of women and girls in outdoor activities to foster confidence, leadership, and connection to nature and community through free and low-cost outdoor education.
• Team RWB - enriches the lives of America’s veterans by connecting them to their community through physical and social activity.

Do you represent a non-profit that helps kids get active in the outdoors? Are you interested in becoming an official partner to Avid4 Adventure or seeing our other partners who are also on a mission to get kids empowered by outdoor adventure? Click the link below.