Diversity focused organizations & non-profits you can work with right now.
1Climb opens their climbing wall in partnership with the Salt Lake City Boys & Girls Club.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice Organizations: A Resource Guide
Here at Verde we’ve been having many conversations with our clients on how to expand their focus and work with more organizations with a central mission to provide access to the outdoors and our community, creating a more inclusive, safe and welcoming environment for Black communities and communities of color. There are so many organizations dedicated to this mission that historically haven’t received the same attention and focus from brands in our industry, and our goal is to shine a light on some of these organizations that are dedicated to making a positive change.
Research shows being in nature is regenerative, important for mental health and can benefit learning, especially in children. Being in our parks can improve their performance in and outside the classroom, but not all kids (and adults) are lucky enough to live in a place that has easy access to the outdoors, or they may not feel welcome or safe. For many Black people, many nature spaces feel off limits. This has to change.
We started researching organizations who are working to change this and have created this living document featuring some amazing organizations. This is a list we’ll continue to add to as we research organizations to partner with for brands looking to expand their corporate responsibility initiative that encompass inclusion and equity in the outdoor space. If your brand is new to working with non-profits, right now is the time to start. Whether it is giving money, allowing employees paid volunteer time off, and/or featuring organizations on your site, feel free to reach out to us or any of the organizations below to get started.
We reached out to Ashley Miller, evo's General Manager of Giving Back, to ask her why focusing on DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) in the workplace can change an organization for the better, what are the main benefits, and why it is so important to find organizations to work with that give people access to the outdoors. How does expanding access to the outdoors impact a Black community?
“Big questions. I’d be remiss if I did not say that Diversity, Equity and Inclusion are good for business. Having greater representation of lived experience, backgrounds and identities increases our innovation, improves our storytelling and makes us a stronger brand. When I talk about this work though, I generally focus on the deeply personal opportunity we each have to embody our values and heal. Racism and systemic oppression hurts everyone, even those with privilege. It removes us from our humanity. Cultivating a more inclusive culture and unlearning toxic, harmful aspects of our culture are important for all of us.
We also know that the outdoors are transformative. The skills we build through sport – courage, evaluating risk, growth mindset – the community we build, are powerful. And access to the outdoors, to these sports, is inequitable, restrictive and often exclusive. evo’s philanthropic focus on increasing access to the outdoors and supporting organizations that work in and are lead by BIPOC communities is intentional. If we want all young people to have the opportunities to explore their passions and reach their potential, we must start with the communities that have been most impacted by systemic oppression. We must do this work in conjunction with our own personal and organizational action towards justice.” - Ashley Miller
Thank you to Ashley and evo for suggesting some organizations on the list below.
Here is a list of organizations to get you started on your journey.
The majority of the organizations on this page are within the outdoor industry, but we’ve also included a few additional organizations who are dedicated towards more broad focuses of diversity and justice. Please do not hesitate to reach out to us if you have any questions, or if you know of or represent an organization you’d like us to add to the list. Many of these organizations support and are led by member of the BIPOC and LGBTQ+ communities. Please contact us if you have any questions or would like your organization to be included.
Outdoor Industry Organizations, by category:
GENERAL OUTDOOR
ADAPTIVE SPORTS
OUTDOOR EDUCATION, CONSERVATION & YOUTH PROGRAMS
WINTER SPORTS
BIKE, RUN & ENDURANCE SPORT
HIKING, CAMPING & BACKPACKING
SURFING, PADDLE SPORTS, FISHING
ADDITIONAL ORGANIZATION, OUTSIDE OF THE OUTDOOR INDUSTRY
GENERAL OUTDOOR
National
Camber Outdoors is a national nonprofit supporting workplace inclusion, equity, and diversity in the active-outdoor industries. Camber is a partner for building equitable systems, a strong network of talent, and inclusive leadership practices to inspire workplaces truly for everyone.
Camber Outdoors is currently a client of Verde.
Seattle, WA, Portland, OR, and Bay Area, CA
The mission of Skate Like A Girl is to create an inclusive community by promoting confidence, leadership, and social justice through the sport of skateboarding.
Whistler, BC
Zero Ceiling’s programs offer supportive housing, supportive employment, case management, life skills education, mental health support, and outdoor recreation in a safe, supportive environment.
Salt Lake City, UT
Color Outside helps women of color harness the power of the outdoors to create the joy-filled, balanced lives they crave through coaching, workshops, & one-of-a-kind retreats.
National
Members of the Diversify Outdoors coalition work hard to address representation, access and cultural identity within outdoor industry and conservation. The goal is to disrupt traditional narratives of who is active in the outdoors in favor of more inclusive, richer snapshots of outdoor recreation in the US.
National
Natives Outdoors is a business to empower indigenous communities through their products and storytelling for a more sustainable world. NativesOutdoors began as a social media project in March 2017 by Len Necefer (Diné) to highlight the stories and photos of Native people in outdoor recreation to address the lack of representation of indigenous people in the outdoor industry.
The organization has expanded to providing advisory and consulting services to the outdoor industry on topics within the intersection of tribes, public lands, and outdoor recreation.
National
Venture Out leads backpacking and wilderness trips for the queer and transgender community. They conduct transgender inclusion workshops for educators, adventure professionals, summer camps and more.
National, Historical Black Colleges and Universities
Their mission is to see more Black faces running trails, climbing mountains, and sitting at outdoor industry boardroom tables. HBCU Outdoors help HBCU students and alumni enjoy the natural world and become the leaders we need for a healthy planet and a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive outdoor industry.
National, Gear Libraries and Leadership Training
Outdoors Empowered Network is a national network of community-led, youth-centered outdoor education groups that are dedicated to increasing access and diversity in the outdoors through gear libraries and outdoor leadership training. OEN seeds and supports gear libraries around the United States by providing gear fundraising, mentoring and consulting, and a professional community. Even with only a handful of members, they are already supporting access to nature for tens of thousands of young people each year.
Adaptive Sports
National Sports Center for the Disabled
Colorado
The NSCD offers adaptive lessons for individuals living with disabilities in a variety of action sports, adventure sports and competitive programs. Athletes with any physical, cognitive, emotional or behavioral diagnosis can participate in sports and recreation programs year-round in Colorado’s Front Range and mountains.
Seattle, WA
Outdoors for All seeks to improve the quality of life for children and adults with disabilities through outdoor recreation.
OUTDOOR EDUCATION, CONSERVATION & YOUTH PROGRAMS
Big Sky Youth Empowerment Program
Gallatin County, MO
Big Sky Youth Empowerment provides opportunities for teenagers to foster self-reliance, critical thinking skills, and community participation throughout Gallatin County, Montana
National
Big City Mountaineers works alongside the transformative powers of Mother Nature to leave a lasting impact on the lives of under-resourced youth. Their wilderness expeditions bring kids out of their comfort zones and into the wild, where they develop the confidence needed for more promising futures.
Washington, DC
City Kids Wilderness Project is a non-profit organization founded on the belief that providing enriching life experiences for DC children can enhance their lives, the lives of their families and the greater community.
National
The In Solidarity Project was created to bring the outdoor industry together to build a more inclusive future. The In Solidarity Project created and stewards the Outdoor CEO Diversity Pledge and works closely with industry partners to facilitate and lead DEI-focused consulting projects and speaking engagements.
San Diego, CA
Outdoor Outreach uses the outdoors to inspire youth to see possibility and opportunity in their lives to realize the positive attitude and behavioral changes that help them become happy, healthy, and successful adults.
National
She Jumps creates outdoor programs grant women and girls of all backgrounds the chance to participate in unique adventures outside via scholarships or low-cost options.
Colorado (with additional regional locations)
SOS Outreach is dedicated to building character and leadership in underserved kids through mentoring outdoors.
Los Angeles, CA, New York, NY, Chicago, IL
STOKED works to close the opportunity gap and prepare underserved students for what’s ahead. Through mentorship and action sports culture, STOKED empowers underserved youth to reach their fullest potential, instilling passion, resilience and determination.
Atlanta, GA
The Greening Youth Foundation’s (GYF) mission is to engage under-represented youth and young adults, while connecting them to the outdoors and careers in conservation. GYF’s cultural based environmental education programing engages children from local communities and exposes them to healthy lifestyle choices in order to create an overall healthy community.
Bluff, UT
Friends of Cedar Mesa works to protect and build respect for cultural and natural landscapes of the greater Bears Ears region. To further this mission, they work to create loca, regional and national support for greater protection of Cedar Mesa through education, advocating for national designations, supporting smart local policy-making, and organizing research and volunteer service activities.
San Francisco, CA & Seattle, WA
The Nature Project’s mission is to provide transformative outdoor experiences alongside athletes and mentors passionate about the outdoors. They believe that barriers to nature need to be broken down so youth across social, racial and economic backgrounds can experience the outdoors in an approachable and inviting way.
Portland, OR
Soul River connects inner city youth and US military veterans to the outdoors through incredible outdoor educational transformation experiences. By engaging US veterans as mentors for inner city youth, rich powerful opportunities of healing authentically happen in the midst of Mother Nature.
Central Coast, CA
Get Out Stay Out/Vamos Afuera is a grassroots, Central Coast nonprofit, that invites Indigenous Migrant youth to run, play, and discover themselves in the natural environment. Through equitable and culturally sensitive, outdoor programming GOSO believes the natural environment provides the perfect tools needed for youth to build self-confidence, develop leadership skills, and build community.
Environmental Learning for Kids
Denver, CO
ELK (Environmental Learning for Kids) is an inclusive non-profit organization that develops inspired and responsible leaders through science education and outdoor experiences for underserved, urban youth ages 5-25.
WINTER SPORTS
National
Children & Nature Network is leading a global movement to increase equitable access to nature so that children– and natural places–can thrive. They do this by investing in leadership and communities through sharing evidence-based resources, scaling innovative solutions and driving policy change.
Regional
Chill is focused on the resiliency of their participants to help them reach their full potential and see that there is a path out of their current circumstances. Their current situation doesn't have to define them or determine their path in life; Chill helps them to realize alternatives beyond the struggles they face.
Jackson, WH
Coombs Outdoors empowers children and youth to reach their full potential through the life-changing power of outdoor recreation.
First Nations Snowboard Association
Whistler/BC, Canada
FNST/A was created to improve the quality of life and empower Indigenous youth using the winter sport of snowboarding as a fundamental tool for excellence.
National
Share Winter works to improve the lives, health, and fitness of youth through winter sports. Share Winter works closely with carefully selected grantees to build efficient, effective, sustainable winter sports programs and pipelines to ongoing winter sports participation.
Portland, OR
Snowdays Foundation is a Portland, Oregon based volunteer organization dedicated to youth
empowerment through snowboarding. Our program teaches snowboarding to young people.
Seattle, WA
The Service Board mentors teens to conquer personal and cultural challenges through outdoor adventure, environmental and social justice education, and public service.
BIKE, RUN & ENDURANCE SPORTS
Seattle, WA
Bike Works promotes the bicycle as a vehicle for change to empower youth and build resilient communities. Since 1996 they’ve worked to educate and empower youth, and make bicycling accessible and affordable to the Seattle community.
Denver, CO
Trips for Kids Denver is focused on empowering at risk and disadvantaged youth, using the bicycle as a tool to foster positive life skills, healthy youth development, and a sense of fun and adventure.
Verona, PA + National
Black Girls Do Bike’s interest is in growing and supporting a community of women of color who share a passion for cycling. We champion efforts to introduce the joy of cycling to all women, but especially, women and girls of color.
Newark, NJ
Girls on Bikes is a community organization whose mission is to encourage girls in urban communities to participate in recreational activities in the public, in style of course.
Seattle, WA
Named after African-American world champion cyclist Marshall “Major” Taylor, the Major Taylor Project (MTP) empowers youth through bicycling. In after-school bicycling clubs MTP students explore their communities, build confidence and leadership skills, and discover their power to effect change.
National
Brown Girls Climb is a small Woman of Color owned and operated company with the mission to promote and increase visibility of diversity in climbing by establishing a community of climbers of color, encouraging leadership opportunities for self-identified women climbers of color, and by creating inclusive opportunities to climb and explore under represented communities.
National
Black Girls RUN! wants to encourage African-American women to make fitness and healthy living a priority. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 80% of African-American women are overweight. BGR! wants to create a movement to lower that percentage and subsequently, lower the number of women with chronic diseases associated with an unhealthy diet and sedentary lifestyle.
HIKING, CAMPING, BACKPACKING, CLIMBING
National
1Climb began with a shared desire to take kids climbing and to take climbing to kids. By partnering with the Boys and Girls Clubs across America, we are changing the lives of kids via building climbing walls in their club facilities and taking their club members to local climbing gyms.
1Climb is a client of Verde.
Love Is King’s mission squashes the fear in the outdoors and provides equitable access and resolute safety to ensure an enriching and exhilarating experience in nature. The organization believes the ‘freedom to roam’ is a human right and that everyone should feel safe while participating in nature. BIPOC and LGBTQ+ citizens should always have a safe and enriching experience in the Great Outdoors - Love Is King is working to make that a reality.
National
We help people take better care of themselves, our communities, and our planet! Outdoor Afro is a national non-profit organization with leadership networks around the country. With nearly 80 leaders in 30 states from around the country, we connect thousands of people to outdoor experiences, who are changing the face of conservation.
SURFING, PADDLE SPORTS, FISHING
Oakland, CA
Brown Girl Surf works to build a more diverse, environmentally reverent, and joyful women’s surf culture by increasing access to surfing, cultivating community, amplifying the voices of women of color surfers, and taking care of the earth.
Soul River Inc merges veterans and inner city youth to be leaders for environmental justice.
We are a nonprofit 501 c3 focusing on bringing veterans as mentors and inner city youth together into the wild rivers of nature. We inspire the youth by becoming guardians, teachers and role models as an act of service. The hope is that this encourages youth participants to grow and become ambassadors of our natural environment.
SRI uplifts and strengthens communities by connecting inner city youth and veterans to the outdoors, harnessing incredible opportunities and powerful experiences that forge strong connections between youth and veterans, their communities, and the natural world. Spending time embraced in currents of river water, trekking majestic forested trails, and witnessing a bald eagle or elk in its habitat is healing.
Coastal Washington
Warm Current hosts community surf camps on the Washington coast for Native youth in partnership with the Makah Indian Nation, Quileute Nation, Hoh Indian Tribe, and the Quinault Indian Nation. Warm Current teaches Native youth to surf, empower them to explore their ancestral waters, and share the benefits of outdoor recreation in their own backyard.
Additional Organizations, Outside of the Outdoor Industry:
Founded in 1909 in response to the ongoing violence against Black people around the country, the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) is the largest and most pre-eminent civil rights organization in the nation.
ACLU: American Civil Liberties Union
The ACLU’s mission is to create a more perfect union – beyond one person, party, or side. Their mission is to realize this promise of the United States Constitution for all and expand the reach of its guarantees.
The Innocence Project, founded in 1992 by Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck at Cardozo School of Law, exonerates the wrongly convicted through DNA testing and reforms the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice.
SPLC: Southern Law Poverty Center
The Southern Poverty Law Center is dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of our society.
Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
Named after civil rights hero Ella Baker, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights organizes with Black, Brown, and low-income people to build power and prosperity in our communities.
Since 2017, Black Visions Collective, has been putting into practice the lessons learned from organizations before us in order to shape a political home for Black people across Minnesota.
Generation Progress is a national advocacy and education organization that promotes progressive solutions to the political and social issues that matter to young people between the ages of 18 and 35.
Cities United supports a national network of mayors who are committed to reducing the epidemic of homicides and shootings among young Black men and boy ages 14 to 24 by 50%.
The Youth Over Guns mission is to build youth power in marginalized communities throughout the nation and encourage legislative advocacy to prevent gun violence, while shifting public discourse towards an evidentiary approach to keeping schools and communities safe.
If you’d like your organization to be featured, please contact us and we will be happy to include.