Nonprofit Spotlight: Outdoor Alliance

During the month of September Outdoor Prolink is proud to have Outdoor Alliance as our featured nonprofit during checkout. Every year, Outdoor Prolink partners with nonprofits to give back to organizations we align with. To honor these amazing nonprofits, we’re spotlighting each one and sharing why you should care about their missions too.

Outdoor Alliance is on a mission to unite the voices of outdoor enthusiasts to protect the human-powered outdoor recreation experience and conserve America’s public lands. The organization is celebrating their 10 year anniversary and we had the chance to connect with them and learn more about the amazing work they’re doing.

What’s the story behind Outdoor Alliance?

Outdoor Alliance is a nonprofit coalition of national advocacy organizations that includes American Whitewater, American Canoe Association, Access Fund, International Mountain Bicycling Association, Winter Wildlands Alliance, the Mountaineers, the American Alpine Club, the Mazamas, the Colorado Mountain Club, and the Surfrider Foundation.

Outdoor Alliance is the only organization in the U.S. that unites the voices of outdoor enthusiasts to conserve public lands. We help ensure those lands are managed in a way that embraces the human-powered experience.

2024 marks ten years since Outdoor Alliance has been a 501c3, but the coalition began working together in the early 2000’s. At that time, hikers, paddlers, mountain bikers, climbers, and backcountry skiers were working more or less separately to accomplish their conservation goals.

The leaders of five national outdoor recreation organizations met in Colorado to discuss how they could join forces to have more political power and be better able to protect the outdoors. From there, Outdoor Alliance was born. Together, our coalition has helped to permanently protect 40 million acres of public land, secure $5.1 billion in funding for the outdoors, and transformed more than 100,000 outdoor enthusiasts into outdoor advocates.

What sets Outdoor Alliance apart?

There are a few things that make Outdoor Alliance special:

1. We understand the issues deeply. Public land and conservation policy is complex and our team knows how to effect meaningful change. Our Joint Policy Shop, a team of policy experts from across our member groups, meets weekly as a think tank and policy powerhouse to protect the outdoors.
2. We build long-term relationships and trust. We meet regularly with lawmakers, land management agencies, and decision makers (our average is about one meeting every 4 days). These relationships result in better policy decisions for outdoor recreationists.
3. We rely on a data-driven approach. Using the most comprehensive outdoor recreation datasets, we ground all of our policy work with maps and on-the-ground experiences.
4. We empower individuals to make a difference. We are experts in the complex world of outdoor policy, but we make it easy for you to get engaged and make a difference. We provide accessible, easy-to-use advocacy tools to help you write your lawmakers and protect the places you love.

What are some upcoming initiatives Outdoor Alliance is working on?

Right now, Outdoor Alliance is on the verge of helping to pass the EXPLORE Act, a big package of outdoor recreation policy that we have been working on for years (and years). The EXPLORE Act will help expand and improve outdoor recreation opportunities on public land, including things like the Biking on Long Distance Trails Act (BOLT) to identify and create more long-distance bike trails, the Protecting America’s Rock Climbing Act (PARC) to safeguard Wilderness climbing, the Simplifying Outdoor Access for Recreation Act (SOAR) that will improve recreational permitting for outfitters and guides, and permanent direction for the Outdoor Recreation Legacy Partnership and FICOR.

This year is also our ten year anniversary and we are celebrating all the successes of the past decade. 

How can the people of the outdoor industry support the work Outdoor Alliance is doing?

Sign up to get action alerts—we can’t emphasize enough what a big deal this is! We will keep you updated with what is happening in D.C. and the moments when your voice will make the biggest difference. Our goal is to help you stay up to date on what’s happening and to make sure that when you reach out to your lawmakers, it makes a real difference. 

If Outdoor Alliance was an ice cream flavor, which flavor would it be?

Rocky Road—because we are a combination of amazing individual pieces that work even better together! (And because politics can sometimes feel like a rocky road but one that can often have a sweet ending).