Change is possible. The biggest lie is that we can’t influence systems or culture. The truth is, we can.
Especially when it comes to representation, access, and voice for women in the outdoors. Getting started can feel intimidating. You want to help, to make a difference, to move the culture forward, but knowing where to begin can feel like standing at the base of a mountain you’ve never climbed before.
Here’s the good news: the outdoor industry is shifting. Across the country and around the world, inclusive and women-led outdoor organizations are rewriting the narrative of who belongs outside. They’re tackling inequities in access, creating pathways for girls and women to lead, and redefining what inclusion looks like, on the trail, in the boardroom, and in brand storytelling.
Advocacy, representation, and access are being redefined by women who have chosen to build something better.
Why Advocacy Matters Now
While change is happening, leadership and visibility in the outdoor world still skew male and white. The data backs it up: according to the Outdoor Industry Association’s 2024 Participation Trends Report, women now make up roughly 47% of all outdoor participants, yet they remain underrepresented in decision-making roles. That gap widens even further when you look at who’s teaching courses, leading expeditions, setting policy, and running major outdoor organizations.
That imbalance matters, not only for today, but for the future. Women and girls entering the outdoor industry now will become the guides, founders, instructors, and executives of tomorrow. Visibility today shapes leadership tomorrow.
The inclusive organizations thriving right now are doing more than creating community; they’re building belonging in tangible, measurable ways. They’re opening access, redistributing opportunity, and proving that outdoor advocacy can change systems. The ripple effects are already transforming how brands hire, how media represents, and how future generations see themselves in wild spaces.
Inclusive and Women-Led Organizations Changing Outdoor Culture
Here are a few organizations changing outdoor culture in powerful, tangible ways:
SheJumps
Mission: Increase participation of women and girls in outdoor activities through education, community, and mentorship.
Programs: Wild Skills youth programs, Get the Girls Out events, and regional meetups designed to make the outdoors accessible for all skill levels.
Impact: Over 40,000 women and girls reached nationwide.
Lesson: Normalize women in every outdoor space, from first-timers to pros, and the entire culture shifts.
Website: shejumps.org
Native Women’s Wilderness
Mission: Amplify Native women’s voices in land stewardship, outdoor adventure, and advocacy.
Approach: Combines cultural education, storytelling, and social campaigns like #DecolonizeTheOutdoors to center Indigenous leadership.
Impact: Redefining inclusion, not only inviting diverse voices but honoring them as leaders.
Lesson: Inclusion means acknowledging who this land has always belonged to and ensuring those voices lead the conversations about protecting it.
Website: nativewomenswilderness.org
In Solidarity Project
Mission: Create measurable equity and inclusion standards across the outdoor industry.
Impact: Provides DEI training, mentorship programs, and consulting for brands, nonprofits, and agencies, turning ideals into infrastructure.
Lesson: Advocacy isn’t only grassroots; it’s also organizational. Changing the system means rewriting policies.
Website: insolidarityproject.com
The Cairn Project
Mission: Expand outdoor access for girls through community-based grants that fund mentorship, leadership, and adventure programs nationwide.
Impact: Over $500,000 in grants distributed to create opportunities for young women to lead in the outdoors.
Lesson: Access begins with investment. When you remove cost barriers, confidence follows.
Website: cairnproject.org
The Summit Scholarship Foundation
Mission: Provide financial and mentorship support for women and girls pursuing mountaineering and expeditionary adventure.
Impact: Each scholarship helps close the gap between ambition and access, funding gear, training, and guiding opportunities.
Lesson: Every scholarship is both support and an invitation to belong.
Website: summitscholarship.org
BIPOC Beta
Mission: Build access and belonging for BIPOC climbers through community-led mentorship and partnerships across the Twin Cities climbing scene.
Impact: Creating physical and cultural space for new climbers to connect, learn, and lead in an environment that reflects them.
Lesson: Representation on the wall changes who believes they can climb it.
Website: bipocoutdoorstwincities.org
Women’s Trail Fund (Here for the Women’s Race)
Mission: Amplify the presence and recognition of women in trail and ultrarunning by centering equity, storytelling, and grant support across age, ability, color, gender expression, and orientation.
What They Do: Through creative campaigns and community partnerships, they fund the Women in Trailrunning Fund, a grant program supporting athletes, storytellers, and organizers who are expanding representation in the sport. Their work channels proceeds from merchandise and collaborations directly into grants that empower underrepresented voices and foster inclusion across the trail-running community.
Impact: By pairing funding with storytelling, the Women’s Trail Fund is reshaping how women are seen and supported in trail and ultrarunning. Their grants elevate diverse stories that might otherwise go untold, building a broader, more inclusive narrative of who belongs on the trail.
Lesson: Storytelling is a tool for equity. When you fund voices, you expand who gets to belong.
Website: hereforthewomensrace.com
Women Can Movement
Mission: Use storytelling and community collaboration to celebrate women pushing boundaries in sport, adventure, and everyday life.
Impact: Their platform amplifies the stories of women taking bold action, building visibility and connection across outdoor and endurance spaces.
Lesson: Advocacy can be contagious, every story told gives someone else permission to take their own first step.
Instagram: @womencanmovement
Each of these organizations shows that advocacy isn’t one-size-fits-all. It’s community-driven, locally rooted, and globally relevant. Whether through storytelling, funding, mentorship, or education, they’re building an outdoor culture where belonging is the norm, not the exception.
Lessons from the Trail (and How You Can Get Involved)
You might be thinking, Great, these organizations sound incredible. But what are they actually doing? And why does it matter to me?
Advocacy in the outdoors is scalable. What these organizations are doing on a national or global level, we can mirror in our own backyards, run clubs, and local communities. You don’t need to run a nonprofit to make an impact. You just have to show up, and if you have privilege, power, or a platform, use it to lift others up.
Collaboration > Competition
These organizations share one thing in common: they don’t gatekeep. They share knowledge, gear tips, beta, resources, and encouragement. Don’t hoard the good stuff, share it. Collaboration builds trust and community. The outdoors doesn’t need more secret trails or elitism; it needs open doors.
Visibility Matters
Representation builds confidence and access. Seeing women, and diverse women, in outdoor spaces changes the story for everyone watching. Welcome others in. Invite someone to your trail crew or climbing gym. Highlight women and BIPOC athletes on your own platforms. Visibility widens the circle.
Storytelling as Activism
Your story matters. How you’ve navigated barriers, stepped outside your comfort zone, or used your voice to mentor someone, all of it counts. Changing who gets seen changes who believes they belong. Sharing your experience isn’t self-promotion; it’s activism.
Small Steps Count
You don’t need to overhaul an industry to make a difference. Start where you are:
- Mentor one woman.
- Donate to or volunteer with an inclusive outdoor organization that aligns with your values.
- Host a gear swap, a trail day, or a beginner-friendly workshop.
- Share a resource that helped you get started.
Small steps stack up. They ripple outward. Outdoor advocacy doesn’t need to be loud.
Living by Example
One thing that’s stayed with me since the Kilimanjaro FKT and my work with The Cairn Project is the power of storytelling and visibility and how often we silence ourselves without realizing it. (Shout-out to Angie and her work bringing that conversation to light.)
Before this project, I didn’t think of myself as censoring anything. But I was, in small ways. In how I talked about my goals, my experience, my ambition. Somewhere along the way, I’d picked up habits that made me hold back my full voice.
Sharing my story (not as a highlight reel, but as a work in progress) changed that. I learned that people want to connect. They want to understand. They want stories they can send to their daughters, sisters, wives, and colleagues.
Advocacy doesn’t have to be formal or polished. It can be you, living fully, answering what calls to you, using your platform to speak truth. Sometimes it looks like standing on a mountain; sometimes it looks like showing up for someone else’s climb. Living by example might be the most radical form of outdoor advocacy there is, because it lets others, especially younger girls, see the life they dreamed of and the wild they hoped for reflected back as possible.Change begins in the moment someone sees themselves as capable, worthy, and belonging.
My hope is that more girls and women see themselves not only as participants, but as leaders, builders, and decision-makers in every corner of the outdoor world.