Ben McCue
Executive Director, Outdoor Outreach
The Basics
Company Name: Outdoor Outreach
Location: San Diego, CA
Founded: 1999
Full-Time Employees: 16
Products: The mission of Outdoor Outreach is to connect youth to the transformative power of the outdoors. Since 1999, Outdoor Outreach has provided opportunities for more than 15,000 youth to explore their world, challenge themselves, and discover what they’re capable of. Each year, we provide more than 500 outdoor youth development programs, as well as ongoing job training/employment, mentorship, and advocacy opportunities for young people 11-24 years old. Through meaningful experiences in the outdoors, our youth participants are empowered to be resilient in the face of adversity and gain confidence in their abilities to effect change in their lives and the lives of others.
Social: Instagram // Facebook // Twitter
Claim to Fame: Outdoor Outreach is the best kept secret in San Diego (something we are working improving!)
The Culture
Demographic:
Of our full-time staff, 4 of 16 identify as people of color. Our leadership team, similarly, represents 25% people of color. This is in contrast to our direct field/program staff, where 14 of 25 are people of color. This is an area of growth that we’ve recognized and are actively working to address by creating more clear pipelines for staff development and promotion. We started in the development of this pipeline in 2010 by creating opportunities for Leadership Program graduates to be hired on as Field Instructors, and currently, more than half of current Outdoor Outreach instructors are graduates of our Leadership Program. However, we’ve recognized systemic challenges that serve as barriers to promotion. For example, Leadership Program graduates are often hired as Field Instructors at 18-19 years old. However, in order to drive a commercial vehicle (an organizational requirement of promoting to Senior Instructor or beyond), you need to be 21. Furthermore, it’s often been more convenient to hire external candidates for Senior Instructor positions because they come with pre-requisite education, experience, certifications and licenses. In the outdoor industry, these experiences are often limited to groups that have means and are encouraged to enter outdoor professions, predominantly White males. We are now doing more to emphasize the importance of clear staff development opportunities that lead to more internal promotions. Our goal is to increase to 60% of staff being past program participants by 2025, and 60% staff being BIPOC by 2025 to more closely represent the demographics of the City of San Diego (57% non-White, non-Hispanic/Latino; U.S. Census Bureau).
The best thing about working at outdoor outreach is:
Being a part of the Outdoor Outreach family. At OO, our core values include positivity, choice, respect, authenticity, possibility, excellence, and passion, and I can truly say that our team lives out these values in their daily work.
When we’re not working, we’re:
Enjoying the outdoors in every way possible.
What we’re reading:
Leadership on the Line, Awakening Your Ikigai, White Fragility, The Handbook of Sailing
What we’re listening to:
Waves breaking, wind blowing, wildlife rustling and laughter all around
If they made a movie about our workplace, it would be called:
Challenge By Choice
Inclusion in the outdoors matters because:
Outdoor access and engagement is a critical public health need, and therefore inequities in outdoor access is a contributing factor to inequities in community health and wellbeing.
Inclusion and representation in the outdoors increases individuals’ sense of belonging and expands the diversity of user groups in outdoor settings.
Long-term conservation efforts will depend on the diversity of voters and stakeholders that feel connected to public lands needing to be conserved.
Five years down the line, it’s our hope that:
Outdoor access and engagement will be recognized and elevated as a critical public health need. We will continue to elevate diverse voices in the movement to increasing equity in the outdoors.