The Basics

Company Name: Outwild
Location: USA
Founded: 2018
Full-Time Employees: 3
Products: 3-day in-person retreats, online workshops and resources all directed towards adventurous, intentional living
Social: Instagram // Facebook
Claim to Fame: Outwild is a first-of-its-kind event series and community that helps people create more outdoor, value-driven lifestyles.

The Culture

The best thing about working at outwild is:

Meeting people from around the world who are passionate about outdoor-centric lifestyles! Plus, being able to watch as our community members become lifelong friends and support each other in finding more joy and purpose. We are constantly amazed by how much connection can happen in just three short days!

When we’re not working, we’re:

Playing outside, watching documentaries, protesting, attending family reunions, singing songs, recording podcasts, listening to podcasts, watching Netflix and eating popcorn, having a beer on the patio, reading memoirs, writing poems, in the garden, finding new trails, or chatting with strangers.

What we’re reading:

The Sympathizer, White Fragility, H is for Hawk, The Future is Faster than You Think

What we’re listening to:

Fleetwood Mac, The Weeknd, Sylvan Esso, Velvet Underground

If they made a movie about our workplace, it would be called:

*we struggled choosing…

Learning to Laugh When Things Go Wrong
A five-part series on pushing through when the going gets tough

Nothing Without You
A retreat company’s ode to the community that follows it

Fraud, Fire, and Falling Temps
How one retreat company overcame every event planner’s worst nightmare

Work-Life Balance
Campsites, Cliffsides, Cars, and Crappers - we’ll follow these entrepreneurs as they work from just about anywhere

Intentional Living is Scary for Everyone
Acknowledging that fear and doubt exist, but moving forward boldly anyway

Inclusion in the outdoors matters because:

It is unacceptable otherwise. There is no argument against inclusivity. There is no argument against equality. We fight for these things because society was built upon a system of white supremacy where white, straight, cis-gendered, able-bodied men are the norm and yet that does not reflect who we are as people. No matter our background, skin color, sexual preference, gender orientation, or ability level, we all deserve to explore and feel safe in the wild spaces around us. The outdoors are for all.

Five years down the line, it’s our hope that:

Outwild was started by three white people and we are aware and learning more about how our whiteness and lack of diversity as a team influences our community and the way we make decisions. Our hope is that by taking more meaningful action and setting specific goals around inclusivity (as outlined below), we’ll not only foster an event environment that feels welcoming for all, but will participate in a greater movement to create a colorful, diverse outdoor community. Five years down the line, we hope the Outwilders are a world-wide network of supportive, welcoming humans that serve as each other’s mentors, adventure partners, sounding-boards, friends, and accountabilibuddies.

Goal: Make enough money that we can hire 1-2 diverse, year-round staff members so that our leadership team reflects the diversity of our community.

Action Plan: Continue growing and building the Outwild business. Add more retreats each year and create a more diverse portfolio of retreat offerings to cater to different audiences and increase revenue.

For the next 5 years:

Goal 1: Continue ensuring that our event staff represents all types of people because there are so many incredible outdoor leaders in our space and yet often we only hear from the white ones. This is unfair not only to those leaders but also to our community members who want to see themselves in outdoor leadership and know that the outdoors are a space where all can succeed.

Action Plan: Deep dive into the percentage of our event staff that has included underrepresented communities in the outdoor space so that we can set specific goals to approve upon. Ongoing research around the leaders in our space who would make for compelling workshop leaders or speakers at Outwild. Prioritization of outreach to those leaders. Learning how to thoughtfully (and more regularly) say no to some of our white leaders who support Outwild, but ultimately lead to over-representation of white people at our events.

Goal 2: Find more consistent, permanent funding for our scholarship program (which are mostly self-funded currently).

Action Plan: Stay on the lookout for profitable outdoor companies that are doing the work to increase representation in the outdoors (ideally using guidance from Diversify Outdoors!). Continue networking with those companies and try to lock this down.

Goal 3: Create long-lasting partnerships with some of the existing non-profits in our space that are already doing tons of work to create more diversity in the outdoors - this could include Melanin Basecamp, Brown Girls Climb, or others. While we have invited leaders from these organizations to speak at Outwild, ideally we would have a more formal, ongoing, symbiotic partnership where both organizations feel supported and benefitted.

Action Plan: Wait for a time when it feels right / non-burdensome to reach out to these companies about brainstorming ideas on how we could partner and/or simply put out a call that we would love to partner with some of the organizations and see who responds.

Goal 4: Continue making our flagship event even more accessible and affordable .

Action Plan: Add high-end retreats to our business model. Use the money made to help bring down the cost of our flagship event.

<< Back to all Pledge signatories