Using The North Face’s brand platform to teach cultural competence and drive active allyship in the outdoors.
The Challenge
In 2021, we helped create The North Face (TNF) Explore Fund Council, which brought together seven experts from all walks of life, to actively listen to their experiences in the outdoors. The Explore Fund Council focussed on developing recommendations to help expand what exploration looks like, particularly to support ethnically diverse communities to feel welcome and accepted in the outdoors.
Two key recommendations the Council made were to elevate lived experiences at scale and to challenge ignorance and intolerance through immersive education. The challenge was to deliver on these recommendations by providing tangible steps for those working in the outdoors to make the outdoors open and more welcoming.
The Solution
Think Beyond launched The North Face Allyship in the Outdoors online course in November 2023. Working in partnership with experts from across the industry, we designed and developed the course. Our goal was to help outdoor organisations manage conversations about diversity and inclusion, and to challenge ignorance, prejudice and hate speech online.
Through our operational and strategic support, driven by TNF leadership, the public course has been promoted to a range of UK outdoor organisations (e.g., National Trust, DofE, and OIA) who have encouraged their staff and members who work and operate at the grassroots level of the industry to take the course at no cost. The content for the course modules was created in collaboration with TNF athletes and explorers with shared values such as Molly Thompson-Smith and Zukie Tandathu. Course users are able to listen to the athletes’ lived experiences and understand the real-life impact of this education in action.
In the future, we are hopeful the course will be available to more outdoor organisations around the UK and that those who have completed the course implementing their learnings, delivering on their pledge to be a stronger and more active ally.
The Impact
- As of April 2024, over 10,000 users started the course and over 5,000 users completed the course.
- People from 565 organisations across the UK have taken the course from 81 countries.
- 82% of users reported an increase in their understanding of allyship in the outdoors after taking this course.
- 92% of users agree that hearing people’s lived experiences in the outdoors (through the videos in the course) motivated them to learn more on this topic.
“Thank you for coming up with this course idea – as someone who’s ALWAYS been excluded from the outdoors, this gives me a lot of hope.“ Course user
“This is all very thought-provoking and is relevant not just for the outdoors but in all workplaces too.“ Course user
“As a person of colour competing professionally and working in the industry it’s good to finally see some steps being taken to educate people in an interactive and non-threatening way which will hopefully create actual change.“ The North Face Athlete
“I pledge to use my current position and personal influence to challenge myself and my organisation to understand better the personal and structural barriers that exist within the outdoor learning sector, and to seek opportunities to become a more inclusive provider of experiences and employment.” Course User
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