OM STORIES
SPRING MADNESS!!
What season do you think is most productive for new ideas, adventures, and stepping out of the box? Is it Fall/Winter when leaves start to turn red/brown and then it gets to be -30* outside? Or is it Spring when flowers start to bloom, the grass turns from brown to green, and the sun is constantly shining outside? I’ll let you take a guess which season I’m leaning towards for my final answer. At Outdoor Mindset, we have a history of Living Big in the Spring. Way back when, when Outdoor Mindset first got started, a great majority of the Board took a trip to New Zealand in April of 2010. For two weeks we explored the South island, and backpacked, beach-camped and bungee jumped through that amazing country. You can check out our full adventure here. And while that seems like so long ago, and just like yesterday all at the same time, the Spring tradition continued last year, when we launched our first ‘March Madness’ fundraising campaign to help raise funds for our Guide/Traveler Program. This included activities including 5ks, huge Adventure Races, and even mustache growing to help spread to OM spirit.
So now here we are, Spring 2012, and how are we going to top ourselves this Sping? Well, there is LOTS going on at Outdoor Mindset, and that’s an understatement. We have two Board Members traveling the world for a year (and skyping in for Board Meetings from beautiful places like Thailand! Checkout their blog here) two Board Members about to take a 4 month adventure to Costa Rica, two moving out to Bozeman, MT (and taking OM with them!), two with new babies this year, Med school domination on the East Coast, and much much more. PLUS, we just hired our first part-time staff member (Welcome Patti!) to help expand and develop our membership programs, which is huge for us! AND, like that’s not enough, we just launched our new fundraising campaign, appropriately titled ‘Spring Madness’ to get people outside, trying new things, and join in on the fun that Outdoor Mindset likes to explore during the Spring Season, while raising funds for our Meet-Up Groups.
Check out our Crowdrise Page to see all the amazing things we’re doing for this Spring Madness campaign, and get involved in a project, or just flat out donate! Like I said, our focus for this campaign is to raise funds for our biggest 2012 initiative - Outdoor Meetup Groups within our membership program- to strengthen connections and inspire members to get outside. What a better way to build a connected Outdoor Mindset membership than to get outside together? Since many expenses go along with managing this program; such as the technology platform to manage events, labor costs associated with managing the program, outreach materials, food & beverage costs, rental expenses, etc., we’ve set at $10k goal for Spring Madness and need your help to reach that numbers. So come get involved, join in on the fun and start your own pattern of Living Big in the Spring… we wouldn’t have it any other way!
And just in case I wasn’t clear –
to join in on our Crowdrise Spring Madness event, donate, or for no other reason, just to see how cool we are. :)
Hope you're all having a great week - and Happy Spring!
Jill
Let’s get crazy!!!
With intense winter weather pretty much all across the US in the past few weeks, it’s easy to get in winter hibernation mode. But not us at OM! Instead we’re gearing up to do some great things in March. In fact, we’re doing things that are SO great that we’re calling it March Madness and the goal is to raise $25k by March 31st. Sheer madness you may say? Nope… we know we can do it, but we need the help of other great people to reach our goal (as is true for many things in life!) so we’ve started the March Madness fundraising campaign on Crowdrise
, an online community that helps pull people together to start projects that all help reach a common goal for non-profit organizations. We need to raise $25k to get our Guide Program up and running on a new online platform that will better match Guides and Travelers, which is one of our main goals at OM – so of course we want to be
GOOOOOOD
at it!
On our
event, there are many options. First, you can donate directly to the overall campaign. Second, you can create your own project to help raise money for March Madness, and ultimately Outdoor Mindset. Third, you can join other people’s projects, and become part of their team if you like what they’re doing and want to do the same thing.
We already have some AWESOME projects up there. Tony Stafford, a friend of Outdoor Mindset and founder of Boulder Sports Performance (which helps other athletes train to reach their ultimate fitness goals) is trying to break the World Record for the fastest marathon while wearing a 40 pound pack at the Baatan Memorial Death March. MADNESS!!! A group of OM’ers and some friends are doing a Moab Adventure race that includes at 275 foot rappel off a cliff. CRAZY! Kellyn and I are going to run a 5k or 10k… ok that sounds a little more calm and reasonable, but still, we’re doing it for OM and showing that we’re getting outdoors and getting active in March and it’s all for Outdoor Mindset. If all else fails, you should at least donate the money you win from your NCAA March Madness tournament bracket to Outdoor Mindset. All you had to do was drink beer, watch TV, and make educated guesses to win that… I’m just sayin’.
So here’s to raising $25k by March 31st and loving every second of the process: from getting outdoors, harassing our friends and family to donate, and putting it all towards the goal of connecting newly diagnosed individuals with someone else uniquely familiar to the neurological experience they’re going through. I’m sure you’ll be hearing from us soon, so just go ahead and pass the word along now.
Let’s make this 2011 March Madness campaign as cool as this highlight video from the 2010 NCAA Tourney. Now help us 'WIN'! (I especially like those MSU clips...)