Common Ground with Protect Our Winters

In 2021, the Foundation’s Board of Directors chose ten organizations that promote conservation, encourage youth and veteran participation in outdoor sports, and work to improve diversity and inclusion in the outdoors. The recipients received over $600,000 in grant funding. Now, we’re doing a deep dive into the organization so our employees and external stakeholders can learn more about the Foundation’s partners, their missions and how they put their grant to use. This month’s Common Ground feature highlights Protect our Winters (POW).

Protect Our Winters (POW)
Website: https://protectourwinters.org/

Why Protect our Winters?
In the late 2000s, a lack of snow prompted pro snowboarder Jeremy Jones to found Protect Our Winters (POW), an organization focused on moving the adventure sports community to action on the impacts of climate change. Since then, POW has worked for and with the Outdoor State and the 50 million Americans that depend on the outdoors for livelihood, enjoyment and wellbeing.

“Protect Our Winters brings together communities of outdoor enthusiasts to discuss climate change and its impact on the wild spaces we all cherish,” said Dylan Ramsey, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary at Vista Outdoor. “POW’s recent efforts at outreach have focused on reaching the hunting and fishing community to bring them into the climate change conversation with their existing core communities of mountain sports enthusiasts. That broad-based effort to find common ground among all outdoor enthusiasts makes POW a perfect partner for the Vista Outdoor Foundation.”

Protect Our Winters Mission
Grow, diversify and strengthen the Outdoor State to become the most influential and powerful voice for climate policy in the U.S.

The Power of the Grant
“The grant from the Vista Outdoor Foundation will help us in a number of ways,” said Mario Molina, Executive Director. “Including the launch of the POW Bike and content creation – all with the goal of establishing common ground and engaging all members of the Outdoor State.”

POW Bike is the latest sport vertical from POW. It is an inclusive group of athletes that represent Mountain Biking, Cross Country, Enduro, Downhill, Gravel, Freeride, Road and Ultra biking. The organization’s content creation includes several feature-length films that focus on adventure, environmentalism, and the great outdoors, all available on the POW YouTube channel.

POW has grown to a worldwide network of more than 130,000 supporters that include 150 pro athletes, 23 resorts, 150+ brand partners and thousands of passionate outdoor enthusiasts.