The SHIFTx Fellowship Fund

Over the past three years, the Emerging Leaders Program alumni network has grown to encompass grassroots leaders from multiple sectors. Hunters, social justice activists, climbers, community organizers, anglers, hikers, and Diversity, Equity and Inclusivity specialists have all come together during ELP to develop a cross-sectoral approach to protecting our public and planetary health.

Currently, participants in The Emerging Leaders Program receive:

• Familiarization with subject matter to be explored at the SHIFT Festival (e.g., funding for public lands, the public land transfer movement)
• Preparation to help lead the conversations at SHIFT
• Direct experience in discussing issues critical to protecting our natural world
• Direct experience in developing alliances, networks and collaborations across sectors

This training is limited to the duration of the program.

The SHIFTx Fellowship Fund augments existing support mechanisms for alumni of The Emerging Leaders Program by providing them with financial support for initiatives of their own design.

With the assistance of Patagonia, we developed the SHIFTx Fellowship Fund to support ELP alumni in their efforts to address issues of importance to their communities. The SHIFTx Fellowship Fund represents The Center for Jackson Hole’s desire to share its collective-impact model nationally while simultaneously contributing to the professional development of ELP alumni.

The 2018 Fund recipients, 2017 ELP alumni Mateen Hessami and Jess Johnson, received $10,000 for their Hunting and Fishing Mentorship Program, while Ciarra Greene (ELP ‘16) received the 2019 $10,000 grant for her proposal to promote the restoration and conservation of her Nez Perce environment.

In both cases, The Center passed along the full amount of Patagonia’s grant, absorbing the organizational overhead necessary to develop the fund.

SHIFTx Fellowship Fund grant proposals are evaluated on the following:

• Alignment with The Center for Jackson Hole’s mission to leverage outdoor recreation for conservation gains, with particular emphasis on the use of outdoor recreation to protect public lands and advance and promote the health benefits of nature contact
• Collaborations between new partners: The Center for Jackson Hole actively seeks to support projects that engage non-traditional partners who share similar objectives but who have not collaborated in the past.
• Impact, Innovation, Replicability and benefits to Public Health:
  • To evaluate a proposal’s Impact, we consider whether it will produce measurable, meaningful, and long-term improvements in its target community, economy and/or surrounding ecosystem.
  • To evaluate Innovation, we consider whether it will provide unique or new approaches to the challenges it seeks to address.
  • To evaluate Replicability, we consider how easily it could be scaled to other communities.
  • To evaluate its Public Health Benefits, we consider whether it helps advance and promote the health benefits of time outside.

The SHIFTx Fellowship Fund supports our goal of making the ELP the engine of our efforts. It develops intersectionality between outdoor rec, conservation, land management and public health, highlighting the role outdoor recreation can play in the protection of our natural world.

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