As we close out another year of adventure, we’re proud to celebrate highlights from 2024 that reflect the moments and people who are important in our work.
This year, we adventured with more than 40,000 people across familiar and new locations nationwide and internationally. Wilderness Inquiry saw incredible growth and deepening impact. And we continued to innovate by introducing new programs, forging new partnerships, and embracing new communities to best serve all who adventure with us.
2024 was a year of transformative change, and we are deeply grateful for the community of supporters whose generosity significantly contributes to our success. Thank you.
Where in the world we adventure is an exciting part of our work. But who we adventure with is central to the Wilderness Inquiry mission. In 2024, we invested in what matters most: our community of people.
During the cold Midwest months, we escaped to the warm beaches of Belize. Joining our popular Belize and Tikal adventure was Scott Tabor. Scott is a wheelchair user and says that his previous positive experiences with Wilderness Inquiry are what led him to book the Belize trip. He noted that the most impactful part was being able to experience and see everything with the use of a rickshaw – an adaptive device for wheelchairs that assists in trail trekking. “I didn’t miss out on anything. I knew that I was booking something where I’d be able to do more,” he reflected.
From the shoreline of Whitewater River, we held our first fly fishing camp with students from Harding High School and partner Trout Unlimited. Students learned how to tie flies, cast lines, and read the water. Along with the smiles and cool gear, the students left with a strengthened sense of confidence in nature.
The implementation of our new Military Families Outdoors partnership brought more than 2,200 service members and their families into nature for outdoor adventures from Yellowstone to Voyageurs National Park. These adventures provided positive engagement experiences with national parks, public lands and waterways, and offered families an opportunity to connect with each other and the lands their families serve to protect.
Growing our reach with new audiences also means growing our team. This year we expanded our fellowship program with the introduction of our American Sign Language (ASL) Communication Facilitator fellowship – strengthening our partnership with the Deaf, DeafBlind, and Hard of Hearing community. We also developed a new Outdoor Leader Coordinator role to bridge the trail experience with the administrative pieces of delivering programs and adventures. These opportunities support lifelong engagement in the outdoors and create pathways for deeper career and leadership development, particularly for people whose identities are underrepresented in the outdoor industry.
Alongside our strong network of partners, we achieved milestones that brought us closer to building an outdoors where everyone belongs. Growth, in our programs and impact, allowed us to increase the positive influence our work has on the communities we serve.
In 2024, our day and near-nature experiences for youth, families, and communities grew at every level, nationwide. Program reach in established locations expanded to build connections with new audiences. We also teamed up with new partners, including Blue Star Families, to bring outdoor experiences to communities in 11 states, including new locations in Colorado, Florida, and Virginia.
Home to our Little Sand Bay base camp, the Apostle Islands plays an important role in delivering our mission to create accessible outdoor experiences. This summer, we continued to partner with the National Park Foundation on construction of an accessible connector trail and to capture the voices, sights, and stories of accessibility in the area. This incredible partnership and shared commitment to accessibility in our national parks allows us to open the beauty and popularity of the Apostle Islands to everyone.
A significant moment for the organization was the recent move to our new headquarters in Bloomington, MN, providing the perfect base from which to strengthen our organization, further our mission and impact, and position ourselves for continued growth. Based in the Twin Cities for 46 years, we remain committed to our Midwest roots – embedded in a diverse community neighborhood close to many of the people we serve – while furthering the national reach of our mission and programs.
At Wilderness Inquiry, we’re committed to ensuring that our outdoor recreation and education experiences provide measurable and meaningful results for our participants – positively impacting the lives of those who explore with us.
This year, we again partnered with Hello Insight to track and evaluate our youth programs to measure social-emotional learning (SEL) capacities of youth participants before and after our Outdoor Credit Recovery program and multi-day camping trips. This collaborative partnership has allowed us to focus on research-based best practices that nurture young people to reach their fullest potential.
Strong partnerships with key organizations are critical to our success and impact in each community we engage. Longtime partners, as well as those who collaborated with us for the first time, provided valuable insight, expertise, and support that made our work possible. This year, we worked alongside an array of organizations – from national partners like the U.S. Forest Service to local collaborators like Detroit Outdoors – to provide meaningful outdoor experiences for the people we serve.
In 2024, we also honed our organizational promise to better position Wilderness Inquiry as a leader of access and inclusion in the outdoor recreation industry. We’re committed to facilitating adventure experiences that intentionally eliminate barriers to participation, and encourage people to connect with themselves, with others, and with the natural world – so that everyone can experience belonging in the outdoors.
In 2025, we hope you’ll join us as we continue to grow our work and connections with the many communities who support our mission.
For programs in Minnesota:
- STEM-based learning is funded in part by the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund as recommended by the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR)
- History and culture-based learning is funded in part by the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund of the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment
Leave a Reply