-2023-
Annual Impact Report
Thanks to the support of our readers and members, we made a huge impact this year through our education, advocacy, and collaboration with community partners. Check out what we accomplished below.
Education
Outdoor Safety & Leave No Trace
This year, we reached more than 530,000 potential public land visitors across our website, social media profiles, email newsletter, training webinars, and public awareness and education advertising campaigns. Below is a summary of our performance from January 1 – December 2, 2023. NOTE: We will update these numbers at the end of December a final time.
WEBSITE & BLOG
Nearly a half-million people visited thenextsummi.org this year to read a news article, learn from a free resources, sign up for a training webinar, or plan a hike or climb with one of our 100+ fourteener route, dispersed camping, and trail guides.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Across our Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest channels, we’ve accumulated more than 35,000 followers. We share educational content, ‘how-to’ guides, promote our skill-building webinars, and help inspire our community to responsibly explore public lands.
EMAIL NEWSLETTER
We continue to expand our email newsletter subscriber list, with an active newsletter shared every other week that consistently exceeds industry benchmark standards with a 45-55% open rate and a 5-6% open rate. We plan to increase the number and type of emails we share in 2024,
TRAINING WEBINARS
This year, we hosted 9 free skill-building webinars focused on a variety of topics, like ‘Winter 14er Safety’, ‘Avalanche Awareness for Beginners’, ‘Mountain Wilderness Survival’, and ‘Introduction to Colorado Dispersed Camping.’ Our goal for 2024 is to host 12 webinars with 2,000 registrants.
PUBLIC AWARENESS CAMPAIGNS
This year, we launched our inaugural stewardship ad campaigns to build awareness about important safety and conservation best practices for outdoor recreation. We have two ongoing campaigns:
1) Altitude Sickness Awareness,
2) The 7 Care for Colorado Principles
Here are our overall campaign statistics and examples of our ad creatives for the two campaigns.
AD CAMPAIGN OPTIMIZATION
Both of our ongoing public awareness campaigns are high-performing, with cost-per-click and cost-per-impression metrics that are significantly above industry benchmarks.
This allows us to reach more people and make every dollar of support go further and have as big an impact as possible on the mountains and public land.
The Next Summit is committed to using our resources efficiently to inform, educate, and empower the public with safety and conservation skills, knowledge, and mindsets.
THE NEXT SUMMIT
BENCHMARK STANDARD
COST PER CLICK (CPC)
COST PER 1000
IMPRESSIONS (CPM)
Advocacy
Outdoor Recreation & Conservation
We’ve worked hard this year as a founding member, executive committee member, and Secretary of the Fix CRUS Coalition, a multi-sector alliance of more than 43 organizations working together to protect outdoor recreation access in Colorado by strengthening the state’s recreational use statute. This is our main advocacy project, aimed at securing access to Mt Lindsey & Mt Lincoln, two closed fourteeners.
The Next Summit plays many coalition roles: We update the website, write the newsletter, and manage the social media channels, work with the media, testify at hearings, research & draft legislation, join executive committee calls, and coordinate grassroots outreach.
Collaboraton
Coalitions & Community Partnerships
We cannot do this work alone. We are committed to working with the entire outdoor recreation community to achieve our mission, including local and state government, search and rescue teams, recreation non-profits, land owners, land managers, conservation groups, the private sector, and the general public. Here’s how we’ve worked with our partners this year.
We are a member of these groups:
- Care for Colorado Coalition
- Fix CRUS Coalition
- Protect our Winters
- CO Outdoor Business Alliance
Planning for Next Year: 2024
We have big plans for 2024: Doubling our reach to 1,000,000, educating more than 2,000 people in our free training webinars, and launching new awareness ad campaigns and advocacy projects with our partners. Check out what we have in store below.
2024 Mountain Skills Webinar Series
Ideas for our 2024 series include:
- Avalanche Awareness 101
- Intro to Wilderness First Aid
- How to Forage in Colorado
Avalanche Awareness Public Ad Campaign
We are working on a new public ad campaign for Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter featuring avalanche safety advice.
2024 Next Summit Member T-Shirt
Get ready to show off your membership with our 2024 Next Summit Member T-Shirt! They will ship out by February, 2024.
Be Part of the Solution: Join Us!
We have a vision of a Colorado outdoor recreation ecosystem where everyone has access to the skills, knowledge, gear, and mindset necessary to safely and responsibly explore the mountains and public land. We are working hard every day to make that vision a reality, but we cannot do it alone. Join our movement as a member for $5 to fuel our impact and make a positive, lasting impact on the Colorado outdoor recreation community.
