Local Support & Mobilization

When a local climbing access issue occurs, the first and best line of defense is almost always the local climbers who are familiar with the area and the issues. That is why a critical piece of the Access Fund’s work is encouraging, organizing, and empowering local climbers to join together into local climbing organizations.

Today, the Access Fund works with more than 100 local climbing advocacy organizations across the country. Over the past decade, we've worked to grow this network by nearly 70%—ensuring that when an access issue occurs in your backyard, there’s a qualified group of advocates there to help.

Each local climbing organization adds to the strength and voice of our climbing community. They are also the boots on the ground to tackle local access issues, steward their climbing areas, build relationships with landowners and managers, and educate and inspire their local climbing community.

Access Fund supports these local groups with:

• Grants for start-up expenses, stewardship work, climber education, research, and more.
• On-demand assistance with local access issues and land manager negotiations.
• Consulting on political, legal, and regulatory issues with federal, state, and local entities.
• Loans to quickly buy climbing areas when there is an imminent threat.
• Best in class advocacy tools to help make local climbers voices’ heard
• Education conferences that convene the climbing advocacy community to learn from each other and increase effectiveness.
• Conservation Team visits to help mitigate climber impacts and collaborate on strategies for more sustainable climbing areas.

For more information, contact [email protected].