Capital Campaign is Largest in Outward Bound History – Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Pacific Crest Outward Bound School announced today they have successfully completed The Second Founding of the School Campaign, a project totaling more than $8 million and surpassing the original $6.7 million goal. This total represents the single most successful campaign by an Outward Bound School in the organization's near 40-year history.

The School improved and expanded many of their basecamps thanks to the campaign's success. The grants and funds they received also helped the School to award scholarships to young women, ensuring they have the opportunities of challenge and adventure. To keep the School's programs relevant and challenging, they used a challenge grant to begin a research and development project.

More than 250 donors contributed to the campaign, which included gifts from individuals, corporations and foundations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Murdock Charitable Trust, the Pleasant T. Rowland Foundation, and the Meyer Memorial Trust.

Outward Bound Reacts to Campaign's Success

"This campaign represents an extraordinary effort and success for the Outward Bound community and will provide the capital base from which to grow in the coming years," said Northwest Chair Kevin Kelly.

"The research and development piece will keep us at the cutting edge of outdoor education, producing new program models, operating standards and applied philosophies for a changing society," said Northwest Co-chair Al Jubitz.

"The funds will allow us to better serve our students in the field by expanding and enhancing our basecamp facilities to match the high standards of our instructors and staff," California Chair Mike Wilsey said.

In addition to capital projects, the campaign also focused on increasing access to programs by expanding their scholarship endowment. "By adding more than $2 million to our current scholarship endowment, we take a giant step toward ensuring than no would-be leader misses the challenge and benefit of an Outward Bound course," said Jerry Schauffler, board chair.

Josh Miner, the educator who brought Outward Bound to the United States and the campaign's honorary chair, described the depth of community commitment to the organization as "wonderfully astonishing, particularly the support from the foundation community, which provided a series of critical six-figure gifts to put us over the top."

Significant foundation support comes from Gates, Murdock, Roberts, Rowland, Meyer and Hearst

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation of Seattle, Wash., awarded the School its largest foundation gift in the campaign. Their gift provided funds to expand the North Cascades Basecamp from four to 20 acres – an expansion critical to accommodating the rapidly growing sailing and mountaineering programs.

The M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust of Vancouver, Wash., awarded the top-off gift for the Odin Falls Basecamp, which serves as the hub for the Central Cascades and Idaho mountaineering and river programs. The Roberts Foundation of San Francisco, Calif., granted $100,000 for new basecamp construction in the High Sierras, the School's most extensive mountaineering course area.

The Pleasant T. Rowland Foundation of Middleton, Wis., made a $500,000 scholarship grant to ensure that young women will always have the opportunity to take on the challenge and adventure of an Outward Bound course. The William Randolph Hearst Foundation of San Francisco, Calif., demonstrated a similar commitment to scholarships by adding $100,000 to a long-established endowment they previously created.

The Meyer Memorial Trust of Portland, Ore., provided a $323,500 challenge grant to catalyze Outward Bound Institute through a startup Continuum Project. The project will create a research and development program to ensure that courses remain at the cutting edge of outdoor education. This grant will promote the goals of the School's work – creating learning experiences – with a particular focus on new education product development to ensure courses remain relevant, innovative and challenging to students. In addition to the Meyer gift, an anonymous California foundation and two friends of the School matched this challenge.

About Outward Bound and the Pacific Crest School

Outward Bound, the originator of outdoor education, was founded in 1941 in Aberdovy, Wales, and introduced in America in 1962. Today, Outward Bound operates five wilderness schools and two urban centers in the United States, and is widely considered the leader in its field. The mission of Outward Bound is to conduct safe, adventure-based courses structured to inspire self-esteem, self-reliance, concern for others, and care for the environment. The classic Outward Bound course takes 10 strangers, provides them with progressively technical skills to address unavoidable wilderness challenges in a group expeditionary setting, and requires them to move deliberately to and through adversity.

Pacific Crest Outward Bound School delivers courses in the backcountry wilderness areas of Washington, Idaho, Oregon, California, and Mexico. It serves 2000 students a year, with 25 percent receiving scholarships. For more course information, contact the School at (800) 537-3312, or visit the website.