How Does a Sliding Scale Model Promote Equity?
Coming off a challenging year, we’re excited to be venturing out into new territory in 2021. This comes with some big changes — we’re launching our own platform, creating new offerings, and connecting with volunteers in different ways. Underlying all these changes is an emphasis on helping many more families, from all backgrounds, get outside to play.
Alongside the big changes, there are several things that are staying constant: a focus on child-led nature play and a belief in the power of community to co-create the childhood we imagine for our kids. Our new platform, Our Outdoors, will boost our ability to connect with one another and offer many different pathways to meet caregivers wherever they are in their nature play journey.
And to fund it all, we’re introducing a sliding-scale membership model. Participants will be asked to contribute annually, with suggested amounts based on income ranges. No one will be turned away for lack of ability to pay. We want to share with you some of the thinking behind that decision.
How can a sliding scale membership model increase equity?
Since our founding in 2015, we strongly ascribed to a belief that there should be no charge for access to Free Forest School. In retrospect, this played into the common confusion between what is “equal” and what is “equitable.” Offering our work for free meant that the organization could not pay the dedicated folks who put in countless hours of work to get this organization started and who were constantly scrambling to keep up with our growth. We didn’t have the funds or stability to implement livable wages or other measures to broaden access to leadership positions. Above all, we lacked the capacity to create extra support for families facing more significant barriers to nature play.
Simply put, by offering the program for free, we were only able to offer programming that was adequate to serve families who already had access to many resources and could largely self-motivate to get into nature. Volunteer positions required a large time commitment and as such, were not widely accessible.
With a sliding scale membership model in place, we communicate clearly the costs of the service Our Outdoors provides and invite members who believe in our mission to support the organization in a way that suits their capacity to give. This will enable the organization to hire and retain staff to focus on providing technical assistance—helping members navigate Our Outdoors to find the support they most need—and developing initiatives that answer some of the biggest barriers families face, like creating gear lending libraries, translating our resources into other languages, offering mini grants to support localized solutions, and building stronger relationships across communities through partnerships.
How much should I contribute?
The sliding scale is intended to be a map, inviting each member to take inventory of their financial resources and what they can contribute. If you’re financially comfortable and feeling generous, we invite you to give more in order to ensure Our Outdoors membership can always be free and accessible to others. If money is feeling tight, we welcome you with open arms. Together, we can build a nature play community that benefits us all.
Below are suggested contribution amounts based on your income. We don’t verify or ask questions about your payment amount, so there’s no need to stress over it. This is a system based on trust and generosity—what we think community is all about.
| Annual Household Income | Suggested Annual Membership Contribution |
|---|---|
| $0 – $29,999 | $0 |
| $30,000 – $59,999 | $7 |
| $60,000 – $89,999 | $15 |
| $90,000 – $119,999 | $25 |
| $120,000 – $149,999 | $37 |
| $150,000 + $50 | $50+ |
Are you planning to change the name of the organization?
Let’s be honest, our name is confusing on a number of levels: We’re not a school! We advocate for kids and their grownups to play outdoors in all sorts of environments, not just forests! And we have been inviting new members to make a contribution upon joining since 2019.
But our name has been with us from the start, a lot of people know it, and we want to focus our resources on our mission (getting outside to play!) rather than a big rebranding right now. Additionally, our suggested membership donation is just that—an optional donation—and for anyone who can’t pay, or chooses not to pay, Free Forest School is still “free.”
We want this thing we create to be awesome, and we want you all there with us!
