In 1989, four outdoor brands — Kelty, Patagonia, REI, and The North Face — came together and awarded a $40,000 grant to protect public lands. Their insight was simple: their bottom line depended on protecting the outdoor spaces their customers loved. Thirty-five years later, the Conservation Alliance has more than 200 member businesses, has granted $34.5 million to protect 125 million acres, and works with companies ranging from outdoor gear brands to energy companies to beverage businesses to media organizations. Kim Paymaster and Katie Johnson join The Parks Podcast to explain how it works and how you can be part of it.

 

A note from Missy: So much is happening in our public lands right now. It’s so easy to think “it’s happening to them,” but what is happening impacts all of us. This episode set the stage for understanding the business side of conservation — and how all of us, as consumers and advocates, play a role.

Episode Guest

Kim Paymaster – Grant Program Director

Katie Johnson – Campaigns and Engagement Manager

The Conservation Alliance

About The Conservation Alliance

  • Founded 1989 by Kelty, Patagonia, REI, and The North Face. Member-driven business network connecting outdoor, beverage, energy, media, and other industries to conservation advocacy and grantmaking. Funded entirely by member dues; funds go to on-the-ground conservation projects and advocacy campaigns.Stats:
    • 200+ business members
    • 2024 grants: $1,651,000 to 47 projects
    • Total since 1989: $34.5 million in grants
    • 125 million acres protected or preserved
    • 4,964 river miles protected
    • 43 dams removed or halted
    • 22 climbing areas purchased
    • 5 marine reserves and 1 national marine sanctuary designated

Show Notes & Links

Episode Transcript

Business Champions for Public Lands — The Conservation Alliance
The Parks Podcast, Episode 39 | Kim Paymaster, Grants & Program Director, and Katie Johnson, Campaigns & Engagement Manager, The Conservation Alliance

Note: This episode references the Roadless Rule and its public comment period. That comment period is now closed. You can learn more about the Roadless Rule in the two previous episodes of The Parks Podcast.

What Is the Conservation Alliance?

Missy Rentz: In this episode of The Parks Podcast, I’m thrilled to welcome Kim Paymaster, who is the Grants and Program Director for the Conservation Alliance, and Katie Johnson, who is the Campaigns and Engagement Manager for the Conservation Alliance. Welcome to The Parks Podcast.

Kim Paymaster: Thanks so much, Missy. So excited to be here.

Katie Johnson: Thanks for having us.

Missy: I start each episode with stats on parks, but with you I wanted to share some of the stats on the Conservation Alliance. The Conservation Alliance is made up of more than 200 companies. In 2024 you granted $1,651,000 to 47 projects across North America. Since 1989, you have awarded more than $34.5 million in grants to help protect over 125 million acres, 4,964 river miles. You have removed or halted 43 dams, purchased 22 climbing areas, and designated five marine reservations and one national marine sanctuary. The Conservation Alliance is doing amazing work in our public land spaces.

Kim: Thanks so much, Missy. And we’re going to say we’re doing it alongside a lot of great partners.

Missy: Yes, and we are definitely going to get to that — because I think in the outdoor space, it really does take a village. But to start out, what is the Conservation Alliance?

Kim: Great place to start. Back in 1989, a few of our current members — Kelty, Patagonia, REI, and The North Face — came together realizing that their business bottom line, and honestly the interests and expectations of their customer base, really relied on protecting the outdoor spaces that we all love. At that time, they came together, put some money in, and we awarded our first grant — a $40,000 grant to protect public spaces. Now after 30-plus years, we’ve got over 200 business members that have come together to protect public spaces. They range across a wide array of industries, but they’re all coming together because they believe in protecting wild spaces and outdoor places that you, I, and so many others care about — and that are really critical to our economy, the environment, and our communities. Each year, these business members provide dues and we use those to support critical conservation efforts on the ground across North America. At the same time, these businesses are working closely with our team to engage in advocacy efforts where they’re making the economic and business case for protecting land and water.

Who They Work With — and Why It’s Bigger Than You Think

Missy: You just mentioned a few of the brands and members that are involved, but I want to dig a little bit deeper because when I think about conservation efforts, I think about people with signup tables at the mall or something like that. I was really blown away by who is involved in the work that you’re doing. So who do you work with?

Katie: We’re really fortunate to work with a few different groups of folks in our day to day. As Kim mentioned, we work with a variety of businesses — this includes, but is certainly not limited to, outdoor industry brands like Patagonia, REI, and others. But we also work with energy-focused companies, beverage businesses, and a lot of other industries as well. Through our grants program, we also work with a lot of community-led organizations, which includes tribes and other folks committed to protecting clean air, clean water, wild places, and watersheds across North America. And we look to engage with political and local leaders across the aisle, and we work with partners in the outdoor recreation and conservation space.

Missy: When I think about the outdoor space, I think of a park, a gear manufacturer, and maybe if I think really hard, the tour group that’s taking me out there. But you’re bringing up energy companies — that’s not super intuitive to me. And I would never have gotten to the point of thinking about a beverage company unless it was about water for hydration. So why do people join, and why is it so important to have all of these different groups connected to outdoor space?

Kim: When we’re talking about beverage companies, water is at the source of so many of these products and they understand that their consumers are going to rely on those clean water sources. Understanding how we protect those places is going to be critical to their business model. We’ve also got media companies that are trying to lift up public spaces — we work with a number of big and small media brands so that people can see what’s going on in Alaska and in California and in Wyoming. We have a better sense of how these changes are impacting different communities. There’s such an interplay of how public spaces and the environment affect so many different industries.

Katie: I think it just shows that what we’re working on is really common ground for so many folks. It brings people together in a way that other issues may not.

Missy: I read recently that the outdoor industry is a trillion-dollar industry. When you really start to connect the dots and add up all who are involved, it’s a powerful group. There are a lot of groups that talk about helping the environment and it can get really confusing to someone who’s not ingrained to understand who is who and what everyone does. How does the Conservation Alliance differ from all of these other park associations, conservation groups, and clubs that we see?

Kim: We work closely with a number of conservation-focused organizations and groups, and honestly we couldn’t do the work without them — we really value those partnerships. I would say the Conservation Alliance plays a unique role with our ability to specifically bring in the business community from a wide range of sectors. All of our businesses are really committed to protecting those spaces, and because of that, we’re really able to widen that tent and talk about the impacts of protection across so many industries — outdoor recreation, food and beverage, renewable energy, and so many more. And then at the same time, we’re able to deepen our impact by partnering with our grantees — local and national groups that have on-the-ground expertise and relationships. They can talk about what protection means for their communities and for individuals. We do this through both public and private land protection — that may mean working on designating a new national monument, or helping a land trust acquire land that can become a park, a wildlife refuge, or other public space. And there are times where we’re able to really bring our grantees together with our business members, talk to elected officials, and that — I would say — is a bit of the special sauce for the Conservation Alliance.

The Outdoor Economy

Missy: Can you explain what is the outdoor economy and why does it matter that it’s being positioned in a collective way?

Kim: The outdoor industry is made up of a large number of players — private sector businesses working alongside nonprofits, and government agencies and entities at the local, state, and federal levels, all focused on recreation, gear provision, services, as well as the management of land and water. When we’re talking about the outdoor economy specifically, it’s those financial pieces that layer back up to each of those service areas. We’re talking about a lot of the activities you, I, and others participate in — running, camping, fishing, hunting, anything that comes to mind. It costs us some money to get into certain parks, but there’s also all the gear that goes along with that, the access groups that help fund trail maintenance, the outfitters and guides, the adventure tourism pieces, the media pieces. So many different layers. Right now it’s a $1.2 trillion industry, which means it generates a ton of jobs, increases outdoor access for so many people, allows us to advocate for conservation priorities, and supports the health of all of these businesses and communities across the country.

The Grant Work — From Asheville to the Boundary Waters

Missy: You’ve talked a little bit about the businesses, but then there’s the grantee work and what’s being done on the ground. Tell me a little bit about what the Conservation Alliance has done, is working on, and will be working on.

Kim: I’ll jump in at a very local level, and Katie’s got the deep knowledge on a lot of our national priorities. We do a lot of great work with local organizations. One that I’m super excited about right now is just outside of Asheville in North Carolina. We’re working with the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy, who is working directly with the local county to purchase 342 acres there. As you and probably a lot of your listeners know, last year that region got really hit hard by Hurricane Helene and the damage was just so awful. This organization and its partners are working to create the county’s largest park — just five miles outside of the city center, making it really accessible to local communities. It already has a network of trails, so they’ll continue to build off of that. It’ll add a ton of access for local communities, and it’s going to have such a huge impact on the economy there as well.

Katie: We have some priority campaign focuses that we identify each year, and for each of those priority campaigns — those landscapes that we’re looking to either defend or protect — we partner with grantees who are on the ground and who are the subject matter experts in that landscape. The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is one of our big priority campaigns this year. We work with the Save the Boundary Waters team on the ground there to help partner with businesses and identify how that business voice can lend itself to protecting and preserving that space. Another priority campaign of ours is the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument. We work really closely with the Grand Canyon Trust on that landscape as well. They have great relationships with the local businesses there that allow for that business voice to really uplift those protection efforts.

Missy: I love the variety of needs that you address. Sometimes it’s about a fish species you’re protecting, and sometimes it’s a land issue. It’s just really diverse how you are able to identify what is important in different parts of North America.

Katie: We’re super lucky. We have grantees and on-the-ground folks working across the country on all-scale projects, but we also have businesses that are looking to engage in different ways. Of the 200-plus businesses that we have, advocacy and conservation is going to look different for every single one of them. And so that really allows us to expand our reach of what we’re protecting or defending and how we’re doing that — because everybody has a different interest or priority that may be slightly different from the next person but all comes back together to those conservation efforts.

Missy: My impression is that the Conservation Alliance provides the grant, but you’re very involved throughout the process, ensuring that progress is made on projects.

Katie: We’re fully trusting of the folks that are receiving this funding and support to do what they do best, but we want to be there to support them and connect that business voice to what they’re doing. For our priority campaigns, I get to meet with all of our priority campaign grantees once a month, so I get to understand what they’re doing and how we can support them. The minute we have a decision that impacts that landscape, we can react and support the business voice in responding how they need to respond.

How Businesses Can Get Involved

Missy: How can a business get involved if they feel they’re connected to your mission in any way?

Katie: The conversation starts with understanding what membership or Brands for Public Lands involvement looks like, and then identifying where advocacy fits into your brand DNA. Whether that’s writing an op-ed or a letter to the editor from your executive leadership, hosting an event that highlights the importance of a landscape, writing a blog about users in the space — the options are endless. It’s really up to us and the brand to identify what their priorities are in the advocacy space, and then we can help support those and turn them into action items and results.

Missy: So if an organization listens to this episode and realizes they care about the environment and their business aligns with your values and mission — can they pick up the phone and talk to someone?

Katie: Absolutely. Step one is just understanding if the alignment is there and how that looks for both sides. I want to add — we work with several brands that have five or fewer employees, and they’re incredible and so active and so vocal in these spaces. Business size is not always the only factor to take into consideration. Some of these really small or medium-sized businesses can make an incredibly huge impact. Yes, pick up the phone or send an email. A lot of that can be found initially on our website, conservationalliance.com.

Kim: For those small businesses — a lot of those voices really matter in a deep way, because they are so embedded in their communities in a way that national brands sometimes aren’t. Those voices can often matter to leaders and community members in a really unique way. You don’t have to have expertise in advocacy already. You don’t even have to understand all the policy implications. We will do the education, the training, we’ll help you get there. All you need to do is want to participate.

Missy: I think sometimes people forget that if they’re a small brand, they assume they don’t have power — but they do. They have a lot of power. And then I think as individuals, we always hear “your vote matters,” but sometimes more than that — our dollar matters. If we’re paying attention to who we’re spending our dollars with and making sure it aligns with our values, it makes a big difference.

Katie: It really does.

How Individuals Can Stay Connected

Missy: What about an individual? Is there a space for an individual within the Conservation Alliance?

Katie: People can stay up to date with what we’re doing through our newsletters, which you can sign up for on the website. Also following along on social media — we post a lot of updates around our priority campaigns, and we also highlight all of our grantee work and success stories. You’ll see quotes from our member companies highlighting current issues or their stance, and it allows you to see firsthand what these businesses are doing and how you can support them — both from the ground level and from the consumer level, because that really matters.

Kim: There are also ways to support the work we’re doing — if you look on our website, we’ve got ways for individuals to support through what we call a Leading Edge sponsorship. And I think there are different ways whether you’re interested in connecting with local groups in supporting this national, business-led approach. Happy to talk to individuals as well.

Missy: You’ve brought up a lot of good ways that people can get involved as individuals, and one of the things I will say is that what you all are doing — teaching us all how to advocate — is really important. And my heart says I need to be doing a lot. But thankfully we’ve lived in a period of time where we haven’t really had to advocate for things.

Katie: You’ll find on our channels, too, a little bit more about some of the vocabulary that might not be inherently known to the common public. There are a lot of things I’ve learned just in my seven months here — acronyms and abbreviations and things. So just that first level of education, and yeah, how folks can get involved, but also how the businesses that you support are getting involved too.

What’s at Stake — and What to Celebrate

Missy: So what’s at stake? What does the future look like? What do we all need to be concerned about? What do we need to celebrate? What’s next?

Katie: How much time do we have? I mean, there’s a lot at stake. Our public lands are everywhere and we’re very lucky and very grateful for that. But there is a lot at risk. Conservation, and especially from the business lens, is critical right now. The business voice carries a really significant weight, especially in DC especially right now. Businesses taking a stance and showcasing what’s important to them in terms of advocacy or conservation or community engagement can make a huge difference. And it has, and it will continue to. I would just say — let’s celebrate the little wins. Let’s celebrate the pieces where we can celebrate with each other and keep the community focused and moving forward. Don’t lose hope. Our voices matter. Everyone’s voices matter. And now more than ever, it’s critical to understand where you lie in these topics and how you can get involved and advocate for what’s most important to you.

Kim: Right now we’re seeing record turnout in our public parks. There are just so many people out there. And so we know that these places matter to so many people. The scary part of what’s happening right now is that if we lose access and if we lose protection of these places, we don’t get that back. Once we have oil drilling happening, once we have extraction, it really changes the landscape. So how do we think about the future of these places and what it means to so many communities and people and how that brings everyone together? Thinking about your favorite places and how you advocate for protection of those places is a great place to start. And then celebrate each win and keep that going.

Speed Round

Earliest park memory? — Katie:
I did a lot of camping as a kid, but the earliest memory I can think of is going to the Grand Canyon back in 2016. Not really that long ago, but that’s my first official park memory that I can think of right now.

Earliest park memory? — Kim:
Not as glorious as that. I grew up on Long Island, so going out to the county park beaches was where I spent a lot of my time.

What made you love the parks? — Katie:
I think the vastness of a lot of the landscapes for some of these larger parks is incredible, but also the serenity of the local or smaller parks is equally great — both unmatched for different reasons.

What made you love the parks? — Kim:
I used to go when I had a hard day. Just the solitude, but also the way it can bring community together.

Favorite thing about the parks? — Katie:
I think the community aspect and the ability to come together. I live in Southwest Colorado now, so I have a lot of opportunity to enjoy our public spaces in that way.

Favorite thing about the parks? — Kim:
There’s something really spiritual about it. That connection to nature is just bigger than I think we all understand.

Favorite thing to do in a park? — Katie:
I like finding the places that aren’t super popular — what’s the trail that’s a little bit more hidden or off the beaten path? I also really like birding.

Favorite thing to do in a park? — Kim:
I love being on the water, so finding different ways to do that.

Park on your bucket list? — Katie:
Oh my gosh, so many. Probably Yosemite and the Redwoods for me.

Park on your bucket list? — Kim:
Right now I would say Pine Creek Gorge in Pennsylvania. It’s supposedly the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania — we’ll see about that — but it’s actually two state parks and I’m really eager to go check it out.

Three must-haves for a park visit? — Katie:
Snacks, snacks, and snacks.

Three must-haves for a park visit? — Kim:
Outside of water — a really good sleeping pad if I’m going camping. I think older age has brought that to be more important. Some really good hiking shoes, and then more water.

Favorite campfire activity? — Katie:
Good conversation.

Favorite campfire activity? — Kim:
S’mores. It’s always been great, and now my daughter’s on board, so it’s perfect.

Tent, camper, or cabin? — Katie:
I sleep in my Toyota Tacoma, so a little bit of both.

Tent, camper, or cabin? — Kim:
Tent.

Hiking with or without trekking poles? — Katie:
Newly with.

Hiking with or without trekking poles? — Kim:
Without — and constantly thinking about how I should change that.

Favorite trail snack? — Katie:
I am hooked on walking tamales.

Favorite trail snack? — Kim:
I’ll go boring and just say nuts and chocolate.

Best animal sighting? — Katie:
There are too many. I lived in Florida for eight years, so I’ve seen an amazing slew of birds over the years — I can’t pick one. But I’ve had some great bird sightings.

Best animal sighting? — Kim:
We just went to a wildlife refuge a couple weeks ago and saw a red fox out there, and my daughter just lost her mind. So right now that’s at the top of my list.

Favorite sound in the park? — Katie:
Probably some sort of moving water — whether a babbling brook or a waterfall of some kind.

Favorite sound in the park? — Kim:
Just whatever sound there is once everyone is quiet at night — the wildlife that comes out. It’s so different in each place.

Greatest gift the parks give to us? — Katie:
Access to these spaces and views that are unmatched and can’t be found anywhere else.

Greatest gift the parks give to us? — Kim:
A reminder that there is something bigger than us. And it’s amazing.

Missy: Thank you both, Katie and Kim. Thanks to the Conservation Alliance for all the work that you’re doing, and I am really grateful to the both of you for spending time talking to us and educating us today.

Kim: Thanks so much, Missy. Really appreciate it.

Katie: Thanks for having us.

Missy: Thanks for listening. Until next time — we’ll see you in the parks.

Music for The Parks Podcast is performed and produced by Porter Hardy. Follow us @TheParksPodcast or visit TheParksPodcast.com.