We want to help you get outside
Climbing is a risky sport, especially if you don't feel safe or welcomed where you go.
Unreliable data, information gate-keeping, climbing jargon, violent language, harassment, discriminatory behavior— these are all too common experiences people have dealt with in our current landscape of online guidebooks.
Re-imagining climbing culture
We believe it's possible to change the community culture through intentional online experiences. Whether you're a new climber feeling anxious about your first outdoor route or a seasoned adventurer needing accurate and reliable information fast, we want to build a guidebook app that liberates information and invests in our community rather than marginalizes it.
This is our effort in evolving climbing culture.
How we can make an impact
We’re creating an alternative climbing guide
We are overdue for a climbing guidebook app that, at its core, prioritizes the safety of its community members. Safety looks like:
- Being able to self-serve accurate information as a new climber with limited access to mentors on how to get started, where to go, and how to get there.
- Access to trail accessibility data as an adaptive climber.
- Knowing how to navigate private property and ways to be respectful to the land and the locals there.
If you’re looking for a climbing guide with this kind of information, this is for you.
What we’re fundraising for
The purpose of this fundraiser is to pay our team members an ethical rate for the research phase as we create an official proprietary design document for a different/new climbing guidebook app.
We can't pursue a fully built out app without this first stepping stone. This document will contain our statement of intent, design prototypes, a prioritized feature list, estimated level of effort, and budget. When we are ready and backed to implement, we’ll hit the ground running with this as our guide. We'll keep the community updated through the Discovery phase on a monthly basis.
Any additional funds that come out of this fundraiser will go into paying for our online collaboration tool Miro, which has a $44.66/month fee, along with a savings that will go towards our implementation phase.
Free labor is not our norm
Too often companies expect free labor when it comes to pushing Inclusion and Diversity work into their brand. But the product is also the process. Sustainable and ethical practices will be at the heart of this project, and a large part of that is justly paying people for their labor.
Your funds will support this community norm and set the standard of what can be accomplished when folx are ethically compensated. Below are the team's hourly rates based on industry recommendations (before cost-of-living adjustments):
- Collaborative Research Coordinator, $50/hr
- Product Manager, $50/hr
- Designer, $45/hr
- Branding, $45/hr
- UX, $45/hr
- Content Strategist, $45/hr
- Frontend Developer, $55/hr
- Backend Developer, $55/hr
- Legal, $50/hr
- Community Stakeholder, $45/hr
We will not offer equity at any stage of this project in exchange for funding. We believe an app like this should be by the community and for the community, from discovery to implementation.
Here is a breakdown of our budget:
![Donut chart showing breakdown of $6,000 budget into 7 categories. The first and largest is Leadership team with 33.5%. The second largest is UX, Design, Branding, and Content strategy with 33.1%. Frontend and Backend development consumes 11.5% of the budget. Legal and stakeholder budget is 7.5% of the total. The graph also includes three categories for Fees and Margin of error. Indiegogo fee 5.1%, Payment and processing fee is 5.1%, and the lowest of the budget is the Margin of Error with 4.3%]()
Total budget $6,000
Team cost: $5,073 (85.6%)
- Leadership team: $1,985
- UX, Design, Branding, Content Strategy: $1,962
- Frontend and Backend Development: $682
- Legal and Stakeholder: $444
Fees & margin of error: $853 (14.4%)
- IndieGogo fee: $300
- Payment processing fee: $300
- Margin of error: $253
Risks & Challenges
This funding will be used for our research phase and to create a proprietary design document exclusively.
We will need separate and larger funding to build out the app. There is the potential risk that we will be fully funded for this research phase, create the app design, but not receive enough funding to actually build out the app in the next phase.
However, funding this initial research phase will be the foundation to building a better, more sustainable climbing guidebook app.
This is just one part of the puzzle
Addressing oppressive route names and monitoring online forums is one small part of the picture. Our mission is to re-imagine a more inclusive climbing community and experience, starting from the language we use when we describe and share what we're climbing.
We are 11 climbers, developers, designers, and community organizers from all around the United States who have expertise in universal design, web accessibility, and elevating marginalized folx in the outdoor space. We are passionate and hungry for change. But we need your help to get started.
