ABOUT HIKE IT BABY

Hike it Baby is a nationwide organization founded in the summer of 2013 in Portland, OR to help combat postpartum depression in both moms and dads, while creating a safe and supportive community for new families to connect with each other outdoors. It started with a few moms hiking with little ones and within a few months turned into a movement that has now spread across the country from Asheville, NC to Austin, TX to Santa Cruz, CA to Anchorage, AK.

 Through our network and website we are building the most comprehensive databank of hikes in North America for families, that will allow anyone with children (especially those with little little ones) to get out either with a group of people or on their own on trails. Currently we have close to 5000 families hiking in 28 cities with 50-70 hikes a week led by volunteers. Hikes can be anywhere from 5 mamas and babies to over 100 depending on where and when.

The reason we are growing so quickly is because Hike it Baby hikes are always FREE, but running a fast growing organization like this is not, so we need your help to keep it growing and help evolve the vision. We are asking that if you have ever been on a hike or love what we are doing, please help us really get this off the ground and spread to every city in North America. We have the beginnings of a national movement. We just need that extra push. 

Why Does a Free Hike Group Need Money?

Hike it Baby hikes are always free, but running a fast growing organization like this is not, so we need your help to keep it growing and help evolve the vision.  Running such a fast growing organization is starting to add up. To date we've spent $15,000 on the website, which gets around 600 hits a day. The maintenance of that, legal fees to keep the hikes safe and marketing materials that are distributed to hospitals, new mama groups, non-profits, trail groups and more are just part of the costs incurred right now to run everything. 

It all started after I had my son, Mason. I went to a new mama group, which was wonderful and a great place to make new friends, get comfortable nursing and just be out of the house with my baby, but it was also inside. 

It was summer and being outside made sense, so I asked a few moms if they wanted to go on a short, easy hike in a city park in Portland the next week. A few said they would meet me and sure enough, they did. The following week a few more moms met us and from there it grew. 

In my pre-baby life I built websites and did graphic design for a living, so as the hikes grew, it became clear we needed more than just the email I was sending out to tell people where the next hike was happening. So I built a website and started a Facebook page and a newsletter. 

Volunteers have been an important part of Hike it Baby since the beginning. At first I led all of the hikes in Portland, then I went out of town and couldn't lead for a month and some other moms started leading. That's when the website came in handy. It started small and simple and helped keep all of the hike leads and locations listed and organized. Then it grew and grew and grew.

While it's been a labor of love the last year, it also has become something that was much bigger than myself and the women around me. I knew when a woman showed up on a hike in November 2013 on a rainy day after she Googled hiking moms in Portland and found our calendar that we had something going. Then a few months later I got a Facebook message from a woman I had never met in March from Racine, WI, who had been watching what we were doing on her friend's Facebook page, and asked if she could start it. The quick growth has shown me this is something women and families not only are excited about, but believe in enough to help grow it out.

These days emails, Tweets, Facebook posts and calls come in almost daily asking how people can start a branch. And thanks to all of the press, social media spread and community awareness Hike it Baby has become a weekly, and even daily part of many families' lives. And as our ever growing community grows, the numbers of families who may have otherwise been intimidated to get out there with a newborn is steadily increasing. 

Here are a few articles you can check out that people have written about us.

So What's Our Mission?

We are on a mission to prove that having a newborn baby shouldn't stop your outdoor life, but actually is even more of a reason to head outside. Everyone from your new baby, to Mom and Dad and sisters and brothers benefit from fresh air. And with the support of a network like Hike it Baby, families can find others to venture out with or find trails on their own through our advice to hike and walk on. 

Helping Hike it Baby is helping all families create stronger bonds and start off life in a healthier, happier way. 

What We Need & What You Get

Hike it Baby is at the point where we have grown so much we need to upgrade everything. We have a website, but it was created to support a small group of women hiking in Portland once a week. On average we are supporting a calendar weekly that looks something like this with around 50-80 hikes a week. Each hike has between 4-100 people on it. That's a lot of happily walking mamas. 

But...this calendar is just an example of all of the backend pieces of the website that are currently being stretched to the max. In order to handle the growth our group has had, we need a serious site makeover. For website costs we are looking at about $12,000-15,000. One if the important pieces in this makeover is that we will be creating a databank to store all of the hikes so they can be accessed by our community whether a Hike it Baby hike is going on or not. 

The next thing that is super critical is marketing materials. We get calls and emails daily from hospitals, natural health providers, doulas, midwifes, community centers, conventions and more asking for information about Hike it Baby. They want to offer our community as a solution to combat post-partum depression, encourage family health and to help women have healthier pregnancies and recoveries. We want to be able to send materials to everyone, but the cost has been too great. With $6,000 we could print up enough marketing packets to distribute in the cities we are currently in, as well as grow out to other cities that are on our list of places we think would benefit from Hike it Baby. 

Ideally we would like to offer an app that helps families be able to hike on the fly in most major cities across America. This app would allow baby-friendly trails (changing tables nearby, possibly bathrooms, information about emergency services in the area, hikes calendar for that location with next hikes listed, ratings from Hike it Baby approved hikers, parking details, dog-friendly, any fees, hazards for toddlers). The app comes once we build the website and start gathering all of this trail information from our families posting hikes in our "Lead a Hike" form that the website has. The app is part of a longer term build out and will require an additional $35,000-50,000. So starting with making the website as mobile friendly and using it to build the app is part of the bigger plan for Hike it Baby. 

Other trails we would like to travel down: 

• Podcasts to help parents learn how to get out there with little ones. 
  
• Video series to spread around the web with family hiking tips
  
• Hiking products that don't exist that can help make hiking with a baby easier
• A non-profit foundation (Hike it Baby Foundation) that gets carriers, strollers, snacks, water bottles, and shoes for families who can't afford them so they can hike with us. 

Other costs we have are general monthly maintenance fees for the newsletter, waivers, website fees, Paypal, store, etc. We currently have a cost of around $1000-$1500 a month to keep everything running. 

If you contribute to Hike it Baby, 100% of all funding will go to building out the website first, and then to marketing. 

No one makes a salary from Hike it Baby. We are made up entirely of volunteers. Our marketing is more or less word of mouth, mom-to-mom, family-to-family. We don't advertise.  

If we don't reach our entire goal we will use all funding we do receive to improve the current functionality of the website so that it can handle the massive growth Hike it Baby has seen over the last few months and the anticipated growth in the next year (between May 2014 and September 2014 we went from 4 branches to 31!)

The Impact

Your contribution will not only impact the communities Hike it Baby is currently in, but will also help develop our organization further. Knowing you helped create a legacy of children who grew up being introduced to nature from the first few weeks of their life and onward is not only rewarding for you, but it can change your community. Our hope is that giving children an appreciation for nature from birth on will impact all of our futures as it relates to protecting the environment. We want our babies grow up appreciating nature in a way they can't explain, because it's just part of them and always has been. 

It's no secret that we are at a place in our history where we've become very disconnected with nature and the only way to turn this around is to help introduce families back into nature as early as possible. 

While there are many programs for kids in nature, very little if any programs exist in our country that welcome newborns to the outdoors. Also most programs have some kind of fee associated with it or costly gear, which leaves families on limited incomes, unable to participate in many adventurous outings.

The fact that Hike it Baby hikes are always free opens doors for families who may not have otherwise been encouraged to venture into the woods, head out for urban strolls, go for walks in their neighborhood. But it also helps encourage people to get out because they have a community to join and don't have to motivate themselves without support. 

And as our program grows, we hope to create a foundation that will help provide shoes and carriers to families who can't afford these extra items to help them get out there. 

Risks & Challenges

Currently the big question everyone has for Hike it Baby is "How are you going to make money? What's the revenue stream?" While I am always quick to admit this is a challenge we are still grappling with, we do see a number of ways we can make money through membership, sponsorship, products like t-shirts and water bottles and add-ons for the site. 

Ideally we want this group to remain free and be something that any community can participate in, therefore, we need to grow bigger to get the attention of organizations and companies who can help fund Hike it Baby. This is a risky proposition in a time when budgets for things like trails and "non-necessary recreation" are being cut right and left. 

And while we know funding a hike group can seem extraneous, we also feel the testimonials of families who have become part of the Hike it Baby community and the impact we are having on the communities we are in, can help prove that this is something that needs your support to get off the ground. 

 

Other Ways You Can Help

Not everyone has money. We know that. The beauty of Hike it Baby is that our most powerful support to date has been women sharing with other women. All of our branches have been launched thanks to women emailing friends and sharing on Facebook and Twitter. 

Here's what we are asking: If you have ever been on a Hike it Baby hike please contribute what you can from $5-100 to help keep this amazing group growing. Then share your Hike it Baby experience with your friends and post this IndieGoGo link. 

If you have never been on a hike with us, come out and join us. You don't need a baby. You can just be an extra hand. Come see what we are all about and let us motivate you to breath some fresh air and make new friends. Then contribute what you can. Every little bit will help our beautiful tree grow new branches across the country and maybe beyond (Europe? Asia? Africa? South America?).

And if you are in a community that could use a Hike it Baby branch, share what we are doing and grow a branch in your area. It's easy, it's fun and we promise it will change your life.