Gray Family Foundation’s Executive Director, Nancy Bales, reflects on the foundation’s evolving approach to grantmaking and the path to our board’s decision to make our largest gift to date in support of a long-term, sustainable outdoor school program in the state of Oregon. We believe investments in backbone organizations are key to creating systemic change…. Read more »

We are pleased to share this documentation created by Empowering Access.  It is a guide to considering disability equity when working on maintenance and development projects at camp facilities.

We are pleased to share the newly released, Outdoor School for All! Diverse Programming and Outcomes in Oregon, 2019 Evaluation Report compiled by our partner, Dr. Steven Braun and the Oregon State University Outdoor School program. This report is designed to support outdoor school programs in making positive programmatic shifts to ensure that all students are… Read more »

It’s a story that Oregon children can hold in the palm of their hand: the story of the mice and the Douglas fir cone. As the tale goes, a great fire scorched the forest, and the mice needed a place to take cover. The Douglas fir took the mice in, providing protection and seeds for… Read more »

The Foundation’s 2018 year in review

Outdoor School for All! Diverse Programming and Outcomes in Oregon details the findings from a 2017/18 pilot study of students and teacher participation in outdoor school programs across Oregon. This is an ongoing collaborative project of the Outdoor School Program and the Oregon Environmental Literacy Program.

The Foundation’s year in review.

The Foundation commissioned a baseline assessment of the state of Outdoor School, which utilized data collected through a survey of 1,135 schools and 20 in-depth interviews.

The Foundation funded this Guideline to help K-12 outdoor education providers incorporate human health considerations into their programming, particularly when students face health inequities and lack of outdoor access. The Guideline was released by the released by the Oregon Health and Outdoors Initiative.

The Foundation funded this Oregon Environmental Literacy Program report compiled by a team led by Steven M. Braun, Ph.D. The report characterizes Oregon’s diverse set of outdoor school programs, their impact on youth and evaluation measures, with the goal of developing assessments that can be implemented for all types of outdoor school programs.