Adventure Scientists

National Geographic named Gregg “Adventurer of the Year” when he completed the first 7,800-mile trek along the spine of the Andes. He founded Adventure Scientists with a passion for exploration and scientific discovery. The nonprofit provides scientific partners with access to data to amplify and accelerate solutions to environmental and human health issues. Named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, Gregg’s work through Adventure Scientists has led to improved crop yields around the world, utilization of the largest dataset on Earth for addressing microplastics pollution, and the creation of new datasets that are being used to prevent illegal deforestation. 

Gregg holds a biology degree from Montana State University and a sociology degree from University of Colorado, Boulder. He thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail in 2004, and has participated in dozens of scientific expeditions around the world. 

Researchers working at the forefront of today’s most pressing issues––from deforestation to food security––are stymied by strong headwinds. A dearth of access to required datasets, misaligned incentive structures within academia, growing misinformation about science, and a lack of impact-driven funding sources force scientific leaders to jump through hoops to achieve even minimal impact. Countless opportunities for scientific advancement remain unrealized. With the ever-increasing population and lack of significant societal will to improve environmental sustainability, we must look to science and technology for answers.

Adventure Scientists equips scientists with mission-critical data collected by a global army of specialized volunteers. We operate on any scale, anywhere on Earth. Our network allows scientists to ask broader questions, creates compelling storytelling opportunities, and generates connections to impact-driven funders.

We are working to create a world in which the ability to advance solutions is only limited by the ability to ask the right questions.

The scientific community has been plagued with insular incentive structures focused on publication over impact. Mounting public distrust, misunderstanding, and therefore a lack of funding has followed. The result is that scientific leaders are forced to think smaller, move with unreasonable premeditation, and jump through bureaucratic and academic hoops to achieve even minimal impact. This results in countless opportunities for scientific advancement remaining unrealized. 

It’s stark that the mindset, “move fast and break things” has created technological advancements that have outpaced the science needed to be effective. For example, we can intervene in disease with gene editing, yet we don’t know which genes are responsible for multi-drug resistant infections, and which will kill more than 50 million people a year by 2050 if left unchecked. We can sequence DNA with handheld equipment, yet we haven’t mapped the genomes of trees that are poached (a $150B+ issue) to be able to trace them. Science has failed to promote and reward impact-driven work, which inherently requires failure, imaginative thinking, and funding. 

Adventure Scientists is a full-service scientific project design and execution provider. At the core of our success is a global network of outdoor adventurers who are trained to gather mission-critical information and specimens from anywhere, on any scale. We elevate the stories and voices of these volunteers as well as those of our partners, bringing widespread attention to issues where action can and should be taken. In doing so, we empower our scientific partners to think bigger, reach audiences they couldn’t otherwise reach, and access funding they couldn’t previously consider. Our work amplifies and accelerates the ability for leading scientists to arrive at solutions to the issues that affect us all.

We serve scientists who serve us all. While science is under attack from many levels of society, we still, in times of crisis, such as the current pandemic, turn to scientists to solve our problems. Dr. Anthony Fauci has become a household name. Whoever finds a vaccine first will likely become a celebrity. These heroes could be focused on fighting for solutions to the litany of challenges that we face everyday, from pandemic outbreaks to climate change, and yet they report that they spend more than 50% of their time researching and applying for grants with little chance of approval. Last year, the NIH, the highest funded scientific government agency in the US, approved just 18 percent of the 54,000 requests it considered. We must elevate scientists across all sectors of research and improve their ability to invest time and effort on impact if we are to survive as a species without destroying every other species in our wake. 

Imagine a world where scientists could access the funding, coaching, celebrity, and data at the scale they need to invest their time and effort into actual impact driven research. What problems could we solve? How many lives could be saved?  

We embody the Elevate Prize mission: to dramatically amplify the impact of innovators, activists, and problem-solvers. We allow our partners to think bigger and ask bolder questions.

We have worked with more than 130 partners and mobilized thousands of volunteers towards impact. As a result, crop yields have improved on over 3 million acres including on 300 farms in India, major progress has been made toward a new suite of interventions against antibiotic-resistant “superbugs”, and reference libraries from trees are being used to stop illegal deforestation. With your support, we can achieve so much more.

In 2008, after a friend and I completed the first 7,800 mile trek down the spine of the Andes where we studied sustainability, I moved to Montana to pursue a career in wildlife ecology. I worked tracking lynx, wolverine, and grizzly bears, and promoted wildlife connectivity. I led a ski expedition to Mongolia, which discovered what is likely the densest known population of wolverines on the planet, and traversed the Okavango Delta, poling myself across the swamps to better understand impacts from upstream mining and agriculture.    

While these ecological expeditions were rewarding, I understood that if I could empower others with the tools to contribute as they explored the outdoors, collectively, we could have a much broader impact. I imagined thousands, all working towards a common objective, and saw that bringing together my two passions, exploration and science, would present the world with a new opportunity for advancement.   

I had the idea in November of 2010 over lunch and incorporated the nonprofit organization in January 2011. I started by Googling, “how to start a nonprofit.” Luckily, I’ve had incredible help and mentorship along the way.  

After getting kicked out of school at 16, I discovered the outdoors. My guide on my first trip had just finished the Appalachian Trail (AT). I thought the world of him, yet never dared to imagine that I would follow in his footsteps. Years later, I was about half-way through the AT myself when I broke down. I became frustrated with benefiting no one other than myself by hiking for six months. I vowed to make my future exploration about others. After finishing the trail, I went to work in wilderness therapy with kids who were struggling like I had. Through that job and other exploration, I visited places around the world. 

The more human-caused degradation I saw, the more passionate I became. From communities in the Andes that have been relocated due to irrevocable drought to mountain gorillas that have been nearly wiped out, I became passionate about giving voice to those who didn’t have it. I came to believe that one of the greatest tragedies is the fact that we have elevated ourselves above every other species on the planet, and I became committed to meeting our needs while minimizing adverse impact.

I constantly struggled as a kid. I was suicidal at 11. I was kicked out of school at 16. Creativity, optimism, and persistence have carried me through. I have chosen (and was taught) to believe in and rely on myself, and I have fought through some incredibly challenging experiences along the way. I’ve learned through my challenges, some chosen and others not, that there is ALWAYS a way to overcome no matter what obstacle is in your way. This is essential for success at Adventure Scientists. Our organization lives by our values of creativity, optimism, persistence, achievement, reflection, and stewardship (COPARS). By relying on these values, our organization has lived this same ethos that no obstacle can keep us from achieving our goals. We plan the best we can and face each challenge as they come.  

Throughout the last nine years, I have learned more than I ever imagined about leadership, accountability, and communication. To me, our value of reflection is one of the most important. I am someone who values the opportunity to grow. Whether thinking ad nauseam through prior interactions while passing the time on expeditions or by seeking feedback regularly from anyone and everyone that I can, I actively work to internalize others’ experience of me as a colleague, a friend, and a leader. I know that I still have a lot to learn and am eager to improve with every interaction.

I speak weekly, if not daily, with advisors about challenges we face. There are always plenty. Whether it’s losing a funding opportunity, a team member leaving, having to let one go, or a project partner becoming upset, I consistently turn to COPARS to find the opportunity in each situation.  

An example of this happened when a government agency hired us to survey abandoned oil wells throughout the eastern United States. The opportunity was enormous for our organization, and yet the field staff we were due to work with were not aligned with what their supervisors in DC had decreed. After months of struggling for consensus, we decided that the longer term organizational vision was more important than the short-term project. We submitted an updated proposal for the project we were willing to execute. As expected, the partner terminated the contract. Throughout this challenge, we were focused on building relationships with the DC office who had originally hired us. Despite the challenges, they still recommend us to other divisions within their agency.  

Today, we have a larger contract with that agency and two others, which we could not have had without the support of our original partners.  

My goal is to create the conditions for my team to succeed. As I write this, I have a staff member asking for permission to miss a deadline. My heart wants to give her a pass while my head wants to tell her that it’s her problem, not mine. Neither of those choices achieves my leadership goals, strengthens our team mentality, nor motivates her to get the job done.  

I drafted my emotional response and then I redrafted it to achieve these goals.

I sent the following:

"As always, you should prioritize your health and well-being. The deadline is real as is the need for your participation in our staff retreat tomorrow. We have a reputational risk with our partners and with their peers. I’m sure you are incredibly frustrated that you are having trouble with your computer, and while I am working under a deadline myself this evening, I’m here for you to troubleshoot if that is helpful. How can I support you in making both things happen?"

My hope is that she will come back with some suggestions of how I can help her achieve both goals, and yet she is still accountable for the commitments she’s made.  

We are the world’s only citizen science as a service provider. From project design, to build, to management, there is simply no other entity that does what we do. 

Many perceive citizen science as amateur science focused solely on the education and engagement of the volunteer. These outcomes are incredibly important to us, and we have demonstrated that volunteers – when trained well – can collect research-grade data that has the potential to change the world. Our volunteers are comfortable in the outdoors and therefore can focus on following protocols. These are individuals who pay close attention to detail, are creative problem solvers, and can share their experiences via the rich tradition of storytelling that is at the heart of the outdoor community. 

We are positioned to collect data on any scale from anywhere. About 8,000 potential volunteers visit our website each month, which shows the massive potential for collective action.  

We work hard to ensure that the data we collect will lead to impact and spend a great deal of time ensuring that each project we take on has a solid theory of change and that all the partnerships are in place to achieve impact.

Inputs - 

Volunteers - Build an army of volunteers willing to be trained to collect data from the far corners of the globe. Embed storytellers and outdoor community leaders who will generate great content to inspire others. 

Scientists - Identify scientists who are impact oriented. Apply our methodology for designing projects to incorporate data end-users and help scientists develop relationships where they don’t exist. Use a multitude of learning techniques to ensure volunteers collect quality data. 

Outputs - 

Volunteers - Become informed ambassadors for the projects on which they work. They have applied their labor to these issues so feel a sense of ownership over them. They gain insight into the scientific process and have become part of it.  

Scientists - Are empowered to think bigger and to take risks. They gain access to datasets that were previously unimaginable. They are featured in popular media and build a constituency around their issues.  

Short term outcomes - 

Volunteers - Write articles, talk to their communities about important issues, and promote the idea of volunteering. They feel results from their work and pride in their contributions. Science no longer exists in an ivory tower and public trust of science increases. 

Scientists - Analyze the datasets to answer questions, generate new approaches, and move society closer to the solutions we all seek. They are able to find the funding, realize partnerships, and continue the impact-focused thinking they need to address environmental and human health issues.  

Longer term outcomes - 

The world - Benefits from new solutions to environmental and human health problems that would have taken far longer to achieve. We gain functionality on technology and are able to increase human sustainability across multiple fields. Funding easily flows to science and we celebrate scientists as heroes. They are elevated in the media, and the next generation is inspired by these heroes to follow in their footsteps.

We currently serve five scientists. 

Next year we will serve 10.  

Five years from now, we will serve 300.

Our expectation is that each of them (or just one) will have a profound impact on the world.

1. We aim to expand our current partnerships and grow to approximately ten active projects running at any given time. With ten active projects, we are confident that we can secure a majority of our revenue from fee-for-service while making it true that any qualified volunteer who wishes to participate can do so, wherever they are, and whatever outdoor activity they pursue.  

2. There are thousands of applied scientists who could benefit from our services. Yet, our current model allows us to serve only a handful at any given time. Likewise, dozens of potential volunteers visit our website each day. Limited spots are available on each project, and therefore we are forced to turn many away. To overcome these obstacles, we are creating “The Platform”, a map-based marketplace in which adventurers post their upcoming expeditions and scientists post their data-collection needs. By bringing our services down market and removing the barrier of access-to-data, we will serve hundreds more who are working to address environmental and human health challenges.  

3. “Operation Elevate” is an effort to promote scientists and their incredible work across our networks. We are actively partnering with sponsors, funders, and media partners to highlight and promote scientists as the new heroes. We are making introductions and helping to remove barriers wherever we can.  

As funding has shifted to immediate COVID-19 response and racial equity, several of our consistent funders have become less reliable. In the short term, we are contingency planning for losses of revenue as steep as 60%. In addition, the pandemic has left us uncertain about our ability to safely and effectively deploy volunteers around the world. Travel restrictions, increased permitting requirements, and shifting stay-at-home orders all make our work, in its current form, far more difficult. 

Longer-term, the amount of time and effort that goes into volunteer management is often underestimated, as is the cost. Our costs can quickly exceed available budgets and raising the money (either from philanthropy or fee-for-service) to run these projects is difficult due to the very same conditions we are working to address. 

This challenge, along with the narrow hallway created by our project impact requirements, means that we have a limited number of projects up and running at any given time. Our ability to keep our volunteer network engaged with a finite number of opportunities for their participation is difficult at best. Building and maintaining a consistent and diverse portfolio of projects is essential. 

Additionally, the lack of diversity in the outdoor and scientific fields is a barrier to success. Racial justice is closely tied to the environment. Communities of color are disproportionately marginalized by environmental justice issues and solutions to these issues must be developed alongside BIPOC communities. 

Just as the current pandemic has presented new challenges, it also has generated new opportunities.  We have expedited our work to elevate scientists in the media and with our brand partners (Operation Elevate), we have focused on closing project design contracts, and we are considering new additions to our strategy such as courses for early career scientists focused on storytelling, fundraising, and design for impact. Furthermore, the virus has reiterated the importance of investment in science. If ever there was a time to place our hope and trust in science, it is now. Despite the misinformation and distrust, science will get us through this global challenge. This reality positions the organization well moving forward.  

To combat the cost and limited project issues, we have developed the platform model (described above), created new services that are more affordable, and have built a seed fund that will allow us to launch projects that are mission aligned, have the potential to attract future funding, and which require a proof of concept. We will continue building this fund while honing our ability to make smart decisions around which projects will generate future funding and impact. 

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is a priority for our organization. In 2019, we formed a DEI committee to build relationships with BIPOC communities across the organization. For more insight into our work, please refer to this document: 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bEP0KcZDBCiHKa9F-xZ5MibgtL2PPYlCZjaP8utcQp4/edit

Our list of current and former scientific project partners includes US Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, USDA Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Environmental Protection Agency, National Geographic Society, University of Arizona, Harvard Medical School, Stanford University, Trent University, University of Venice, World Resources Institute, American Prairie Reserve, Natural Resources Defense Council, and many more.  

A few highlights from our previous partners:

“Adventure Scientists was crucial in conducting winter surveys. This work would not have been such a success without their efforts.” — Betsy Howell, USDA Forest Service

"We are creating genetic reference libraries to combat illegal timber and we simply couldn't do it without the Adventure Scientists network." — Meaghan Parker-Forney, World Resources Institute

"We have narrowed the search for genes responsible for a key bacterium becoming antibiotic resistant down from 3,000 to less than 50 genes. We would not have gotten here as quickly without Adventure Scientists." — Mike Gilmore, Harvard Medical School

We operate with a combination of fee-for-service and philanthropic revenue. 

Our sales to the scientific community include project design, impact coaching, project build, volunteer recruiting, media and storytelling support, fundraising support, and data collection. To reach our partners, we attend and present at conferences and meetings, engage in network mapping, and rely on referrals. We utilize popular media and scientific publications, and we conduct targeted outreach to compelling researchers in specific fields where we believe our model could advance solutions. We have been fortunate to be welcomed into several high profile communities including TED, National Geographic, the World Economic Forum, Skoll, Ashoka, Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, and Grist. Networking through these communities has been an essential part of our success both with project and donor partners.    

Our donor partners invest in Adventure Scientists because they believe in big bold ideas that have the potential to change the world. They like our focus on “moonshot” type projects that, if successful, will have lasting impact for millions if not billions of people. Likewise, they believe that democratization and inclusion in science is a way to improve science literacy, support, and engagement.  

Volunteers bring considerable in-kind value to Adventure Scientists’ projects. The nonprofit organization Independent Sector estimates that the value of each volunteer hour is $25.43. This allows us to “match” many government grants, and increases our leverage of every dollar. Throughout the last three years, we have averaged a 6:1 ratio of money spent to project value.

We have had a nine year track record of revenues exceeding expenses. This has allowed us to build a “rainy day fund”, which enables us to weather storms like the current one. This funding has come from an incredible network of high-net-worth donor partners we have met through the communities listed above. We will continue to rely on philanthropic support as this comes with access to broader networks, businesses, and strategic guidance.  

We are still proving our fee-for-service model and, while we have had success, it remains to be seen if it will work long term. We need to secure three to four more large contracts to have confidence in our long term ability to attract paying project partners. 

We have worked to increase the number of members on our board and aim to have 12 members by the end of 2021. We expect that our board will become a major source of revenue moving forward. This includes direct giving as well as introductions to project and funding partners.  

Time frame: June 16th, 2019 - June 16th, 2020

Total revenue: $2,189,663.96

• Foundations: $225,235.97

• Private Donors: $1,458,053.36

• Non Federal Grants:  $49,000

• Sponsorships: $130,124.35

• Fee for Service: $259,950.68

• In Kind: $57,299.60

• COVID-19 Relief Grants: $10,000

For more information on our financials, including our individual funding sources please visit our website here: https://www.adventurescientists.org/annual-reports-and-financials.html

Our current budget is about $2M/year. We must continue to raise this money to meet our basic operational needs and aim to raise an additional $3M on top of this by the end of 2023. The additional money will allow us to grow our number of projects through:  

1)    Finding and vetting new projects – We are committed to a portfolio of 10 operational projects that have significant potential for lasting impact. 

2)    Marketing and communications – Telling our story well is essential for us to get in front of the right audiences and drive awareness about the organization. 

3)    A standing project fund –  All projects that we seed will be selected according to our standard criteria. In addition, we must reasonably believe that by seeding the project, our partner will be able to attract future funding.  

4)    Overhead and misc. costs – This includes rents, utilities, general office expenses, and a small contingency reserve for three years.

5)    Tech and infrastructure – Investing now in proper tech platforms will enable us to scale smoothly. 

6)    A contest – Used primarily as an outreach strategy, we will offer our services to the scientific community.

$1,812,985

The credibility and outreach that you and your network would provide is an essential component of our success. 

We need connections to thought leaders and decision-makers around the world. The Elevate Prize would undoubtedly help us achieve our goals of getting in front of the right governments, researchers, businesses, and NGOs to ensure that we can deploy our volunteer army wherever they can have the most impact.

We have a growing team and, from a recruiting standpoint, this would be a major boon to our ability to attract the right people to our organization.  

We are growing our board and are seeking introductions and connections to the right strategic thinkers who can help take us to the next level.  

In addition, as I mentioned above, I am someone who is always seeking to improve my leadership skills. In addition to simply leading our team, my goal is to build a movement. I want to empower thousands of others to be the change they way to see in the world and I am hungry to learn how to be a more effective leader. I’m confident that this program will help me improve my leadership skills.

We are seeking partnerships with individuals, corporations, NGOs, and government agencies that are leading efforts to combat pressing human health and environmental issues. We provide our partners with an unlimited number of highly trained volunteers, media and outreach support, fundraising partnership, and a team to manage their data collection needs. Each new partnership allows us to demonstrate the efficacy of our model, and advances our project by building credibility and awareness in the scientific community. 

We have spent the last nine years learning to execute at a global scale. Now, it is time to maximize the potential of the Adventure Scientists model. As each new adventurer joins our team, we are fueling a grassroots wildfire of scientific advancement that brings balance between people and the environment, improves livelihoods, and gives tens of thousands of people agency to tackle what often feel like overwhelming and insurmountable challenges.