In May, we opened nominations for people who wanted to be part of building and expanding the future of SheJumps as a Board Member. We believe that we have the opportunity to ignite and unearth human potential through outdoor play in reverence to nature, and we were looking for more individuals to steward this work into our future.
To help cultivate a diverse board, we called for open nominations outside of our community to welcome others in. We received 90+ nominations for over 70 individuals, and we were blown away by your response, both in quantity and quality. Thank you!
While evaluating applications, we sought to create a board representative of the broad diversity of the communities we serve (and wish to serve). We were intentional about who would be joining the board as a reflection of our commitment to Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) in outdoor recreation. We believe the outdoors should be accessible to everyone, and cultivating a diverse board and staff is one of the many ways we can begin to build relationships with communities that have historically been kept at the margins of the outdoors and the outdoor industry. It will take relationship building at all levels of our organization to change the narrative about who belongs in the outdoors.
We evaluated each candidate in the areas of nonprofit experience, professional experience, power of SheJumps mission reference, JEDI experience, and identity and lived experience. After evaluations, our existing Board Members discussed the candidates based on our leadership needs. Twenty individuals moved on to have a 30-minute interview with a member of our board. The final 12 candidates had an hour-long interview with Claire Smallwood, our Executive Director (ED), and me. Then we had the very difficult decisions around who would be joining us.
We are lucky to have an extremely strong group of volunteers willing to share their time, skills, and resources to help us move our organization forward. At the end of our process, we selected seven individuals to join our seven current Board Members.
Meet the new Board Members
We’re thrilled to introduce you to our newest SheJumps Board Members: Sara Boilen, Sandy Chio, Heather Keen, Lace Lawrence, Tallie Segel, and Stephanie Selin. These individuals collectively hail from Texas, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico, and Washington. In this group, where five out of seven identify as women of color, we also have three MBA’s, two professional fundraisers, two with Indigenous work/lived experience, a lawyer, a PhD candidate, an author and clinical psychologist, and two moms with littles in the house.
They are joining our multi-faceted and talented board members Kirsten Duke, Andria Huskinson, Connie Marshall, Georgina Miranda, Kellie Okonek, Wendi Siebold, and me, living in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Colorado, and Washington. One out of seven of our current board members identifies as a woman of color, and collectively we have extensive nonprofit and marketing experience, along with careers in account, capacity building, program evaluation, strategic and vision planning, and entrepreneurship.
Please check out our new board members’ bios below and join us in welcoming these dynamic individuals to the board! You can also meet all of our Board Members on our Board of Directors page or read interviews with members Wendi Seibold (Secretary) or me, Kristina Ciari (Chair). Keep your eyes open for future blogs featuring the different members of our Board.
Sara Boilen
Sweetgrass Psychological, Owner and Chief Psychologist | Northwest Montana
Sara Boilen grew up hating physical challenges and sleeping on the ground. Once the choice to participate in the outdoors became hers, she developed a passion for adventure and came to discover that she could, in fact, do (and enjoy!) hard things. She’s a mountaineer, a telemark skier, an ultrarunner, and a swimmer. She is known to carry desserts of all sorts up mountains to share with her friends.
Sandy Chio
Teton Science Schools, Chief Business Officer | Jackson, Wyoming
Sandy is fortunate to have found a way to intertwine her passion for the outdoors and her professional path fairly early on. She approaches each day so grateful for the wonders the natural environment provides. She cannot imagine her life, including the joy of introducing a five year old to hiking and skiing, without the impact and influences of wilderness adventures.
Heather Keen
Marimn Health on the Coeur d’Alene Indian Reservation, Strategic Development Director | Plummer, Idaho
In Heather’s free time, you can find her outside ‘smelling the roses’ - whether heading up to a summit on foot or via splitboard, travelling to new places, pedaling her mountain bike, or paddling her SUP on the lake - and probably with her best adventure buddies, her husband, and pup Koda.
Lace Lawrence
Laced Together, Owner/Fundraising and Grant Writing Consultant | Fall City, Washington
Lace was raised on Yakama Indian Reservation surrounded by elders who loved to regale her with legends. When she is not writing grants, Lace loves to challenge herself in the outdoors especially, backpacking, solo camping, mountaineering, and skiing, and is an avid traveler
Tallie Segal
Concordia University, PhD Student, Researcher | Montreal Quebec/Albuquerque, New Mexico
Tallie works in a variety of capacities to support environmental and outdoor learning for learners of all ages. Originally from Albuquerque, New Mexico, she is currently a graduate student at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec working on a PhD in social and cultural analysis focusing on the growing diversity, equity and inclusion movement in environmental education and relationships between environmental education and environmental/biodiversity conservation governance.
Stephanie Selin
Derflan, Inc. and Tencap Consulting, Consultant and Project Manager | Brier, Washington
In her personal life Stephanie enjoys time in the mountains with her family – particularly at their 600 sq ft cabin (with no internet) in the North Cascades of Washington state. She grew up hiking and skiing in northern California, but living in Colorado and Washington deepened her love of snow and all things outdoors. She’s taught skiing to young kids, snowshoes any chance she can get, and tackles a new ski mountain each winter.
What does the Board of Directors do?
SheJumps Board Members volunteer to steward the future of the organization. Board Members commit to attend annual meetings (8 hours/year+ 1-2 day summit), and actively participate in ad-hoc work, either as an officer, through committee meetings, providing virtual support, and by attending events. Members serve a 3-year term, with the opportunity for an additional term, and meaningfully contribute to the board by giving generously of their time, talents, and resources.
Get involved with SheJumps!
You can get involved with SheJumps at all levels to make a difference in igniting human potential through outdoor play.
Subscribe to our email newsletters.
Donate to help support the future of SheJumps programming.
Join your regional team–applications open once a year.
Become a volunteer!
Contribute: Have a fun SheJumps story? Share it with the team as a blog post or by tagging @SheJumps on social media.