The Explore Fund is a grant program, funding organisations that are reducing barriers to participation in the outdoors, or working on environmental conservancy.The fund has been operating in the US since 2010, expanding to Canada in 2012, Europe in 2018 and the Asia-Pacific region in 2021.  Affinity Initiative The North Face created The Explore Fund to help increase outdoor participation and stewardship of the Earth’s precious places, at a grassroots level.With $25,000 in grants to support non-profit organisations in Australia and New Zealand (ANZ), The North Face has elected five Explore Fund Council members across ANZ who bring a wealth of expertise, passion, and diverse perspectives to the project.The North Face said it hopes to ‘empower future explorers who are curious, interested and passionate about the outdoors—but may not have access to equipment, adventures or outdoors experts they can look up to and learn from’.Since its creation, the Explore Fund has awarded about $683,00 in grants a year globally.The two founding Explore Fund grant recipient groups in ANZ have already been chosen: Affinity Initiative –  a new space for women of colour and people who’ve been historically excluded in the Australian climbing scene, and ClimbingQTs – an LGBTQIA+ social climbing community and advocacy group in Melbourne. Cimbing QTs!