Colorado Avalanche Information Center

Contact
Login / Signup
  • Submit an Observation
  • Join / Donate
  • Forecasts
    • Statewide Avalanche
    • Weather
      • Model Forecasts
      • Point Forecasts
    • Watches and Warnings
    • Radio Recordings
    • Help
      • Social Media
      • Using CAIC Products
      • Forecast Zones
      • Avalanche Danger
      • Avalanche Problems
      • Avalanche Coding
      • Weather Observation Coding
  • Observations
    • Submit Observation
    • Field Reports
    • Avalanche Explorer
    • Backcountry Avalanches
    • Weather Stations
    • Media Gallery
  • Accidents
    • Colorado
    • US
    • Statistics and Reporting
  • Education
    • Education and KBYG Calendar
    • Know Before You Go
      • KBYG Class Request
      • KBYG Instructor Information
    • Know Before You Go to Work
    • CAIC Programs
    • Resources
    • Blog
  • About the CAIC
    • About the CAIC
    • CAIC Staff
    • Annual Reports
    • Event Calendar
    • Site Map
  • Friends of CAIC
    • Join / Donate
      • Join
      • Donate
    • About the Friends of CAIC
    • Ways to Give
    • Events
    • Online Store
    • The Forecast Pledge
    • Friends of CAIC Mobile App
    • Annual Reports
  • Sponsors
  • Google PlusFacebookTwitter

Friends of CAIC: Where do your dollars go?

04/11/2016

Last week I was on a skin track, talking with a donor who is also a friend of mine. After breaking trail for a while our conversation moved from the avalanche hazards of the day, to how good the skiing was going to be, to how the Friends of CAIC spends the money we raise. This is an important topic for us and the many people that support the Friends of the CAIC. I spent some time explaining it to my friend, but thought this would be good information for everyone that contributes to the Friends of CAIC and the CAIC’s avalanche safety program.

Before we dive into the numbers, I want to explain the partnership between the Friends of the Colorado Avalanche Information Center (FoCAIC) and the Colorado Avalanche Information Center (CAIC). Although not very complicated, the details can be a little confusing. The relationship between the two groups is an important public-private partnership that provides backcountry avalanche forecasts for everyone in Colorado, avalanche education for as many people as we can reach, allows FoCAIC staff to go to events, write grants, and build partnerships on behalf of the mission. And it keeps the CAIC staff in the snow so they can provide the best avalanche forecasts possible for you, the user.

The FoCAIC is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that was created to financially support avalanche forecasting and education throughout Colorado. We accomplish this through fundraising that includes grant writing, events, individual fundraising, corporate partnerships, and our annual spring fundraising campaign. The FoCAIC has 1 full time staff member that works out of a home office and on the road throughout the winter. We also have a small Board of Directors that guides the mission of the organization and oversees the ED. The FoCAIC is the private side of the partnership.

The CAIC is a program within the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, a state government agency. They have 20 staff that work out of 10 offices that cover the mountainous areas of Colorado. The CAIC is the public side of the partnership. The mission of the CAIC is to provide avalanche information, education and promote research for the protection of life, property and the enhancement of the state’s economy. These are the folks that produce the weather and backcountry avalanche forecasts. They teach avalanche classes to school kids, university students, and avalanche workers. The CAIC also works with CDOT to reduce the threat of avalanches to the State Transportation System.

The CAIC’s highway operations are funded and conducted through an intergovernmental agreement with the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) to provide training and forecasting for highway maintenance operations. The CAIC’s backcountry forecasting operations are funded through several different avenues including; The Severance Tax Fund, fees for providing avalanche training to professional groups, and from the fundraising efforts of the Friends of CAIC. The FoCAIC support allows for a more robust backcountry forecasting and education program here in Colorado. The current program could not have been built with tax dollars alone. We need a strong public-private partnership to sustain it and hopefully improve it in the future.

So, how are we supporting our mission with your donations? Below you will find a graph showing our year to date (YTD) expenses for our current fiscal year (FY16). For reference our fiscal year runs July to June.
FinancialChart

Now, let’s look at each of these categories and how they impact avalanche forecasting and education throughout Colorado.

CAIC Backcountry Forecasting Operations
The FoCAIC makes a donation each year directly to the CAIC. This money pays for part of the CAIC’s backcountry forecasting operation. Seasonal backcountry forecaster positions cost the CAIC about $50,000 per position, per season. This cost includes salary, office space, travel, equipment, and training.

KBYG Educational Program
Know Before You Go is our avalanche awareness program. We offer free avalanche education throughout the state of Colorado. The program is designed for 8th graders, but since November we’ve presented it to over 7,800 school kids of all ages. The cost of this program includes the initial production and development of the education materials and money to pay instructors. We are now investing money in further development of new educational materials to ensure the program stays accurate, stays relevant, and can reach any group that needs more information on avalanche safety.

FoCAIC Staff
The Friends of CAIC have one full time employee. The Executive Director spends his time raising money for the FoCAIC through events, grant writing, partnerships and outreach. The ED also manages the KBYG education program and works on collaborative efforts with the staff of the CAIC.

Website and App Services
The Friends of CAIC help support the CAIC website and mobile app. This includes hosting, maintenance and further development for both platforms. The CAIC website backend and database are over 10 years old. The system needs to be updated and we’ll be working on that over the summer. This sort of development is expensive but necessary to produce a quality product for you. We expect to spend more money on better technology so you can get avalanche forecasts and share snow, weather, and avalanche information in the future.

Colorado Snow and Avalanche Workshop (CSAW)
CSAW is a one-day professional development seminar for people working in avalanche safety. It provides a venue for avalanche workers – ski patrollers, avalanche forecasters, road maintenance personnel, ski guides, avalanche education instructors, undergraduate and graduate students, and applied researchers – to listen to presentations and discuss new ideas, techniques and technologies with their colleagues. The meeting is open to anyone. Last year 700 people attended the workshop!

CAIC Staff Education and Training
This category covers any expense we incur for supporting CAIC staff training. Training and education includes such things as paying for some staff to attend the International Snow Science Workshop, European Warning Service meeting, and other education or training opportunities.

A cornerstone of our mission is helping the CAIC to operate. This provides the current level of service we, as users, want and are used to. This is also why we are currently hosting the Support the Forecasts fundraising campaign.

Yet as you can see from the above graph and descriptions, the money we spend on our mission is spread across several different avenues to support avalanche forecasting and education throughout Colorado in a comprehensive, effective way. We want to expand that pie as a whole, meaning we can spend more money across the board on our mission. The only way we can continue to grow our programs is with your help and continued support.

So, how can you help?
1. Donate today. Even $5 will help.
2. Spread the word about our fundraising campaign. Talk to your friends, families, and backcountry partners about supporting a cause important to you.
3. Join us on Social Media: Facebook and Twitter
4. Thank a forecaster for their hard work. The work they get done is a testament to their professionalism and dedication to public safety.

Thank you for all of your support and getting us to where we are today! We have made a tremendous impact on avalanche forecasting and education here in Colorado and we are looking forward to making an even bigger impact over the next 5 years!

Support your avalanche center! Donate today.

Author: Friendsofcaic Categories: Getting the Message Out, Uncategorized Tags: Friends of CAIC, Fundraising

Hotlines and the Evolution of Communicating Avalanche Forecasts

11/19/2014

Blase Reardon

The human coccyx is a vestige of the tail in our primate ancestors. Goose bumps are a vestigial reflex; raising body hair helped our ancestors look larger to predators. Wisdom teeth, the appendix, and the muscles of the ear also performed important functions generations ago. All lost their original function and importance as they became less advantageous to human survival. Now the coccyx is just something that really, really hurts after you fall hard on a heel-side snowboard turn. After a few more generations of snowboarders, maybe it’ll disappear altogether.

Recorded avalanche advisories on phone answering machines are also vestigial. When the forerunner of the CAIC started issuing avalanche advisories 42 years ago, “hotlines” were a cutting-edge tool for communicating current conditions. But their use plummeted as people adopted the internet, and the decline continued as people began relying on mobile technology. The CAIC has maintained six hotlines in recent seasons, despite little use.

The problem with vestigial structures and traits is that they still require energy. For the CAIC, recording the advisories is another task in an increasingly busy morning workflow, one with little pay off because so few people use them. So we’ve decided to pull those vestigial wisdom teeth. We will no longer record avalanche advisories for local phone numbers. Instead, forecasters will record 60-second summaries of forecast snow and weather conditions that will be available as mp3 files on Soundcloud.

Here’s how you can easily access the daily radio recordings:

  1. Go to our to the Radio Recordings page on our website
  2. Click on any of the recordings to listen
  3. You can download the recordings by clicking on “DOWNLOAD CAIC RECORDINGS FROM SOUNDCLOUD”
    or go directly to SoundCloud

The CAIC forecasters will make three recordings each day:

  • Northern Mountains: the Vail and Summit County, Front Range and Steamboat and Flat Tops zones
  • Central Mountains: Sawatch, Aspen, Gunnison and Grand Mesa zones
  • Southern Mountains: North and South San Juan Mountains, and Sangre de Cristo zones

Each recording will include overall danger ratings, special products like Watches and Warnings, and descriptions of avalanche problems, notable events, and general weather events. The recordings are available for local radio stations to broadcast at their own schedule.

We recognize that a few people still use the telephone recordings, either out of long habit, familiarity, or lack of an internet connection. We understand that this news might be upsetting. We hope you can appreciate the need to balance the cost of efforts we undertake in the busy morning work crunch with the benefits of how many people we reach. If you liked hearing the advisory over the phone, try the new SoundCloud files. If you can’t access the recordings via the internet, urge your local radio station to broadcast the recordings each day. Either way, give us your feedback so we can keep evolving.

Author: ethan Categories: Getting the Message Out Tags: hotlines

Categories

  • CAIC (2)
  • Danger (2)
  • Getting the Message Out (2)
  • Uncategorized (30)
  • Calendar
  • Site Map
  • Search
  • About Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Accessibility
Google PlusFacebookTwitter
Close
  • Forecasts
    • Statewide Avalanche
    • Weather
      • Model Forecasts
      • Point Forecasts
    • Watches and Warnings
    • Radio Recordings
    • Help
      • Social Media
      • Using CAIC Products
      • Forecast Zones
      • Avalanche Danger
      • Avalanche Problems
      • Avalanche Coding
      • Weather Observation Coding
  • Observations
    • Submit Observation
    • Field Reports
    • Avalanche Explorer
    • Backcountry Avalanches
    • Weather Stations
    • Media Gallery
  • Accidents
    • Colorado
    • US
    • Statistics and Reporting
  • Education
    • Education and KBYG Calendar
    • Know Before You Go
      • KBYG Class Request
      • KBYG Instructor Information
    • Know Before You Go to Work
    • CAIC Programs
    • Resources
    • Blog
  • About the CAIC
    • About the CAIC
    • CAIC Staff
    • Annual Reports
    • Event Calendar
    • Site Map
  • Friends of CAIC
    • Join / Donate
      • Join
      • Donate
    • About the Friends of CAIC
    • Ways to Give
    • Events
    • Online Store
    • The Forecast Pledge
    • Friends of CAIC Mobile App
    • Annual Reports
  • Sponsors
  • Google PlusFacebookTwitter