TNF Explore Fund attracts wide interest in Europ - sportstextiles: Lea SportsTextiles

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TNF Explore Fund attracts wide interest in Europe

19/09/2011
The European division of outdoor brand The North Face (TNF) has announced the names of 35 non-profit organisations that have been selected to receive financial support of €2,500 as part of the company’s European project Explore Fund. This is the first round of project-funding that TNF has carried out under this programme.

A dedicated website was live between May and August 2011 and it received 265 applications from sustainability projects across Europe. Of these, 217 came from United Kingdom, which also had the highest number of approved projects, that will be funded by The North Face, 24. Germany had 14 applications, of which four have been accepted. Italy and Poland sent through respectively six and 13 requests and will receive funding for two projects each. Belgium, Estonia and Sweden only presented one project each, but they will all receive financial support.

The complete list of the winning organisations is available in a dedicated section of the main website of Swiss-based TNF Europe, http://eu.thenorthface.com/tnf-eu-en/explore-fund.

Simone Moro, famous Italian alpinist and a TNF-sponsored athlete is an ambassador for the Explore Fund and member of the application review team. He said of the applications: “Some of them were very traditional, related to activities already integrated in the programmes of well-tested organisations. Other projects seemed much more brave and innovative, inspired by a genuine spirit of exploration and in search of an authentic contact with nature. These were the most interesting for us, as well as the projects involving kids living in difficult or poor conditions or from deprived areas. It hasn’t been an easy job to choose among all the applications, but we have tried to adopt a judgement standard as objective and as fair as possible.”

Eric Pansier, marketing director of The North Face in Europe and another member of the application review team, added: “The Explore Fund is the first pivotal building block of a long-term commitment to help people enjoy the thrill of being active in a beautiful natural environment. I am looking forward to seeing those first funded projects turned into action to helps kids, the future explorers, discover nature’s playground.”

TNF introduced the Explore Fund for the first time in 2010 in the US, as part of the company’s mission to encourage an active healthy lifestyle and protection of natural landscapes by creating a stronger connection with the outdoors.


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