Our Work at Tiger of the Snows Fund
Support shaped by the needs of the people and communities we work with.
There is no single way to support an outdoor tourism worker or family. Sometimes the greatest need is keeping a child in school. Sometimes it is helping a guide gain professional skills, supporting a worker through recovery, or stepping in when disaster suddenly changes everything.
Tiger of the Snows Fund works directly with individuals, families, and trusted local partners to understand what is needed and where support can make the greatest difference. Over the years, that work has taken many forms, but generally falls within four areas: education & scholarships, training & professional development, emergency relief, as well as family & worker support.
EDUCATION & SCHOLARSHIPS
Creating opportunity for workers and their families through education.
Education has been part of Tiger of the Snows from the beginning. The Fund was first created in response to the challenge of helping the children of a mountain worker continue their education after the loss of their father, and that work remains part of what we do today.
Tiger of the Snows helps children and families access school through scholarships, grants, tuition assistance, and other educational support. We have helped fund the continued education of children in Nepal and Tanzania, including families whose ability to pay for school changed dramatically after the injury or death of a parent.
Our support can also extend to continuing education for adults when additional training or education can create new opportunities for a worker or family. For us, education is not simply about paying tuition. It is about helping create options, stability, and opportunity that can extend well beyond a single school year, a single age group, or demographic.
Tiger of the Snows Fund partnered with the dZi Foundation to support completion of the Indrawati Basic School in Bhojpur, Nepal. The new school serves 127 students and more than 390 households in the surrounding community, with five earthquake-resistant classrooms, toilet facilities, and a water station for safe drinking and washing.
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Investing in the people whose skills make adventure possible.
Outdoor tourism depends on highly skilled local workers. Professional training can make that work safer, strengthen career opportunities, and give workers the tools to advance within their industry and better support their families.
Tiger of the Snows has funded technical mountaineering education, advanced guide training, wilderness medicine, English-language education, and other forms of professional development for outdoor tourism workers.
That has included support for the Khumbu Climbing School, sponsorship of professional guide training, and annual technical skills and medical training for Climbing the Seven Summits’ Himalayan Spring guides and Sherpa climbing staff.
These programs do more than build individual skills. They strengthen the knowledge, leadership, and safety capacity while creating opportunity within the mountain communities where these workers live and work.
Tiger of the Snows Fund’s annual technical training refresher brings Everest-climbing workers together in Nepal to sharpen the skills they rely on in the mountains. Led by Climbing the Seven Summits Senior Guide and longtime NNMGA technical director “Big” Tendi Sherpa, the course focuses on practical ropework, technical systems, and safe movement in steep terrain, helping experienced high-altitude workers keep those skills current ahead of the climbing season.
EMERGENCY
RELIEF FUNDING
Responding when communities are suddenly facing extraordinary need.
Natural disasters, global pandemics, and other crises can have an immediate and devastating effect on the communities whose livelihoods are already closely tied to seasonal tourism. When these events occur, Tiger of the Snows uses its long-standing relationships on the ground to help direct support toward workers and families who need it most.
Tiger of the Snows Fund has previously provided disaster relief following the earthquake in Nepal, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and is currently raising funds for outdoor tourism workers and families affected by the floods in Nepal.
The circumstances will change from one emergency to another, but our approach remains rooted in the same principle: listen locally, understand the immediate need, and help get resources where they can have the greatest impact.
2020: Climbing the Seven Summits and Tiger of the Snows Fund provided financial support to CTSS and TAG Nepal staff during the COVID-19 shutdown, when the spring climbing season was abruptly canceled and many mountain workers lost a critical source of income. Tiger of the Snows donors and the wider CTSS community made the support possible.
FAMILY &
WORKER SUPPORT
Standing behind workers and families when the unexpected changes everything.
An injury or death can affect far more than one person. For families whose income depends heavily, and sometimes entirely, on one outdoor tourism worker, the consequences are far-reaching and can include lost income, interrupted education, rehabilitation costs, and uncertainty about what comes next.
Tiger of the Snows provides direct support to workers and families facing those kinds of circumstances. That has included helping surviving families continue their children’s education, supporting families following the death of mountain workers, and funding rehabilitation for outdoor tourism workers after an injury so they can work toward rejoining the workforce.
The support will not always look the same because the need will not always be the same. What matters is being able to respond to the person or family in front of us and help create a path forward when the need arises.
May 2023: Rinziing pictured with Mike Hamill at Everest Base Camp. After Rinziing’s father died while working on the mountain five years earlier, Tiger of the Snows Fund helped support Rinziing and his siblings through their education. He later pursued his own dream of becoming a mountaineer and went on to work on Everest with CTSS, bringing that support full circle.