Starting a Nonprofit at 23: Leaping, Learning, and Now Letting Go

When I was 23, I had no business starting a nonprofit. Truly. I was directionless, jobless, and just trying to figure out how to be a human in the world. But I did know one thing with absolute clarity– Backcountry Squatters mattered. It mattered to me, and it mattered to every woman who found friendship, confidence, and joy through the scrappy little club created on our college campus.

And when the conversations started, “What if this could exist everywhere?”, something in me said yes. Loudly. Recklessly. Stubbornly.

So I leapt.

But here’s the thing I need people to understand: I did not leap alone. Not even close.

I started this chapter of my life shoulder-to-shoulder with a group of women who were just as determined, just as wide-eyed, and just as willing to do whatever it took to build something bigger than ourselves.

Kit dove headfirst into the financial side of things and we’re not talking basic budgeting. While other people our age were reading fantasy novels, we were reading nonprofit accounting textbooks on Friday nights. Truly deranged behavior, but essential.

Kelly, the one with the original idea to expand this whole thing beyond MSU, became our unofficial business development department. She dragged us (with love) into conversations about growth, sustainability, partnerships, and long-term vision when all we really wanted was to go ski outside for the weekend.

Andie, brilliant, fearless, and already a co-founder of another nonprofit (crazy, I know), became our compass. She guided us through IRS forms and Secretary of State filings, deciphered legal jargon and helped us navigate the bizarre maze that comes with creating a 501(c)(3) from scratch.

There were others, too. Women who answered late-night texts, who brought snacks to strategy meetings, who believed in this thing even when it sounded, frankly, impossible.

Backcountry Squatters was never my nonprofit. It was ours. Always.

In 2019, once the nonprofit felt real but still wildly fragile, we decided the best way to “launch” ourselves into the Bozeman community was with… a fun run. Which is how I accidentally became a race director.

On paper, I had absolutely no business doing this. I had never run a 5K. But I have never been the type of person to let her résumé hold her back. With the mentorship of some very special people, we dove in headfirst and pulled off one of the most joyful, chaotic, community-filled events I’ve ever been part of. That day became the first Sasquatch Skedaddle and somehow, against all odds, it turned into an annual tradition.

Then 2020 hit.

Like so many organizations, we were tested in ways we never could have planned for. And we were 24. During the height of the Black Lives Matter movement, Andie led us through some of the most important conversations we’ve ever had – thinking deeply about our response, how we could show up for our growing membership, and how we could ensure future generations of Squatters leaders had access to the same DEI education we had received. While we had already completed training through MTREP, that moment solidified Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion as a core pillar of everything Backcountry Squatters would do moving forward.

When chapters began returning to campuses in 2021, no one really knew what that would look like. We had built a virtual communication platform, but many chapters had gone dormant or dissolved entirely. In a lot of ways, we were starting from scratch. Rather than letting that defeat us, we put on a brave face to the public and faked it until we rebuilt ourselves into a strong, nationally spread organization once again.

And not every idea along the way was a keeper.

I was convinced that our ambassador program would magically relieve responsibilities from my plate while providing more support across the organization. But at 24, I didn’t yet know how to manage people or truly let go of control. The result was… confusion. Everyone felt a little out of the loop, a little directionless, and I learned (the hard way) that good intentions don’t replace clear systems.

Externally, it looked like we were the young professional leaders we were striving to be. Internally, there were hiccups.

The truth is, for the first few years of being an Executive Director, I felt like an absolute failure. I was working full-time elsewhere while still putting in 20–40 hours a week for BCS. I was the face of an organization full of imaginative, brilliant minds and there were a million and one incredible ideas I simply didn’t have the capacity to execute on. The pressure crushed me.

You can ask anyone on my board, I didn’t always handle it well. I turned my camera off during Zoom meetings. I picked fights over email because I didn’t yet know how to have constructive conflict (and also didn’t go to therapy regularly enough, lol). I banned the word delegate from everyone’s mouth for a solid three years.

And yet… we kept going.

When Kit retired after her first term, we experienced our first real leadership transition and realized just how much institutional knowledge we’d built, and how much care it takes to bring someone up to speed in an organization that’s been meeting regularly for years.

Later, once the foundation of the nonprofit felt truly solid, Kelly began talking about retiring at the end of her second term. It was around this time (like literally three years ago) that Andie and I began seriously thinking about our own exits.

I’ve always believed this deeply: Backcountry Squatters is so much bigger than any one founder. Leaving it in a way that allowed the next generation to take it and run was vital. So we started the slow, tedious, unglamorous work of documenting everything. We were writing Standard Operating Procedures for tasks that had become second nature, capturing knowledge we didn’t even realize we were holding, and making sure nothing would slip through the cracks.

When Andie stepped away in the spring, something planned, but still deeply emotional, it rocked us. Watching a younger generation step in and begin to define their own leadership and community-building styles has been wild. I often feel like a mother duck, encouraging them to swim without explicitly telling them how.

For someone with my personality, that’s been… a trip. But it’s also been incredibly exciting.

And now, it’s time for me to do the same.

Lila, Emily, Kaitlynn, Frannie, Erica, Sydney, Abby, Maggie, Kaylah, and Molly are stepping into the next chapter as leaders of Backcountry Squatters. And when I look at them, I see the same determination, care, and fire that we had when we first started this thing. They are thoughtful, capable, and deeply committed to building community. They are doing it in ways that feel both familiar and entirely their own. I couldn’t be more excited to watch them grow into this organization, supported by a nationwide community that believes in them and is ready to show up alongside them.

It’s time for me to get out of the way and let them take this organization forward. Maybe they will struggle like I did. Maybe they will get frustrated like I did. But I know they will have big “ah-ha” moments, just like I did. They will come out better people and Backcountry Squatters will grow into something even greater than it ever could have if I stayed at the helm.

That’s hard to say. But it’s true. And I really believe it.

Over the past decade, this little organization built by twenty-somethings without a clue has grown into something that continues to blow my mind:

Chapters across the country
An alumni network
Scholarships
Leadership development
Community
Connection
Confidence

I am who I am today because of Backcountry Squatters. It taught me how to lead, how to show up, how to take criticism, how to build systems, and how to hold space for others. It taught me how to be brave, bold, and gentle all at once.

And perhaps the wildest part?

I know, deep in my bones, that the biggest success of Backcountry Squatters is still ahead of us.

Starting a nonprofit at 23 wasn’t glamorous. It was spreadsheets at midnight, accounting done by hand, saying no to other career opportunities, learning IRS requirements from Google, missing out on trips because I had too much work, hand written meeting notes in notebooks that I still have, and Google Docs that should have been deleted years ago. It was people asking to help me before I knew how to ask for it myself. It was crying in the bathroom before big decisions. It was laughing until it hurt at every meeting.

It was messy, imperfect, and absolutely one of the greatest adventures of my life.

And I’m grateful forever that I took the leap.
And even more grateful that I didn’t leap alone.

If you’re considering something that feels too big, too scary, or too soon — do it anyway. You don’t need to be ready. You just need to be willing.

Just don’t do it alone.

Find your people. The ones who will answer late-night texts. The ones who will tell you the truth when you’re wrong and sit beside you when you’re overwhelmed. The work will be messy and imperfect and deeply human, but it will be worth it because of who you do it with.

That’s the part WE got right. And it made all the difference.

Words By: Darby Knoll
Founding Executive Director of Backcountry Squatters Nonprofit
November 2018-December 2025

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