August 25, 2025

Introducing Gary’s Approach to Sunset

Creating Lasting Impact Through Organizational Impermanence

By 2035, all the assets of Gary Community Ventures will have been transitioned from our balance sheet to the community.  
– Sam Gary, Enduring Priorities Memo, October 2014

More than ten years ago, our founders Sam and Nancy Gary made an audacious decision in the world of philanthropy: Gary Community Ventures should not exist forever. 

In their incredible wisdom, they did not believe Gary needed to exist in perpetuity in order to create enduring impact. They instead asked us to thoughtfully transfer all of our resources to the community by 2035 and ensure those resources make a lasting, transformative impact on Colorado kids and families. 

That charge is at the heart of the strategy we’re excited to share and achieve alongside our partners and community over the next 10 years.  

Because our organization is not meant to last forever, we are committed to fully investing all of our resources into community-driven solutions that will outlast us. Knowing that our time is limited provides clarity, urgency, and tremendous purpose in our pursuit of lasting change. Our hope is that it also clarifies for our friends and partners why we do what we do, how we do it, and illuminates opportunities to work together to create the kind of impact that will outlast all of us. 

Our approach for the next ten years is rooted in two primary goals: 

1. Transforming systems to work better for kids and families: We want to make Colorado the best place to raise a child. To get there, and to ensure equity and opportunity for all Coloradans, we must remove the barriers that hold kids and families back and strengthen the conditions within the public, market and nonprofit systems that shape daily life. As we partner with leaders across early childhood, K-12 education, housing, benefits and more, we will strive to reimagine and reconstruct these systems so that long after Gary is gone, communities can continue to drive continued systemic change.

2. Building wealth for Colorado families. We know that for most people in the U.S., wealth isn’t a luxury—it’s what makes stability, progress, a loving home, and life-long prosperity possible. But the uneven access to wealth across demographics doesn’t just hurt individual families–it blocks entire communities from reaching their full potential. Our goal is to use our wealth to create wealth-building opportunities for every Colorado family. Rather than simply “spending down,” we will transfer our financial assets to the community, seeding opportunities for families to own assets like homes, businesses, shared real estate, and financial accounts that can grow in value and generate multigenerational prosperity.

The term ‘spend-down’ falls short of capturing the transformation we seek because it narrowly focuses on organizational closure rather than the emergence of solutions designed to stand the test of time. We’re not just giving our money away; we’re ensuring every dollar invested, grant awarded, venture launched, and policy changed becomes part of the enduring DNA of a thriving community. 

In the coming years, we also believe that artificial intelligence will fundamentally reshape how children learn, how families access opportunity, and how systems deliver services. We’re building a strategy that positions Colorado families at the forefront of this transformation, ensuring that technological advances amplify equity rather than deepen divides. Our approach centers family voice and community wisdom as essential guides in navigating an AI-driven world, recognizing that the very nature of educational success, economic mobility, and family prosperity will look dramatically different—and we’re committed to ensuring families lead the way in defining what that change looks like.

To achieve this, we’ll continue to use all of our tools across—grantmaking, policy, new ventures, and investments—and maintain focus in the areas of School Readiness, Youth Success and Family Economic Mobility so that long after we’re gone, three things remain: 

• Colorado is the best place to raise a child, especially in their early years with universal access to care and education
• Young people in Colorado are thriving and have meaningful, fulfilling pathways for a career and a compelling future
• Every family in Colorado has a foundation of wealth, in the forms of assets that are growing in value and nurtures economic well-being and mobility.

Our Path to 2035: Core Strategies & Tools

To drive systemic change and build family wealth, we will rely on three key strategies.

1. Advance Innovative Programs & Policies: We will prioritize initiatives that spark systemic transformation—piloting new ventures, supporting bold policy reforms, and funding programs that redefine public investments impacting kids and families the most.

2. Shape Leadership and Power: We believe that visionary leadership is the bedrock of systemic transformation. We nurture and invest in rising leaders, build powerful networks, and set up lasting structures for local change makers to keep making an impact long after Gary is gone.

3. Change Narratives: We harness the collective power of stories and ideas to shift the attitudes and long-held beliefs about issues impacting Colorado kids and families in order to build public and political support for new solutions that will benefit Coloradans for generations.

We will continue to integrate four powerful tools across these strategies in order to tackle complex challenges from multiple angles and create longer lasting impact than any single approach could achieve alone. 

1. Catalytic Grantmaking: Expanding the impact of our nonprofit partners through strategic funding designed to foster long-term, sustainable change, specifically for families in Denver, Arapahoe, Adams, and Jefferson counties. 
2. Policy and Advocacy: Changing the policy landscape through Gary Advocacy, by advancing legislation that transforms systems and unlocks public dollars for kids and families. 
3. New Ventures: Piloting and incubating new community-driven programs with the goal of eventually embedding them within public systems or community-based institutions that can serve more kids and families over the long-term. 
4. Impact Investments: Using 100% of our capital—not just the traditional 5%—to make impact investments that deliver both financial returns and measurable progress towards our mission. 

Our goals, combined with the strategies and tools above, will guide every decision we make. And while we know this strategy looks unlike any traditional foundation plan—that’s precisely our intent. 

We are committed to leaving behind a dramatically better Colorado for our kids and families, and we aim to do so swiftly by evolving beyond conventional models. Gary’s lasting impact strategy embodies a pioneering vision that challenges us to transform philanthropy, wealth, and social change through collective intuition and purpose. Rather than relying on a fixed blueprint of inputs and outputs, we embrace a dynamic approach that trusts that the complex patterns we create will indeed yield meaningful change. It also gives us the freedom to adapt to the ever-changing problems facing our communities, to listen to those most impacted, and follow their lead toward lasting solutions.

We hope it brings our community together-–on a journey unlike any other—as we craft a lasting legacy that will endure in a vibrant and thriving Colorado.