A billion ways to mend what’s broken

By Santhosh Ramdoss, President & CEO

This year, I learned about kintsugi — the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold. In kintsugi, the work isn’t to pretend the break never happened. The repair requires patience and attention: carefully holding the sharp edges, feeling the grooves, and accepting imperfection as real. And when the pieces come back together, the cracks remain visible, so you can see the struggle, the care, and the perseverance that made the piece whole again.

At Gary, we know a lot is broken for kids and their families — especially for households working to meet basic needs. 2025 wasn’t an easy year. For many families, the grooves deepened: rising costs of housing, child care, healthcare, and food, alongside uncertainty in accessing critical safety nets and public benefits.

But Gary, as an institution, isn’t designed to accept what’s broken. We are committed to transforming systems to work better for kids and families and helping families build wealth. We have the resources to take risks on behalf of communities — to try things, learn fast, and find practical ways to start to mend what isn’t working. The process isn’t always clean or perfect, and we fail along the way. But, the work of repair should be shouldered by systems and institutions such as Gary and rooted in community voice, so individual families can focus on thriving rather than surviving. 

And even amid the chaos, 2025 brought measurable change for Colorado’s kids and families because of the work we did together. With our partners, and with tremendous leadership at the State, we helped put nearly $1 billion back into the hands of families who needed support. That showed up in many forms:

• Family Affordability Tax Credit: Supporting a pioneering credit that returned more than $800 million back to families with kids acting as a critical safety net.
• My Spark Denver: Expanding access to afterschool activities – and providing $4 million in direct support to families – by transitioning the Gary venture to the Denver Public Schools Foundation.
• Child Care Funding: Helping unlock $40 million in new funding to accelerate child care affordability through local ballot measures (1B in Larimer County; 7A in Garfield, Pitkin and Southwest Eagle counties; and 1A in San Miguel County).
• MyFriendBen: Making it dramatically easier for Colorado families – as well as families in North Carolina and Illinois – to access $30 million in the public benefits they qualify for so dollars aren’t left on the table.

The impact of our work together shows up not only in the numbers, but in the voices of community members. That’s one reason we built a new practice in 2025: Colorado Design Insight Group (CDIG). We wanted to talk directly with families in real time — and embed lived experience into our work, so community wisdom can shape what we build next.

Here are a few of the voices of families who brought this impact to life: 

“My son often struggles making new friends. Allowing him to participate in sports or activities more often can support his mental health and build social skills.”
– From a parent participating in My Spark Denver

“I had always felt too intimidated to visit a government office to find out if I qualified for Medicaid.”
– From a family who accessed MyFriendBen when North Carolina launched the tool we developed here in Colorado

“The lights had been shut off twice. A lien was put on the house for unpaid water. It was a nightmare. I was able to pay off the light bill entirely, and I was able to get the water bill paid off as well.”
– From a Colorado family who received the Family Affordability Tax Credit (FATC)

I’m grateful to you — and to every partner, family, innovator, and team member — who helped make this progress real. If kintsugi teaches anything, it’s that repair is possible when people are willing to do the careful work: to name what’s broken, to stay with the hard parts, and to rebuild with care.

Thank you for being part of the mending. Here’s to continuing the work — courageously, creatively, and together — in 2026.

With gratitude,

Santhosh Ramdoss
President & CEO | Gary Community Ventures