By Santhosh Ramdoss, President & CEO, Gary Community Ventures
This summer, a stack of yellowing annual reports appeared on my desk — the first 15 years of the Piton Foundation founded by Sam and Nancy Gary in 1976 and now known as Gary Community Ventures. Reading those reports, I saw just how meticulous, innovative and bold our work was, and how those early efforts continue to shape outcomes for children and families in Colorado.
It was a striking coincidence that I was looking through these reports, just as we were getting ready to launch and publicly announce our sunset strategy — outlining our ambitious vision for the last decade of the organization. In that moment, I felt something I hadn’t felt before: a tremendous, overwhelming sense of responsibility. How do you guide an organization with such a legacy of impact, joy and community partnership toward its intentional conclusion? How do we best use our last decade to help all children in Colorado thrive?
Thankfully, a lot is working in our favor. Gary is a remarkably flexible and innovative social change engine by design. We can make grants, incubate ideas through our ventures lab, advance policy and deploy all our assets through mission-aligned investing. Over the years, we’ve sharpened these tools to tackle complex challenges from multiple angles and create longer lasting impact than any single approach could achieve alone. Over the next decade, we’ll use this unique combination of tools to:
- Transform systems to work better for kids and their families. From early childhood education and the social safety net to housing and career pathways, we are helping reshape the public systems families rely on everyday. Recent child care victories show what’s possible when communities lead change, and efforts like MyFriendBen and the Family Affordability Tax Credit are ensuring families have the resources they need to meet everyday needs and thrive.
- Build wealth for Colorado families so prosperity can be passed down for generations. Our work in employee ownership is helping workers become co-owners of the businesses they power, and our emerging tenant equity vehicle is creating pathways for renters to benefit from real estate appreciation. Alongside efforts to expand homeownership and seed individual financial accounts, these strategies honor Sam’s vision of transferring our assets to the community and help build a Colorado where every household can own assets that grow and multiply over time.
Because we won’t be here forever, we’re working hard to create the kind of impact that can outlast us. And I’ll be honest: this strategy is a path we’re making by walking it. We know our destination, but we will learn our way there through building, innovating, succeeding and failing. More than ever, we need our allies, partners and co-conspirators walking this path with us.
And speaking of allies, a vital part of this journey is finding community with other wealth-holders and foundations embarking on this unconventional road. This fall, we sought to learn from peers demonstrating the courage and conviction to act differently. We hosted 100 of these leaders from around the country to explore the power of organizational impermanence, and I was truly inspired by what this movement is building—how we are collectively upending the conventions of philanthropy in service of greater change and prosperity for our communities. We reflected on why we are taking this path and what purpose an ending can serve in the video below.
On a personal note, I never imagined I would someday lead an organization like Gary or be entrusted with navigating a journey this unprecedented and, yes, a little daunting. There is definitely a little kid in me who grew up with a lot of adversity and in a place very far from Denver that believes I’m way out of my depth. But I have found my courage and confidence in this community—whether it’s the incredible people I get to work with, or our amazing board, or Nancy herself—they see something in me that I’m still learning to see.
So here we go. Let’s do this – together.
~ Santhosh Ramdoss
PRESIDENT & CEO
SANTHOSH RAMDOSS
Santhosh Ramdoss is president & CEO of Gary Community Ventures. He also serves as the organization’s Chief Investment Officer. Previously, he served as Gary’s VP of Impact Investing, overseeing the organization’s endowment and helping deploy a larger pool of financial assets in service of its mission. Santhosh helped Gary establish partnerships with leading impact fund managers and companies while incubating capital vehicles like The Dearfield Fund, a concessionary private equity fund by Gary Ventures, Inc. providing downpayment assistance to homebuyers facing systemic barriers to home ownership in Metro Denver.