New Early Wealth Building Pilot In Colorado

PERSPECTIVES | By Jill Hawley, Julie Stone & Emily Williams

At Gary Community Ventures, we believe wealth, not just income, is the foundation for lasting economic mobility. From the beginning, our founders, Sam and Nancy Gary, centered their work on young children and their parents, building an economic mobility strategy focused on three goals: increasing income, lowering expenses, and building wealth.

Over time, we’ve learned that a good income, while essential, is no longer enough to ensure long-term stability. Median wages have remained relatively flat for 50 years, even as costs of living rise at two to three times the pace of median wage growth. Capitalism will continue to value owners over workers. If we want families to experience real mobility, we must ensure they can become owners of homes, businesses, investments, and other assets that appreciate over time.

Why Wealth Matters to Gary

This conviction comes directly from our founder, Sam Gary, who made his fortune in oil and gas and believed that “nobody makes it unless we make it together.” When he established our foundation in 1976, he understood that business cannot thrive if it’s isolated from community well-being.

Decades later, Sam left us with a profound charge: Gary Community Ventures will not exist forever. By 2035, all assets will be transitioned from our balance sheet to the community’s. That single sentence shifted everything from a philanthropy-centered view of perpetuity to one centered on building lasting community wealth. It required us to ask a new question: If economic stability and mobility are our goals, how might the tools of wealth that sustain our organization now sustain our community? 

Early Wealth Building Accounts

These questions led us to focus on early wealth accounts — a way to offer asset ownership to children from asset-limited families. Our five-year pilot – Ignite Futures Fund – provides 100 teens (ages 15–16) from Medicaid-eligible families with $20,000 of investments in a diversified pool of assets. Through a digital learning platform, participants and their families will receive financial education designed to build confidence and identity as investors.

At the end of their senior year in high school, pilot participants can access their funds for wealth-building purposes such as higher education, homeownership, business ventures, or saving for retirement. We’ve partnered with Impact Charitable as our program administrator and with a third-party evaluator to document both the process and outcomes. A total of 10 national and local funders have joined the effort to make this $3 million pilot a reality.

What We’re Learning

This is harder than we thought. At a time when urgent needs dominate the philanthropic landscape, it’s been challenging to make the case for long-term innovation over immediate relief. And the system itself isn’t designed to make wealth-building easy for families who aren’t already wealthy. 

The bootstrap mentality runs deep. “No one helped me, and I figured it out.” Shifting this narrative requires reframing wealth transfer not as charity, but as an overdue correction to systems that have long excluded families from ownership.

Can people be trusted to use the money well? Everyone has a story about someone who misused a large sum of money. Yet, research shows that recipients use funds responsibly, prioritizing essentials such as housing, food, education, and debt reduction, thereby elevating this pilot as an evidence-based, human-centered strategy.

Safety net programs create barriers to wealth. The systems that people living in poverty must navigate often penalize savings and ownership. Designing accounts that minimize impacts on public benefits, taxes, and financial aid has been complex, but it’s essential. These challenges are not just about our pilot, they’re about fixing a system that punishes people for trying to build wealth.

What We’re Still Curious About

We’re learning as we go, and we’re curious about what else could be possible. Could philanthropic dollars align with state and federal programs, like new youth investment account structures, to reach every baby? Could we optimize existing 529 programs by shifting from opt-in to opt-out to increase participation? How might we deliver financial education that’s engaging, digital-first, and youth-centered? And perhaps most importantly, how do we ensure this process cultivates agency and possibility? These curiosities will guide our work moving forward.

A Lasting Legacy

This work is about more than a pilot. It’s about testing whether philanthropy can truly transfer wealth.

Gary Community Ventures wasn’t built to last forever, but the change we invest in can. Our early wealth-building pilot is one of the most direct expressions of Sam’s charge: Use our impermanence to create a lasting impact for others.

As we test, learn, and refine, we join a growing movement that believes every child—regardless of income, race, or zip code—deserves the financial footing to launch into adulthood with confidence and opportunities.

We believe that is what a lasting legacy looks like.

This perspective was originally published on the website of Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy at The New School.