Creating Lasting Impact through Organizational Impermanence
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 ten years.
Transforming Systems
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, education and economic mobility, we will reimagine and reconstruct these systems so that long after Gary is gone, communities can be empowered to drive continued systemic change.
Building Wealth
We want wealth to be the foundation for stability, opportunity, and lasting prosperity.
But the uneven access to wealth across demographics doesn’t just hurt individual families – it holds back the whole community from reaching its 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 assets to the community and seed opportunities for families to own homes, businesses, shared real estate and financial accounts that can grow in value and build multigenerational wealth.
Driving Systemic Change
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.
Visionary leadership is the bedrock of systemic transformation. We nurture and invest in rising leaders, build powerful networks and set up lasting structures to embolden local change makers now and long after Gary is gone.
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.
Tools for Transformation
We integrate four powerful tools across our three strategies in order to tackle complex challenges from multiple angles and create longer lasting impact than any single approach could achieve alone.
Don’t Call It A Spend Down
The phrase “spend down” fundamentally misrepresents what we are trying to achieve because it can look more like watching a bank account dwindle instead of using our impermanence to catalyze long-lasting impact.
This absence of imagination robs us and our communities of the profound transformation we know is possible.
We’re not spending down; we’re building up — ensuring every dollar invested, grant awarded, venture launched and policy changed becomes permanently embedded in the fabric of our community. It isn’t about organizational closure. It’s about the emergence of solutions designed to outlast any single institution. We’re transferring not just resources, but the very machinery of wealth creation to communities, and breaking from traditional models with the urgency our kids and families deserve.
While this path challenges philanthropic tradition, it’s exactly the path Sam Gary would have taken. And, it can bring us together on a transformative journey—as we craft a lasting legacy that will endure in a vibrant and thriving Colorado.
Read More About Our Strategy
Sam Gary
Founder
“I have a conviction that we cannot pass on our responsibilities to future generations. The needs of the moment are great and the opportunities to support meaningful change have never been greater.”
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When the clock is ticking, every dollar must build a future we won’t be here to see. For the kids and families who will, every second counts.
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