I am proud to call Colorado home. Our headwaters spring from the peaks of the Rockies, starting as snow and melting into creeks that, from the top of our Continental Divide, ultimately feed the Colorado River flowing west to California, and the Rio Grande flowing east to the Gulf of Mexico. Our waters provide drinking […]
philanthropy
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Opinion: COVID lockdowns were hard on cultural centers, but business partnerships have helped
Facing closures and severely limited in-person visitor options, museums and other cultural institutions have experienced significant challenges over the past year. According to a recent study by the Americans for the Arts as of July 2021, the nation’s nonprofit arts and culture organizations lost an estimated $17.97 billion. Closer to home, the Colorado Business for […]
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Opinion: Pioneers in philanthropy, Colorado foundations continue learning and improving
A new megadonor to charitable organizations has emerged in the U.S., raising important questions about how philanthropy is conducted. MacKenzie Scott, former wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, is donating money at record levels to charitable organizations. But beyond the amount of funding is the manner in which she is donating, quickly and with considerable […]
Posted inBook Excerpts, SunLit
“Bridging Worlds” tells of Pemba Sherpa’s journey from Everest to Boulder, and back
From Chapter One, “Early Childhood” I was born in the Everest region of northeast Nepal, not far from the small village of Sengma. I do not know the exact date of my birth, although I believe it was sometime in October of 1971. Like many Sherpa families, we were farmers and herders, grazing our livestock […]
Posted inColoradans, COVID, Education, News
Many Colorado families struggle to afford pricey summer camps. A nonprofit is footing the bill for hundreds.
For many Colorado kids, options for summer break are limitless, from day and overnight camps to trips to museums and zoos. But for others, summer comes with far fewer opportunities, boiling down to those that are low cost or no cost. In many cases, how students spend their summer is dictated by the kinds of […]
Posted inBusiness, COVID, News
A mission-minded loan source that doesn’t care if you’re a startup with no experience, revenues or credit
When Valerie and Cesar Beltran decided to open Beltran’s Meat Market & Grill in Northglenn four years ago, they thought their past experience of running their own meat market in New Mexico and then a Front Range tortilla factory was enough to make them creditworthy. But as opening day approached, the couple realized they needed […]
Posted inColoradans, COVID, Education, Health, News
A Colorado school is taking coronavirus testing beyond its students and teachers
A COVID-19 testing network that is already testing about 40,000 teachers across Colorado school districts and higher education institutions has expanded to test some of Denver’s youngest learners and their families, who are among the most vulnerable. COVIDCheck Colorado, a network developed by Gary Community Investment Company and The Piton Foundation, is partnering with Clayton […]
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Opinion: Celebrating Black philanthropy in August and beyond
Black Philanthropy Month lifts memories of my grandparents, Dr. Whitney Moore Young, Sr. and Laura Ray Young. They were the inspired leaders of the Lincoln Institute in Shelby County, Kentucky, in the Jim Crow South. An all-Black boarding school supported by segregationist donors, Lincoln Institute was charged on the surface with teaching students agricultural, janitorial […]
Posted inBusiness, Coloradans, Education, News, Technology
All the classes, none of the Boulder: CU offers computer science degrees on Western Slope
Starting this fall, students enrolled at Western Colorado University in Gunnison can emerge with a degree from the state’s top computer science school, the University of Colorado in Boulder. It’ll cost them less over the four years compared to Boulder, and classes won’t be as crowded. Plus, it’s cheaper to rent an apartment in this […]
Posted inBusiness, Growth, News
How Techstars’ “GiveFirst” mantra became a road map for the startup community in Colorado and beyond
David Cohen gets a kick out of hearing “GiveFirst,” an oft-repeated phrase that can be traced back to Techstars, the Boulder technology accelerator he co-founded in 2006. “Someone pointed out a thread to me about Denver Startup Week, and the value of ‘GiveFirst,’ and it never mentioned us or Techstars. And I thought, ‘Awesome,’” said […]