HERE TODAY. HERE TOMORROW.

OCTOBER 2011

When El Pomar Foundation unveiled its annual report a year ago, the focus was on the different ways that our grants could help organizations and communities weather the economic storm. While time has passed and markets have fluctuated, the same environment that existed then still exists today. What does that environment look like from El Pomar’s persepective? That perspective is shaped by what we hear from our grantees. And we hear a lot, all the time.

Through El Pomar's grant compliance program, staff members are in different cities across Colorado at a rate of what amounts to three times each week conducting community impact visits. These visits are completed after a grant has been awarded and the organization has had time to implement the funding. While observing interactions with clients or walking through a new building, we ask about the grant, but also about the organization’s overall situation. Internally, how is it functioning? Externally, what are the needs? These answers help guide our grantmaking focus.

Many of the stories we have heard for the past several years are familiar. Human service providers tell of an increase in demand for services while their client base continues to evolve. More first-timers are coming to ask for help. Other organizations reveal that they ask themselves hard questions about what they can do today that will lay the groundwork for a future with less uncertainty.

This is how we develop our perspective. Based on what we've heard firsthand from the organizations we fund, the focus of our grantmaking and, therefore, the focus of this report, remains unchanged. Like last year, our featured grantees all fit in with the ways that El Pomar Foundation is trying to help Colorado’s nonprofit community address economic development, today and in the future. For some, like Care and Share Food Bank of Southern Colorado, that means working to meet the increased demand for services. For others, like the Southwest Colorado Small Business Development Center, it means working with entrepreneurs who will create the businesses that help lead economic change.

The theme that emerged last year is appropriate today. It still fits with the Penroses' emphasis on the current and future well-being of our state.

Here today. Here tomorrow.

Pictured above (from l-r): William J. Hybl, Chairman and CEO; Dave Palenchar, Trustee and Chief Operating Officer; Bob Manning, Denver Metro Trustee; Rob Hilbert, Trustee and Chief Financial Officer; Ashley Buderus, Fellowship Alumni Trustee; William Ward, Vice Chairman; Kyle Hybl, Trustee and Senior Vice President/General Counsel; Judy Bell, Trustee; R. Thayer Tutt, Jr., President and Chief Investment Officer; Brenda Smith, Trustee; Kay Alexander, Regional Trustee. [Board of Trustees current as of 6.2011]