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Aspen Community Foundation

Presented by Aspen Community Foundation January 9, 2025 What’s This?

ACF is celebrating its 45th anniversary. Congrats! How did you get started?

The Aspen Foundation (ACF) was created by the Aspen Skiing Company (SkiCo) in 1980 to generate charitable contributions in support of community needs. During the 1990s, we matured into a community foundation. Over the past 45 years, ACF has fostered connections between local philanthropists, nonprofits, and the greater community from Aspen to Parachute, addressing the most pressing needs while building a more vibrant region.

What is a community foundation for those who don’t know?

Community foundations are public charities dedicated to improving people's lives in a defined geographic area. We work directly with our philanthropic community, providing personalized services to help families, individuals, and organizations achieve their charitable goals. Many community foundations, like ACF, are at the forefront of addressing regional challenges.

How does ACF directly support the philanthropic community?

ACF provides customized donor services, aligning philanthropic goals and values with charitable giving. We manage donor-advised and field-of-interest funds, support planned giving, host giving circles, lead donor education events, offer impact investing opportunities, and coordinate nonprofit connections.

Our dedicated team provides support at any point in someone’s philanthropic journey and encourages individuals to reach out directly. Our website hosts our contact information and several charitable tools for the community. In 2023, we were privileged to grant over $10 million to support community-based organizations from Aspen to Parachute through our managed funds.

What are the ways you provide community leadership and support local nonprofits?

We actively listen and learn about the region’s challenges to better connect nonprofit and community leaders in advancing solutions. We convene diverse stakeholders—philanthropists, nonprofit leaders, government officials, and seasonal to year-round residents—to leverage the collective expertise, mobilize resources, and fund community-led change to create more opportunities for all residents from Aspen to Parachute. Issues we have prioritized to date include early childhood, youth empowerment, mental health, and emergency assistance. We also partner with SkiCo’s Environment Foundation in funding climate and sustainability issues. Our community is very engaged; we are lucky in that way.