Sharing Wealth

From the day Jerry Conover started receiving Social Security checks five years ago, something gnawed at him. "I didn't need it to put food on my table," says the Denver semi-retired lawyer, 70. "And though I could've spread it amongst my 15 grandkids, they didn't really need it either." Conover had done very well as a trial lawyer, and he was working part-time as a mediator. He kept thinking there must be a better use for the money. Surely he wasn't the only person who could spare some of the dough in a monthly Social Security check? And others, he thought, must also have his altruistic impulse to share some of their retirement earnings with a worthy cause.

Still, the hassle of creating a nonprofit from whole cloth — and finding someone to run it — wasn't how he wanted to spend his sunset years. Instead, he went to the Denver Foundation, a 78-year-old community endowment program that has two functions: it invests money from local donors and distributes it to charitable organizations, and it also manages and administers charitable funds for individuals, families and businesses. (There are 600 such community foundations in the U.S.) Conover wanted to brainstorm with his old pal and CEO of the foundation, David Miller. "We batted around ideas for starting a nonprofit fund under the auspices of the Denver Foundation, made up of Social Security donations to be given in grants to various community agencies," says Miller.

Their idea quickly gained traction. Of the first 20 people he and Conover contacted, 18 were overwhelmingly enthusiastic, says Miller. In February 2003 the first board convened under the administrative umbrella of the Denver Foundation. It was a group of 10 men and women, including educators, lawyers, a nurse, a social worker, a community volunteer, former Colorado Governor Dick Lamm and Colorado Republican chairman Don Bain. "As diverse as the group is," says Sandra Shreve, 62, a current board member who donates from her modest educator's pension, "we were all there with a common goal: to help our community by creating a circle of giving."

As the board solicited donations, talks centered on who should receive the money. "We discussed whether to help other seniors who were in need or whether to help kids," Conover says. The consensus was that local agencies dedicated to helping children from birth to age 6 were the best investment. That decision was based largely on research from two respected sources: the Carolina Abecedarian Study and the Perry Preschool Project, both of which demonstrated the long-term value of helping younger children. The board also wanted to give to organizations that had a proven track record but that didn't receive as much publicity and funds as some of the more high-profile ones.

In December 2003 Hope for Generations — the newly adopted name of the group administered by the Denver Foundation — awarded three $20,000 grants to Invest in Kids, Bright Beginnings and Kids in Need of Dentistry. Each agency was given the challenge of matching the grant.