Philip F. Anschutz, the wealthiest individual in Colorado, currently has a net worth of $10.9 billion. The 82-year-old billionaire founded Anschutz Entertainment Group and owns the Los Angeles Kings and a third of the Los Angeles Lakers. Philip Anschutz also established the Anschutz Foundation, which ranks as one of the largest foundations in the country — holding assets of some $1.5 billion in fiscal year 2019. Up until recently, the large charity did not even have a website, but via a small staff and board, it doles out hundreds of grants annually to charter schools, health and wellness causes, and human services.
Then there’s the Anschutz Family Foundation, founded in 1982 by Philip’s parents, oil wildcatter Fred Anschutz and his wife Marian. Today, the charity is steered by their daughter Sue Anschutz-Rodgers, Philip’s younger sister. The two charities often get confused (Anschutz Foundation was founded two years later in 1984), but the smaller Anschutz Family Foundation has been a steady Colorado grantmaker in its own right, focusing on both rural and urban communities in the Centennial State. The foundation particularly focuses on community development and programs aimed at the economically disadvantaged, children and youth, seniors, and people with disabilities.
The foundation was initially started because Fred and Marian Anschutz wanted to give back to the communities where they lived and made their money. Once stationed in Wichita, the family and their business headquarters moved to Denver in the 1960s. Fred Anschutz endowed the foundation with an initial $4.6 million. Today, through investments and additional family contributions, that number has grown to $66 million.
Though a veteran in this space today, Sue Anschutz-Rodgers was tapped to be the foundation’s first president and executive director when she was about 50. “He [my father Fred] wanted me to be the one to do it. Even though I had no experience in foundation work. I had done a lot of volunteer work, but not running a foundation,” Anschutz-Rodgers told me. In our conversation, I found out more about how Anschutz-Rodgers stepped into her philanthropic power, how the foundation has brought in new generations of the family, and what to expect from the foundation down the line.
Getting the lay of the land
When brought in to run the foundation in the early 1980s, Anschutz-Rodgers spent the first few years visiting local foundations and building relationships. She felt that maybe, unlike in bigger cities, the Colorado foundation community would be more open and accessible, and she turned out to be right. “Unfortunately, people think of foundations as sitting in ivory towers. But in Denver, it has been completely reversed. In the bigger cities, I think they are still an enigma,” Anschutz-Rodgers said.
She became involved with “Philanthropy Day” in Grand Junction, a convening of funders and nonprofits. But on her drive back home, Anschutz-Rodgers, a rural Kansas native with a love of the natural world, was struck by the fact that rural Colorado was left out of the mix.
In the late 1980s, only 3% of grants from Colorado’s private funding community were awarded outside of the so-called Front Range — referring to the central part of the state that includes cities like Denver, Colorado Springs, Pueblo, Boulder, and its surrounding suburbs.
In order to bridge this gap, the foundation partnered with Community Resource Center (CRC) to create Colorado Rural Philanthropy Days (RPD), which encourages Front Range foundations to travel to and become better acquainted with rural regions in the state.
The idea that urban foundations need to better serve rural communities is a theme in philanthropy we’ve covered often. I recently wrote about the Roundhouse Foundation, which received an influx of cash, and now serves all of rural Oregon — including its nine federally recognized tribes.
Rural Philanthropy Days is a biannual, three-day conference that rotates between eight rural regions across the state and focuses on enhancing nonprofit capacity and building relationships. It also provides modest grant funding.
Joining the team
Alongside Sue Anschutz-Rodgers is a small staff of two program officers, a grants manager, and executive director Abel Wurmnest, who has been with Anschutz for around a decade. Prior to joining the foundation, Wurmnest was involved with what is now known as Philanthropy Colorado, which he says allowed him to get smart about the issues involved in running family foundations.
Wurmnest echoed Anschutz-Rodgers’ call for funders to make sure they remain connected to rural communities. He also made an interesting point about how foundations can help these smaller nonprofits with capacity building and resources.
“Particularly smaller nonprofit organizations in rural parts of the state might be fully volunteer based, as an example, or they might only have one or two professional staff members. So some of the best help that we can provide is offering some technical assistance on what makes a successful grant application or how to improve their operations and efficiency,” Wurmnest said.
Past grants include Anchor Center for Blind Children, Colorado Mesa University Foundation, and Junior Achievement Rocky Mountain. Typical grants range between $5,000 and $10,000, but do not exceed 10% of an organization’s annual budget.
Though there are a range of voices at the foundation today, Anschutz-Rodgers goes back to the original mission of her parents, including their goal to help people become self-sufficient.
“Donor intent is extremely important. You have to stick with it. Many foundations go off on their own and forget the donor intent and they’re the ones that end up in distress sooner or later,” she said.
The next generation and beyond the foundation
Anschutz-Rodgers says she and her late father talked a lot about bringing new generations of the family into the charity. She has three daughters, who joined the board, and nine grandchildren. Family members cannot serve on the board until they are 25 and must have a college degree. “This gives them time to sort of sow their oats, so to speak,” she said.
She says one challenge is making sure that family members are ready for all the responsibilities of working on the board. Having served on upward of 35 boards through the years, her main objective in the next nine months is to have a board development retreat with all of the trustees. In the coming years, she also wants to look at term limits. The board meets twice a year, once in spring and again in the fall. Anschutz-Rodgers and staff go through proposal reviews together and then present to the board.
Outside of the family foundation, Anschutz-Rodgers also makes large individual donations. She’s channeled some of this more personal giving through the Sue Anschutz-Rodgers Fund, where she’s focused on issues like land conservation in the United States, African wildlife conservation, and archaeology. She’s also been involved with Women Moving Millions and with her brother Philip, she’s supported University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.
Don’t expect the foundation to veer off into other lanes down the line. Anschutz-Rodgers remains bullish about the idea of donor intent.
“I do not think it is right to bring in personal giving and bring it on the foundation. I’m trying to get that across to my board members. If this is something you are really interested in, and does not fit our foundation guidelines, I encourage them to pursue that separately. I feel very strongly about that,” she added.