September 6, 2016 | Read Time: 4 minutes
Bill Ryan wants no part of traditional philanthropy.
“I think about people of my parents’ generation, who would write big checks to the art museum, the zoo, or something like that,” he says. “Maybe a building got built. But who got helped, and how do you measure that?”
Instead, the 52-year-old Denver man, born in the waning months of the baby boom, approaches his philanthropy like many others in Generation X: He wants to roll up his sleeves and help solve problems himself.
“I want to feel that my giving and volunteering are leading to results, and see the people who are being impacted,” says Mr. Ryan. “That feels better than simply writing a check to something anonymous like operating support that I may never see the results of.”
At the Denver Foundation, he’s found a nonprofit that understands that bias for action. Mr. Ryan, who works as director of the Colorado State Land Board, helped start the foundation’s branch of Social Venture Partners, a nationwide organization that lets participants pool money and make giving decisions together. Members also form teams to consult with charities about their marketing, strategic planning, or other specific needs.
“Volunteers don’t just want to paint a wall, weed a garden,” says Christine Márquez-Hudson, president of the foundation (and, at 46, also a Gen Xer). “They want to use their professional skills for nonprofits, in a more meaningful way.”
Fighting Hunger
Denver is America’s fastest-growing big city, with about 50 new residents arriving daily. “Absorbing all those folks is tricky,” Ms. Márquez-Hudson says. Her foundation tries “to be that place that people turn to when they want to learn about their community and learn about the nonprofits in their community.”
During the recession, hunger became a huge problem in Denver, Mr. Ryan notes. He recalls how one of the foundation’s board members served as a Santa Claus at a holiday event that year. “He had kids sitting on his lap saying, ‘Santa, what I want for Christmas this year is food.’ God, that became incredibly personal.”
Through the Denver Foundation, he joined an antihunger project that brought together charities working on the issue with donors. Participants hashed out both short-and long-term approaches to the problem.
The team helped boost food-bank stocks and more efficiently get food to where it was needed most. It also worked to make sure kids didn’t go hungry during the summer, when schools were closed. “There was lots of really good, creative thinking that went into this, and a lot of influential people at the table, all focused on a singular outcome,” Mr. Ryan says.
The project evolved into the group Hunger Free Colorado and has racked up a number of accomplishments, including a 95 percent increase in summer meals provided to kids from 2009 to 2014. Mr. Ryan was hooked. “I saw all that work, and I wanted to be a part of it going forward.”
He stayed committed to the Denver Foundation, joining its board in 2008 and serving as chairman twice in subsequent years. He and his wife, Tamra, have set up a donor-advised fund at the organization. Personally, the couple gives roughly $25,000 annually, he says, and helps decide giving for their extended family. Before his current state job, Mr. Ryan had worked in banking and commercial real estate, while his father was an early technology investor and executive; the money generated from those enterprises has fueled their giving. (Ms. Ryan also runs a nonprofit social enterprise called the Women’s Bean Project, which trains and employs impoverished women.)
To help charities and donor-advised-fund holders like the Ryans connect, the Denver Foundation launched an online community, Floodlight, in 2012. Charities can post stories about their work on the platform, and calls to action — for example, if they need volunteers. Fund holders can “badge” nonprofits they support, drawing other donors’ attention signaling to other donors about worthy organizations. Floodlight also connects to other social media.
“We’re excited about it because we think it will appeal to the Gen X crowd and other groups as well,” says Ms. Márquez-Hudson. “We think this could be a way for newcomers to learn quickly about organizations that are doing great work in metro Denver.”
Not long ago, Mr. Ryan sat down with his father, now 81, who he says exemplified the write-a-check-to-the-museum donor. He talked up donor-advised funds, emphasizing how they would enable his father to see results in his lifetime.
“I sold him on the idea,” Mr. Ryan says. The elder Ryan opened donor-advised funds at the Denver Foundation and at a community foundation in Philadelphia, where he lives.
His son is pleased. The talk with his dad, he says, was his effort at “teaching the older generation — or at least helping them see it differently.”
