Wet Mountain Valley Community Foundation Home Page

About the Wet Mountain Valley Community Foundation

The Wet Mountain Valley Community Foundation was founded in 1999, and since that time has distributed approximately $1.3 million to just over 100 nonprofit organizations in Custer County. Grants and gifts have been given to the arts, education, recreation, historical preservation, emergency services health care and related fields of service. The annual Wet Mountain Valley Community Foundation Spirit Campaign is a program of matching gifts awarded by the Community Foundation based on individual donations to nonprofit organizations in Custer County. The Spirit Campaign has generated over $1 million in donations for the local nonprofit community since the campaign's inception in 2004. It allows residents to focus their donations on nonprofits of their choosing while knowing a matching gift will be awarded by the Community Foundation. The Spirit Campaign matched contributions by over 670 individual donors to nearly 60to 31 Custer County nonprofit organizations totally $174,000 in 2010.

The Wet Mountain Valley Community Foundation would like to deeply thank the Anschutz Foundation in providing significant funding for this matching gift effort. The Anschutz Foundations have been partners in the Community Spirit Campaign since the program was initiated. Additional contributions for matching funds came from the Foundation's Gertrude Oakley Legacy Fund and individual donors.

Click here for more information on how to contribute to the Spirit Campaign.

Grant Programs and Community Gifts

The Wet Mountain Valley Community Foundation has distributed funds to worthy nonprofit organizations across the county by sponsoring a number of grants. The Community Foundation believes it is important to drive the thoughtful construction of grant proposals based on the most pressing needs of the nonprofit organizations. Just a few of the organizations and programs receiving Community Foundation grants include:

Annual scholarship program for college bound students administered by the Wet Mountain Valley Rotary.
A high school grant program giving the students the responsibility of distributing funds to worthy organizations.
The Westcliffe Center for the Performing Arts, for the construction of Studio 2 and ongoing operations.
Club America WMV to secure matching funds for facility maintenance and continued operations.
Silver Cliff Museum for help in restoring the historic building that houses the museum.
Town of Westcliffe to develop a new outdoor performance and events center.
All Aboard Westcliffe to aid in the development of its interpretive center.
A $13,000 gift to the community medical center which was used to provide free flu vaccines for more than 1,200 Custer County residents as part of a county-wide pandemic exercise.

The Community Foundation is constantly on the watch for needy members of the community to provide self-initiated gifts when appropriate.