Who is Rose Community Foundation? How much of your money do they get? Wolf depredation two ways. Diverging Diamond Interchanges.
Who is Rose Community Foundation? What do they do in Colorado? How much of your money do they get?
Rose Community Foundation, RCF, whose site is linked first below, is a nonprofit 501(c)(3).*
According to their ProPublica page (linked second below) they have been operating since 2023 as a Donor Advised Fund. Donor Advised Funds are essentially an aggregator of individual donations which takes in money and then ladles it out to various causes, sometimes at the behest of donors, sometimes according to what the board decides. They are also a way for donors to get a tax write off while remaining anonymous (as well as avoiding some Federal regulations other nonprofits must meet).
According to RCF's own page, they "...work to advance inclusive, engaged and equitable Greater Denver communities through values-driven philanthropy."
RCF is also deeply embedded in the nonprofit culture of Colorado. They get gobs of tax money. They give out gobs of grant money. They make a tremendous number political donations. The people at RCF are a who's who of political movers and shakers.
In summary...
--In the link to my public source folder (third on the list below--we'll be returning to this folder again and again) you will find a spreadsheet named "Rose Community TOPS". This is a spreadsheet detailing how much money our state has given RCF going back to Fiscal Year (FY) 2015. In sum, our state has given or paid RCF $12.2 million taxpayer dollars since 2015, with $3.8 million of those in FY 2025 alone.
--Putting that in perspective, after looking in the state's budget explorer (linked fourth below), the smallest appropriation to any state agency for FY 2025 was the Colorado Department of Military and Veterans Affiars which received $17.7 million. RCF got 21% of that amount.
--Since 2020, RCF, per the Colorado Secretary of State's TRACER contribution tracker, has doled out $626K in politicial contributions to causes ranging from abortion rights to "free" school lunches, to gay rights, to taxes.
--From their most recent 990 form (the tax form 501(c)(3)'s are required to file) RCF gave out grants and donations to 469 other 501(c)(3)'s and government organizations in 2023. Grants ranging in amount from thousands up to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
--Grantees included Colorado Statewide Parent Coalition (Rep Lorena Garcia's charity), Colorado Public Radio, Colorado News Collaborative, Coloradans for Protecting Reproductive Freedom, Chalkbeat, Colorado Headwaters Land Trust, New Era Colorado Foundation, RMPBS, Trailhead Institute (a group which has showed up multiple times in the public health and guns sphere), and Warm Cookies of the Revolution.
--RCF's board members also show up on numerous other boards, making big contributions of their own. They have given significant amounts to the Colorado Sun, and, as another example, CPR Board Secretary Deidre Johnson also serves on the Rose Community Foundation Community Grantmaking Committee.
Over the course of several posts in the coming days, I will lay out answers to the questions at the top of this post.
I will cover the contributions, political and otherwise, that RCF makes in Colorado.
I will cover some of the grants they get. Where the money went, how much, etc.
I will cover an interesting grant RCF got which essentially put them in charge of spending your money (though I don't recall voting for anyone at RCF did you?).
By the time we're done, I wouldn't be surprised if you, like me, end up seeing RCF as coming close to a fourth branch of Colorado government for all the money they get and the work they do.
Stay tuned.
*In case you need the context , 501(c)(3)'s are nonprofit organizations for any of the following purposes: religious, educational, charitable, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering national or international amateur sports competition (as long as it doesn't provide athletic facilities or equipment), or the prevention of cruelty to children or animals. Donations to them are tax deductible. They do not have to disclose donors.
**In case you want more information or context, you'll find an earlier explainer on Donor Advised Funds at this link.
https://rcfdenver.org/
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/840920862
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1l6yBB4U3WLy89NWdAhq5qDnM1KC6emAO?usp=sharing
https://leg.colorado.gov/explorebudget/
Wolf depredation two ways
I had a couple of things to share, something new and an update, on wolf reintroduction/depredation.
The first link below is to a Colorado Politics article with an interesting wrinkle on how wolf depredation claims could be made and/or paid out.
I will leave it to you to read the article, but the essence here is this. Rancher Don Gittleson (a name familiar to anyone following the articles on wolf depredation because his name shows up again and again as the poster child for the problems wolf reintroduction has caused), had a calf which wolves had injured.
In a call with his vet, the recommendation was made by the vet to euthanize the animal, but Gittleson chose to nurse it back to health.** Gittleson then billed CPW for the time and care it took to nurse the animal back to health.
The wrinkle here is that current CPW guidelines do not allow for medical services billing for anyone but licensed vets (a thing that is harder and harder to find for large animals in many rural areas of Colorado sadly) and they do not allow for bills for labor.
Consideration of what Gittleson had done and the consequences of it (and/or the consequences of a change in CPW policy on this) were discussed at the May 7th CPW commissioners meeting. From comments made by the commissioners in the meeting it seems that there may be some openness on their part to allowing ranchers to care for their animals who are victims of wolves, and then submit bills for that care to CPW as a claim for depredation.
I myself would be open to the idea, especially since current money was saved for this calf and future income for the rancher was too (the bill for a dead calf would have amounted to about 6x what Gittleson billed for its care, and a heifer that can calve is a future source of income), but I have to wonder if perhaps it skirts what will be a larger issue.
We live in a finite world. There is finite money to pay claims and there is finite time to care for animals. A rancher nursing a wounded calf has that many less minutes to do all the other things ranchers need to do. There is a finite amount of money to pay claims with, whether that pay goes to vets, ranchers, whoever.
This stands out in stark relief when you look at the Sky Hi News article linked second below, or at screenshots 1 - 3 (which are copies from my email--a press release about the same incident as the article from Colorado Cattleman's Association).
The so-called "Copper Creek Wolf Pack" has been busy. Quoting from the news article (with links intact):
"Colorado Parks and Wildlife is investigating multiple livestock depredations reportedly carried out by the Copper Creek wolf pack, according to Ginny and Tom Harrington. They are members of the Holy Cross Cattlemen’s Association and operators of the Crystal River Ranch south of Carbondale. The pack is responsible for the majority of depredations since Colorado reintroduced gray wolves in December 2023. The Harringtons said a cow and calf were attacked and injured at the McCabe Ranch at Old Snowmass on Saturday, May 17. That was followed less than a week later by back-to-back-to-back suspected wolf attacks on cattle Friday, Saturday and Sunday:
One calf was found dead and another injured at the Crystal River Ranch on Friday;
One calf was confirmed dead and another missing at McCabe Ranch on Saturday;
Finally, a cow and calf were injured by three wolves at Lost Marbles Ranch on Sunday.
The Lost Marbles incident was reported to have taken place in broad daylight in the heart of the calving grounds, a large meadow where ranchers actively monitor mothers and newborns during the critical calving season, according to Colorado Cattlemen’s Association."
Perhaps instead of debating trifles like whether or not (and how much) a rancher should or could bill their time in caring for injured animals, CPW could focus on the at this point obvious chronic depredation by this particular group of wolves.
Perhaps they could do something to fix the problem instead of talking about things that treat symptoms.
Until they do that, more and more economic damages and demands on ranchers' time will pile up making it harder to ranch where this pack is living.
**Per the article, the injured calf is now a hefer with calves of her own.
https://www.coloradopolitics.com/news/rancher-reimbursed-labor-wolf-depredation/article_a0d0ebea-17ec-43e9-b991-a595d95b264d.html
https://www.skyhinews.com/news/wolf-depredation-claims-two-calf-deaths-in-crystal-river-roaring-fork-valleys/
Diverging Diamond Interchanges
That time of the week again. It's the last post til Sunday, and thus it's time for a curiosity, something for fun and not related to politics.
Per the Denverite article linked first below, CDOT is considering changing the Speer Blvd/I-25 interchange as a diverging diamond interchange in the hopes of improving traffic flow.
I could try to explain how it works, but I'm a lazy, lazy man and the video linked second below will be much better anyway. It gives a CDOT animation of how this will work.
From the perspective of a very much NON traffic engineer, I have to say that (once drivers get over their confusion and apprehension) I think this does have potential to greatly improve traffic speeds over the interchange. Any time drivers can make turns without having to cross opposing traffic, it should speed things up (think about how much faster it is to turn right at an intersection than to turn left).
I promised a post sans politics so I will just dump the following quote from the Denverite article in here and move on. It gives a sense of the process before Speer gets revamped:
"CDOT will soon do more detailed designs of the project and a deeper analysis of its environmental impacts under the National Environmental Policy Act."
That's it for today. Have a good rest of your Friday and back at it this Sunday!
https://denverite.com/2025/04/11/denver-i25-speer-diverging-diamond/
RCF got it seed money (and its name) from the sale of the old General Rose Hospital to an out-of-state for-profit hospital operator. The name is outdated. it should be "Rose Communist Foundation".