Betsy Dittenber | Photograph by Adam Williams
Overview: Betsy Dittenber, executive director of the Chaffee County (Colo.) Community Foundation, talks with Adam Williams about her early experiences in nonprofit work and volunteerism in Boston and Guadalajara. They talk about what a community foundation is and how it fosters resilience, and how the CCCF has created a website that is the “Tinder for volunteering” with local nonprofit organizations.
They also talk about Betsy’s roller derby days in Las Vegas, where she was a founding member of the Sin City Roller Girls, and how that experience was transformative for her, personally and professionally.
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SHOW NOTES, LINKS, CREDITS & TRANSCRIPT
The We Are Chaffee podcast is supported by Chaffee County Public Health.
Along with being distributed on podcast listening platforms (e.g. Spotify, Apple), We Are Chaffee is broadcast weekly at 2 p.m. on Tuesdays, on KHEN 106.9 community radio FM in Salida, Colo.
Betsy Dittenber | Chaffee County Community Foundation
Website: chaffeecommunity.org
Instagram: instagram.com/chaffeecountycf
Facebook: facebook.com/chaffeecountycf
We Are Chaffee Podcast
Website: wearechaffeepod.com
Instagram: instagram.com/wearechaffeepod
CREDITS
We Are Chaffee Host, Producer & Photographer: Adam Williams Williams
We Are Chaffee Engineer: Jon Pray
We Are Chaffee Community Advocacy Coordinator: Lisa Martin
Director of Chaffee County Public Health and Environment: Andrea Carlstrom
TRANSCRIPT
Note: Transcripts are produced using an automated transcription app. Although it is largely accurate, minor errors inevitably exist.
[Intro music, guitar instrumental]
[00:00:13] Adam Williams: Welcome to the We Are Chaffee Podcast, where we connect through conversations of community, humanness and resilience in Chaffee County, Colorado. I’m Adam Williams, and today I’m talking with Betsy Dittenber, executive director of Chaffee County Community Foundation.
As you’d expect, that means we talk about the community foundation, what it is, why it is, and how it supports resilience in our local area. But we also get to know some interesting things about who Betsy is.
We talk about how she accidentally became a roller derby player and even a founding member of the Sin City Roller Girls in Las Vegas and then later a horrible referee, as she says, for the league in Milwaukee. We talk about the shaping influences in her life that have led her toward social justice issues and working to make things fair and right for everyone from her youth in upstate New York, to a gap year volunteering in Boston, to Guadalajara, Mexico, and eventually, of course, to here in the Arkansas Valley in Colorado.
I also ask Betsy about the local impacts of the recent federal funding freeze and then the oh, well, never mind about that federal funding freeze and the chaos and the call to collective action that that has stirred here in Chaffee County and surely in thousands more counties across the country.
You might be surprised to know that we are talking about at least tens of millions of dollars that support our agriculture, our fire prevention, our youth programming, and our crisis management, among other services here.
These are all put at risk with these federal policy changes. But I think that you’ll also be relieved at least a little bit by hearing about the collective leadership efforts that we have in place here and how resilient and robust we are as a community, even when facing uncertainty from state and federal levels.
For those who might be interested, I also ask Betsy how we as individuals can get involved to help ensure that our community stays strong and weathers whatever challenges lie ahead.
The We Are Chaffee Podcast is supported by Chaffee County Public Health. Go to wearechaffeepod.com for all things related to the We Are Chaffee Podcast that includes all episodes, show notes and transcripts. It’s also where you can subscribe to the email newsletter and you can connect with us on Instagram at We Are Chaffeepod.
All right, here we go with Betsy Dittenber.
[Transition music, guitar instrumental]
[00:02:45] Adam Williams: Before we get into talking about nonprofit work, you know, your career, the work with the Chaffee County Community Foundation, I want to hear about roller derby. Okay?
My understanding is you are a co-founder, a founding member, of the Sin City Roller Girls in Las Vegas, and, you know, that’s always fascinated me from the time I was a kid and I would see late night, you know, roller derby on TV, I thought it was a really interesting sport. I’ve never participated. I want to hear about that. How did you become a founding member of the Sin City Roller Girls?
[00:03:16] Betsy Dittenber: You know, the. I think about my roller derby experience and what I’ve pulled from it into both my personal and professional life. And as with most things, I sort of accidentally joined. I had a friend who was really excited about it, and I went with her to support her for the tryouts. At that point, it was 2000.
It was just getting started. I mean, there were some teams, there were some leagues in Texas. They hadn’t really spread across the country yet, and so they were just excited that people had showed up. I could not roller skate to save my life. And I think just because of that timing, they were excited to teach me. And they did, the organizers did, and we formed the first Sin City Roller Girls League. There were not that many leagues in the country at that time that were really functional.
And then as I went through, I mean, the confidence. Women are so taught to not be aggressive to. I mean, you’ve read the stories about how women just sort of naturally get out of the way on the sidewalk as two people are walking to each other. Roller derby, you had to break all of that training that you’ve had your whole life. You had to get in the way of people, you had to be aggressive, you had to physically knock somebody over was part of the game at that point.
And so I think that was really transformative for me of just how to take up more space, how to be comfortable with taking up space on top of that. I mean, most leagues are nonprofit organizations, so I was able to get a lot of that professional goals out of it as well, of helping fundraise, helping to create the organizational structure, boards of directors, those are all parts of roller derby as well.
And so I think from that confidence building standpoint, that being, being comfortable with your own space and then also just organizing and getting people who have never really engaged in a sort of professional structure before into the structure of the league was really exciting and really transformative for me.
[00:05:15] Adam Williams: Had you played sports at all before? Did you consider yourself in any way athletic as a kid or leading up to this time?
[00:05:22] Betsy Dittenber: You know, No, I didn’t, but I did play softball in high school, very casually. I was a cheerleader also pretty casually.
I loved outdoor sports. Hiking was really backpacking was stuff I always really enjoyed. But no, I was not the athletic.
[00:05:39] Adam Williams: Person so you learned to skate.
Actually, this is an awesome explanation of what all you got out of that. Because I never would have thought about the way maybe more holistically as a human being and professional, you would have been able to take some things out of roller derby like that. So that’s really cool to hear. But I’m curious about what your name was too, if we get into character. Right. Because a lot of them have some pretty, I don’t know, fiery, sassy names, some fun names, maybe some that are inappropriate. Do you want to share that? Can you share that?
[00:06:10] Betsy Dittenber: I’d rather not.
[00:06:12] Adam Williams: Does it fit in the inappropriate bucket?
[00:06:14] Betsy Dittenber: So I’ve had the nickname of Bootsy for a long time, actually, back from when I did AmeriCorps in Boston. And so when I was trying to think of a roller derby name, my first name was that I came on was Bruisen Van Dusen. Van Dusen’s my maiden name, but this didn’t really feel like me. And so I was able to incorporate the nickname Bootsy into my roller derby name.
[00:06:37] Adam Williams: We’ll leave it there.
[00:06:38] Betsy Dittenber: Yep.
[00:06:41] Adam Williams: Okay. So how long did you play roller derby?
[00:06:44] Betsy Dittenber: Oh, gosh, see, about 2005 to about 2011.
[00:06:49] Adam Williams: Okay.
[00:06:49] Adam Williams: That’s a good length of time.
[00:06:51] Betsy Dittenber: Yeah, yeah, it was, it was great. It was really great for me on a being connected to something bigger than yourself standpoint. I started in Las Vegas and then I actually left Vegas and went to Milwaukee for grad school. And the league there was just getting started and so I was able to jump in. I got a position on the board for the first. They had already done tryouts and assigned teams and so I wasn’t able to compete for their first year. I refereed. I’m a horrible ref. I like the game too much and so I was not paying attention to the things I was supposed to pay attention to. But I practiced. I really supported the league in that way. And then the second season I was able to skate as a skater and I was on the Schevel Knievels team there.
[00:07:36] Adam Williams: Okay. We have a team here, right? The Arc Valley High Rollers.
[00:07:39] Betsy Dittenber: Yeah.
[00:07:40] Adam Williams: Are you involved with that in any way?
[00:07:42] Betsy Dittenber: I have, I’ve skated, I’ve done some practices with them. My daughter has participated in the youth program in the past. I’m not super active at the moment, but I really support what they’re doing. I also love that they are very non gendered in their approach to roller derby.
I think when it was first launching it was very much a female thing and it’s exciting to see that it’s come so far that they’re embracing anyone. No matter what your physical makeup is, you’re able to participate.
[00:08:09] Adam Williams: We’re talking about flat track in this case, right?
[00:08:12] Betsy Dittenber: Yes.
[00:08:12] Adam Williams: And you’re saying this was kind of getting going. I’m hearing that maybe as a resurgence that happened 20 or so years ago, because I mentioned being a kid and the stuff I would watch on late night tv, they would have ramped tracks. There would be men’s teams, women’s teams. It was incredibly physical. I mean, it was probably meant to be entertainment on TV as much as anything. So it was almost like it was wrestling, you know, on skates. It was wild.
[00:08:37] Betsy Dittenber: Yeah. It was scripted. Absolutely.
[00:08:38] Adam Williams: And I think that’s really interesting that then there was this resurgence because it did seem to disappear, at least from my knowledge, casual knowledge, for many years. And then I was living in St. Louis at a time and one night go to this event and it’s in some warehouse and they’ve got a flat track out and. And it was all just women. And. Yeah, it’s really interesting then that this had this resurgence. And now here we are 20 years later. We have a local team for anybody who’s interested and inspired by what you’re saying. That’s pretty cool. In your time in Las Vegas, you also helped to found the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network of Southern Nevada.
[00:09:14] Betsy Dittenber: Yep.
[00:09:14] Adam Williams: And you helped to create the Grants Management Certificate program at UNLV and to teach there. You are part of starting things. And I’m kind of curious to know who that piece of you is. Like, where does that energy and motivation come from? And maybe courage in some cases, to be somebody who steps out and says, we don’t have this, we’re missing it, we need it. I’m gonna help to lead the way.
[00:09:38] Betsy Dittenber: Yeah, I really love building and creating things. And I think that I channel a lot of my creativity that maybe in other phases of my life went into art or expressions in other ways. And I really have channeled that into my work. I like looking at something and seeing where it can improve. And so all of my jobs have always been with a new department, a new position, a new organization, and really helping to be in that sort of chaotic space, that really entrepreneurship space, to really transform how things are done and get to a different standpoint. I often get bored if I’m in something that’s already established and I’m just sort of continuing the system. And so I’ve actually sought out professional coaches that have helped me in roles like the one I’m in now where I don’t want to get bored, and I’m not, fortunately. There’s a lot of stuff happening, but just how to keep finding that entrepreneurship type space in every role that I’m doing.
[00:10:36] Adam Williams: Were you like that as a kid? If we go back to high school, or maybe even younger, Were you one of those students that ran for, you know, student council president, things like that? But also, I’m thinking of somebody who would see what needed to be done and would say, this can’t stand. It’s not right, and go to the administration and say, we need to fix this.
[00:10:54] Betsy Dittenber: I think I’ve always had a strong social justice gravity towards making things fair, making things right for everyone. And I have seen that. Actually, where I first noticed it was in a letter of recommendation for a college application. One of the adult mentors I had worked with as a young adult, they said that I was always the one that sought out the person that was either left out, was not included in the group, was being picked on and stood up for them. And I think that. That I don’t know where that confidence and boldness came from, but I think that that is something that I’m always seeking of how do we be more inclusive? How do we make this a good situation for everyone?
[00:11:34] Adam Williams: In your nonprofit career, which you’ve been working at for many years now, you’ve studied for that, gotten advanced degrees in that area.
So you’re carrying all this forward into how you look at how to represent in our community and build and support and all these things. Do you not have an idea then, of what sparked that? You say you don’t know where the boldness came to step forward, but do you have any idea of what inspired you, maybe in a broader sense, to say, this is the kind of career I want, this is the kind of life I want to lead professionally and in my community?
[00:12:05] Betsy Dittenber: Well, I would blame my mother. She always insisted that my sister and I volunteer. From an age that we were able to be helpful, we always had a volunteer role. One of my first volunteer jobs was in a preschool at the local YMCA in my hometown. I also volunteered in a veterinary’s office, cleaning kennels. And I think just that ability to connect and see some meaningful work, also that work experience, I mean, I just. I think volunteering is the best thing. And I think that I’ve learned so much from it about what I like to do, what I don’t like to do in an everyday role. I then after high school, I joined AmeriCorps. In Boston. And so it was a City Year was the name of the program. And I worked with youth in an after school program in Dorchester.
During that experience, I had the opportunity to also play some leadership roles. Not, you know, was working in the program with the kids, leading a group of kids through series of activities. But then I also was able to join and help organize the camp that they offered over spring break. And I really enjoyed being in that planning and organizing space. And I think that that was something that I had to reconcile with. I want to help people, I want to make the world a better place. I want to be in a role that I feel emotionally connected to, but I don’t necessarily want to be the one doing the direct service.
I like the organizing, I like setting things up, I like scaffolding the process for the service to happen. And so I was fortunate to find some career opportunities that focused on that. And I think it really aligns well with where I’m at right now, with the community foundation of, you know, not being the one that’s feeding people, educating people, but being the one that helps make us have a strong community and supports that network of leaders.
[00:13:55] Adam Williams: Where did you grow up? Was it a sizable city?
[00:13:57] Adam Williams: Was it rural?
[00:13:58] Betsy Dittenber: It was upstate New York.
[00:14:00] Adam Williams: Okay.
[00:14:00] Betsy Dittenber: Yeah. Saratoga Springs was, you know, the town that I was most connected to. And that is interesting because it’s also a very tourist based historical city. It was small at the time. It’s grown significantly since I left. And I feel that, you know, I couldn’t wait to get out of Saratoga as a young adult. When I was 17, I just wanted to leave it all behind and go live in an urban area. And now here I am, you know, as an adult with a family. And I sought out a city that is actually quite similar to what Saratoga was at the time. I feel that Salida and BV and Chaffee County has a lot of those, that same feel of what it meant to live there. And I. It’s curious that that’s something that I’ve now sought out for my family to exist in.
[00:14:41] Adam Williams: I think that cycle is so common, right. And I’ve talked with a few people. Matt Allen, most recently on the podcast, who is an entrepreneur in town with different kind. And we’re like, it doesn’t matter if you live in the most beautiful, amazing place when you’re a teenager. When you’re 17, you’re 18, all you can think is, this is boring. This is not what I want. We have to get out and explore. And it is funny. Then to make that circle back. I now live here, of course, and live in small rural area. And I grew up in one. I thought I would never live in a rural area, a small area. All I wanted to do was live in a big city. And actually to appreciate the anonymity of that as much as anything. And now here I am with this program, this show, and talking with people and being part of the community. I never thought that would happen.
[00:15:24] Betsy Dittenber: You know, as we’re talking, you know, you asked how I got to the point where I felt, you know, courageous enough to be in that starting thing, space. And I’m just recalling a situation when I was in college. There was a, the timing of, I think, the first vote on gay marriage was the same as our graduation day.
And I remember talking to some friends casually about it, saying, somebody should do something, the college should do something. we should have a presence. Talking about this, sharing that this is a monumental day for both, not just our graduation, but this is a huge political issue that many students support. And a friend turned to me and said, “you should do something about it.”
And that moment, someone having the confidence that I could be the one leading it was really insightful for me. And I did. I recruited a group of friends, and the group of us, we made ribbons. We passed them out, set up a table as people were checking out their cap and gowns. They could grab a ribbon if they wanted to. And there was a big presence at our college graduation of being in support of this historic vote.
And I think that that’s something that I try to carry in, is that helping other people find their confidence of saying, you can do this. You can be the one that steps up and do this. It doesn’t have to be anyone. You don’t have to have a special skill set. You can just have the opportunity to step into that role.
[00:16:53] Adam Williams: So many of us need that one person who sees something in us that we maybe aren’t so sure about in ourselves, or maybe we don’t see at all and can inspire that sort of action to be like, wow, I never saw myself that way. I can go do this thing. That linchpin sort of person in our lives is just so important, aren’t they? I want to ask you about when you moved from Saratoga Springs, then to Dorchester for AmeriCorps. Dorchester, in what I know of some of its history, is that that’s a pretty rugged area of Boston. Was it at the time you were there?
[00:17:24] Betsy Dittenber: Yes. And we were coached on safety procedures, being able to navigate the community safely, especially with Gang violence and colors. Fortunately, the program I was in, City Year, had a very strong recognition in the community because of all of the work that the AmeriCorps members did across all the communities in Boston. That your coat with the logo of City Year was sort of your armor, and people recognized that you were there to do a good thing and, you know, you didn’t really run into much trouble. I never really felt unsafe navigating the city, and I think that that was really telling just for the power of that program.
[00:18:05] Adam Williams: That is such an influential experience, I would imagine when you are so young, it’s such a contrast to where you grew up. And I’m guessing then what your experience prior to that might have been, and then to have to navigate these social matters and to the point of what you’re wearing, what do you remember taking away from that as kind of some key learnings? I guess maybe that’s about. I mean, society, about yourself, about if we have socioeconomic, racial, political, whatever, all differences might come into play with that. And the power of what you were doing with work like that, with City Year.
[00:18:41] Betsy Dittenber: Yeah. Going through that work, I saw as. I mean, I started that program When I was 17, I turned 18 while I was in the program, and I encountered things that my small town upbringing had never experienced before. One of the things that I took away from it was just this desire for more knowledge and understanding about these social issues that I was seeing play out in front of me. I didn’t really have a good understanding for why kids were experiencing the things they were experiencing, why families were struggling in certain ways, and that really, I always recommend a gap year for anyone before they go to college, because that really made me so much more focused in my college education of seeking out those answers. And I found, you know, your freshman year, you take a bunch of different classes, and sociology was the one that gave me those answers, that helped me understand and process these experiences I had had that really I didn’t have a framework for understanding.
And so that was where my undergrad degree is in sociology, because I was able to understand those social processes and also begin to lay the groundwork for work in the nonprofit sector of how can you help make change within those systems that are often set up to fail certain people?
[00:19:57] Adam Williams: I think a gap year is a fantastic idea. I wish that I would have had that. It was not done in my family, done by anybody around me. I don’t think it’s anything I ever heard of until encountering people from other countries like, say, Australia or Europe or Something years later. And I don’t know if that is a common thing in this country still, yet.
We’ve certainly talked about it with my sons as they’re coming up into teenage years, that, hey, we’re okay with this. This is a possibility. We want to support this.
When you wanted to go with that gap year plan for yourself, obviously it was productive. You’re part of AmeriCorps and Things. But I wonder how your parents looked at that. Did they have any concern where you’re like, no, no, you have to go to college or something is going to happen and it’s going to intervene?
[00:20:39] Betsy Dittenber: Well, yes, there was a lot of concern. A lot of my friends thought I was crazy. I was salutatorian of my high school class and had scholarships and offers to multiple colleges. And I realized what a sort of ignorant sense of privilege I had at that time, that I said, no, I’m going to refer those, defer those for a year, and I’m going to go do this other thing where, you know, I’m not going to make any money. I’m not going to be able to contribute to my, you know, college fund. I’m going to go serve in the city. And it was pretty. My grandparents were pretty concerned about it. They thought that that was, you know, me getting off track and, you know, not doing the right thing. My parents were very concerned when I told them halfway through that experience that I found the work I want to do. I want to work in nonprofits and I don’t need to go to college. I can just do this now. This place has already offered me a job. And they said, no, you need to go to college.
So that was a difficult conversation. And interestingly, one of those things where you sort of end up in it by accident. I had found Colorado College in Colorado Springs through an online search engine, which was really. They weren’t super effective in the 90s, sure.
And I plugged in a couple things which ended up. Those things were not. Ended up being super important to me after a few months, but it said that I should apply to Colorado College, and I did. And my family was very concerned about me moving so far away.
My poor grandmother still thought of it as the Wild west and was concerned that there’d be no place to buy groceries. It was very bizarre.
And so that was sort of another act of rebellion of going to college and doing it not at one of the colleges that my mother and grandmother and sister went to, not at one of the state colleges that, you know, would have been a much Easier choice in a lot of ways, but it ended up being the perfect experience for me. And I think my parents recognized that once they learned a little bit more about the curriculum and the program at the college
[00:22:37] Adam Williams: You also spent time in Guadalajara, Mexico, and that was also with nonprofit work, I think, working with youth.
[00:22:44] Betsy Dittenber: Yeah. So I really believe in service learning. I think that whenever you’re learning, you know, knowledge, there’s always a way to give back to the community. And also recognizing that the act of giving back, you are getting something out of it as well. It’s never purely altruistic. You are able, you are growing, and that’s a gift that the people that you are working with are giving back to you. And so I love the service learning model. The program I did was the International Partnership for Service Learning, and I was able to do a semester. They have programs in many countries around the world. And I chose Mexico because one of the barriers I found living in Boston, working with youth there is not being able to speak Spanish. And I realized that having to communicate through the kids just created an inequity for families that are trying to do the best they can for. For their children. And so that’s something that was really important to me, was learning how to speak Spanish fluently. I struggled in sort of traditional classroom settings. And so being able to go abroad, spend a semester there, and really learn the language, but also the culture and understand, you know, even just different phrases mean slightly different things on a direct translation, and being able to really connect with somebody different from myself.
[00:24:00] Adam Williams: Do you mean you struggled specifically with Spanish, learning it in the classroom here in the States somewhere?
[00:24:05] Betsy Dittenber: Yeah.
[00:24:06] Adam Williams: Where in the timeline does this experience in Mexico fit in? Was it part of college?
[00:24:11] Betsy Dittenber: It was. It was my junior year in college. It was the fall semester.
[00:24:16] Adam Williams: I imagine that was also just all around a great experience. Was that your first time out of the country?
[00:24:21] Betsy Dittenber: No, no, it was my. I guess not even my first time to Mexico, but definitely my most extended time out of the country. Interestingly, I wouldn’t say I’m a good cook, but being there, missing recipes from home, really inspired me to learn. I remember sitting in the hallway of my host family’s house, calling my mom and getting recipes for things that I wanted to eat so that I could then go and make them because I wanted to.
I was missing those parts of my own culture while I was living with the host family, and then also being able to share those recipes with the host family, that really opened up a whole area of my life that I hadn’t really explored before of just your connection with food and preparing food and how that builds deeper connections with people around you.
[00:25:09] Adam Williams: Let’s jump to the Community Foundation. The Chaffee County Community foundation is the organization that you are executive director of. And I want to start with the definition of community foundation, because that’s a thing. It’s not just the phrasing of this title. Right. The title of this organization. So what is a community foundation? What is its purpose, its structure, whatever we need to know for people to have a good sense of, I guess not only what it is, but what it is not. Because I think there could be confusion possibly around what people think it’s about.
[00:25:38] Betsy Dittenber: Yeah. Community foundation is there to increase the resilience and capacity of a community. Many communities have them. Many small rural communities in Colorado have their own community foundation. And we’re actually, you know, a little behind in getting ours started. I mean, you look at Gunnison Valley Summit, they’ve been around for much longer. The Chaffee County Community foundation has. But what I’ve learned about Chaffee is we can catch up quick.
[00:26:01] Adam Williams: How long has it been around?
[00:26:03] Betsy Dittenber: We started in 2018, officially.
[00:26:06] Adam Williams: Okay.
[00:26:07] Betsy Dittenber: So it’s pretty young. The other thing that’s curious about our community foundation is most community foundations are started with some sort of large gift, maybe a corporate gift, maybe, you know, a legacy gift from an individual that’s influential in that community.
We were, I call us scrappy, because we were started by 10 people who all gave $10,000 and got it launched. And we’re now managing over 2 million in assets that are, you know, be able to be redirected to the community.
And I think that that’s a cool upbringing story for our community foundation is, you know, this is not a corporate thing that happened. This was from the community and for the community.
[00:26:49] Adam Williams: I think that you have said that people misunderstand what a community foundation is sometimes, that they see it as maybe it’s a chamber of commerce of sorts for a community’s nonprofits. Where is that maybe not really accurate? What might put this into terms for people to understand the day to day actions of what a community foundation is doing here in Chaffee County?
[00:27:11] Betsy Dittenber: Yeah, there’s a lot of sort of legalese around that. And I, to me, a community foundation is here or anywhere to help people do good in their community. And so there’s a couple sort of technical things that we are able to do through the designation as a community foundation, also as a 501c3 organization. And so whether you’re a person that wants to invest dollars in philanthropy in the local community, we can help with that.
And we have a variety of tools in our toolbox to help you with that. If you are a person that’s trying to do good work in the community, we are able to support you in that venture as well. Whether it’s knowledge, connections, expertise or funding, which is a big part of what we do. I think that we’re distinct in that most community foundations have, I guess historically community foundations have been primarily focused on the funding piece. So working with donors to create donor advised funds, area of interest funds, scholarship fund funds, and then managing that process to reinvest those dollars into the community through a combination of grants and awards.
Our focus, I think, because of our origin story, has always been on building capacity through knowledge and direct support for the professionals working in the nonprofit sector. So I think, you know, what’s sort of unique and in part because of our origin story as a community foundation is we didn’t have big assets to invest in that grant making initially.
We really focused on the knowledge, the support, the connectivity for the professionals working in the nonprofit sector. And that has been really part of our core mission. And it’s something that I am probably most passionate about in our work. And it what really excites me is being able to support those people that are working on the ground every day, doing amazing things in our community. And I’m really pleased that the board has chosen to keep that focus as we’ve matured into the state where we are now.
[00:29:08] Adam Williams: The recent news of funding freeze or potential for that has obviously caused some concern throughout the community. I know that there was a meeting where I think it was 60, 70, some community leaders came together to be able to express their concerns, unite in community, I think to talk about how do we deal with this. A lot of times I don’t talk about maybe the things that are in the news specifically because it time dates us. However, I think this is going to be an ongoing concern probably and so there still can be, unfortunately, an evergreen nature to this conversation.
You are part of, I think, surveying what the impact might be, at least for nonprofit organizations in the community. So I’d like to talk about this some and learn what have you learned when you survey these nonprofits and say what is the impact based on federal funding to your organization? What are we looking at as the overall impact to us here as community members in Chaffee County?
[00:30:12] Betsy Dittenber: You know, this whole process, once the initial freeze was announced and has since been rescinded and, and There seems to be stops and starts to funding sources, and it’s a very confusing and chaotic time.
The things that I’ve been able to take out of this are that even myself working in this space in the community with all these organizations and understanding maybe deeper than the average person about federal dollars and how they work, I was shocked by how much of our local services are funded through federal dollars. I mean, we’re looking at, between the county and the nonprofit sector that we were able to tabulate, it’s over $30 million a year coming into our community and covering the costs of everything from direct assistance to people, crisis management, fire prevention, youth programming. I mean, it’s really agricultural support. And that’s only the numbers that we were able– I’m sure that the actual numbers are much higher than that.
And so I think for me, it’s been a learning experience to learn that, you know, there’s this. There’s a mentality out there of like, oh, we pay our taxes and we don’t get anything back from that. And I think that we do in more ways than we realize. The things that we care about, the things that we’re interacting with on a daily basis are actually through federal dollars. And I think that there’s an opportunity to educate people more on how those federal dollars are actually touching them in their everyday lives. Things that they may not even realize are supported through that. I also think that the local nonprofit sector.
There’s some misconceptions out there that folks think that many of the local services are provided through government or are provided through, you know, a different form of support. And in reality, locally, we get donations from individuals. There are some private foundations that are funding working here. A lot of it is federal dollars. It’s funding work here. And so unless we’re able to move to a place where we can support the services that are currently available through local dollars completely, there’s going to have to be an interplay with the federal government on if we’re going to continue at the same level that we’ve come to expect.
[00:32:22] Adam Williams: You said that it was rescinded this order regarding federal funding in the freeze. So the status of that, as far as when we’re recording this, is that there still is support. Ish. Even if it’s chaotic. Right. It’s not completely removed.
That reprieve, I imagine, has given some time to be able to plan, to think through. Okay, this is a possibility we might end up, one, either with chaos that just continues, or two, funding eventually being frozen, being withdrawn. Whatever the case, might be. So I’m curious, you know, it seems like actually this probably has shifted a lot of energy away from what these organizations and the county local entities that are saying, well, we have all these things that we need to be doing. These are our missions. And now we’re distracted by having to come up with are we going to have to solve a problem that is significant to us like this or are we not like what’s going on? But this reprieve at least is probably helping to game plan in a way that I’m guessing wasn’t there before.
[00:33:24] Betsy Dittenber: So one of the things we’re hearing is that Chaffee county is actually ahead of other communities in planning and assessing and creating some action steps to be able to remain resilient through this uncertainty. I think because of the great work of leaders in the past in dealing with fires. And also Covid, we sort of had a model ready to go to hit, you know, hit the on button on. And that was the leadership roundtable. And that’s that meeting that you mentioned where there were 70 plus people that attended. We already had that structure set. We were already collecting some of the information. We had started collecting information on federal dollars back in December from local nonprofit organizations. And what we’re hearing from some of our state representatives and contacts at the state level is that other communities are just starting to get there. And we’ve really been working in that space for a few months now of being prepared for potential changes.
I want to be careful not to fear monger in this. I think that that’s really critical as we navigate the situation that is probably going to be going on for quite a bit of time. One of the things that we’re looking at is because there is that uncertainty, we don’t know which grants might be turned off. We’re hearing from some folks, well, we got a memo saying our grant was turned off and they’re not going to reimburse us for past expense expenses on a Friday, on a Tuesday. Oh, just kidding. We’re rescinding that memo. Everything’s fine. And so there’s. It’s hard to react. And so one of the things that we’re focusing on reacting is understanding that regardless of your political position, regardless of anything that happens, even just looking at federal layoffs and what that means for accessing everything from river permits to preventing wildfires to just getting grants process through the bureaucratic system, there’s going to be some impacts. Absolutely.
One of the things that we want to ensure is that the safety net of services remains intact through these changes. What we’re learning is that actually some potential changes in state funding may even have a bigger impact on that safety net service. And so because we already have this vehicle to connect, discuss, document and get a picture of this landscape, we’re in a pretty good position to then do some local advocacy to the state of where we really need to direct resources as well. I think it’s a really a great point of power for our community that we’re able to come together and we’re able to be proactive about these things in a very fact based, calm way that is really making sure that we have resources going forward and we have that resiliency.
[00:35:59] Adam Williams: Does that come from donors? Does that come from us in the community? Ultimately, let’s say that federal funding goes away and that we need to learn how to be resilient within our own local community. I’m thinking a lot of times that comes through volunteer work and it comes from, you know, fiscal donations. Am I on track there? Are there other tools that we have that can help us be resilient and ultimately overcome any obstacle that might be ahead?
[00:36:26] Betsy Dittenber: Absolutely. I mean, you look at our community and I’m always shocked every time, you know, I sit down next to somebody, you know, at a restaurant or standing in line and realize just this great wealth of experience they have. I mean, we have brilliant minds, we have creative, we have dedicated people that you may not even realize what skill sets they’re offering to the community just in your daily interactions with them. But I really do believe that we have the capacity to overcome any challenge that might come to Chaffee Camp.
With just the magnitude of how federal dollars impact our community just dollar amount wise, and the breadth of how they’re spread out across so many different organizations, this is not a situation. Even minor fluctuations in the amounts that come to our community, there’s going to be reverberations from that. And what I’ve been sharing is the approach is going to be three pronged. One, we are going to have to get some fundraising, some dollars to support actual expenses, but we can’t fundraise our ways out of this exclusively. Volunteerism is going to have to be a big part of it.
Encouraging organizations to think about different ways of leveraging volunteers that maybe they, they haven’t considered before to make sure that they can maintain service capacity through changes and through this uncertainty is going to be really critical. And then also just changing the way we do business. And looking at, are there duplications of services, Are there inefficiencies Are there things that maybe we’ve always done a certain way in part because some federal grants have sort of required things to be set up a certain way? Are there different ways of going about doing this work that we could really maintain that capacity through creativity?
I do want to acknowledge that for many organizations, they’ve worked so hard to get to a point where they are professionals and in this space and they’re hiring people that have the training, that have the knowledge, the expertise to be in these roles, to offer these really critical services to our community. And the thought of having to go back 10 years to where it’s now volunteer based, we’re doing away with these massive gains we’ve made over the past decade. That is heartbreaking for people that have been working in the nonprofit sector here locally and really working to professionalize it and bring it up to a point where it’s on par with other communities. And so there’s an emotional component to this as well that, you know, we are encouraging people to think differently, but also acknowledging that this is, this is a sense of loss as well.
[00:38:47] Adam Williams: I think the opportunity to re envision the role maybe that each of us individually play actually in our community, but also as an organization, as a nonprofit organization in particular here to re envision what those possibilities are and maybe step back from the way it’s always been kind of thinking. But I appreciate you’re also sharing that. Well, it’s been that way for a reason. It’s because of the structure and the systems that have been in place. We remove those. What does it look like right now? This, this is difficult, it is concerning, it is chaotic. But in the future, what does this exercise in being able to re envision and think through? How do we become more self sustaining? How do we become whatever we need to be to be self reliant for the years ahead when maybe something unpredictable comes again?
[00:39:36] Betsy Dittenber: Absolutely. I mean, I’m trying not to be too Pollyanna about any situation, but that my brain is optimistic. And so I am always looking at ways of how are we able to grow and expand and back to that sort of entrepreneurship mindset of how can we make the best of the situation. And I think that those deeper connections, the deeper understanding of the landscape of services, and even just the awareness and knowledge of how funding works in our community are things that we can carry forward a message out to people. We’re feeling that there’s a lot of energy out there from people that want to do something, but they aren’t sure where to direct it. And that is absolutely in part because of all these chaotic messages we’re getting about funding here and funding there and what’s happening.
One of the things that people can do at any point if they want to increase the resiliency of the community, we have an emergency response fund at the Community foundation that is back to your question about what do community foundations do? Providing emergency response funding is a key role that community foundations play. You see the fires in Maui. The Community foundation was at the forefront of being able to accept donations and then distribute them out to people in need. Boulder fires, same situation.
And so that is always a place that if you want to increase capacity of the community, you can make a donation to the emergency response fund. We’ve been in talks about what those trigger points are, when that will be activated again, and to make sure that we have those safety net services and there are no gaps. So as individuals are affected by things that are happening on the really worldwide and government level, we know that they will have food on their table, they will have, you know, electricity. They will not freeze. We will have these, these pieces to catch people as they are personally impacted. So the emergency response fund is one place to direct donations.
Volunteerism. We have chaffeevolunteers.org is a website that the Community Foundation hosts. You can go on there and find all sorts of different volunteer opportunities. Things that maybe sometimes you think of volunteering as like, oh, I’m going to go read to kindergartners, which is a great opportunity. There’s so much more that you could do. One of our partner organizations just posted, they need technological help. They need somebody that understands technology and go and organize some things for them. And I bet that there’s somebody out there that could do that in a heartbeat and would be really fulfilling to them. Others, you know, planting seeds and weeding gardens. Those are always volunteer opportunities as well. Board members. I mean, we need brilliant minds carrying the leadership forward of many of these organizations, especially now. And that’s another good role that anyone.
[00:42:05] Adam Williams: Could play is the idea of volunteerism. And at this time, in particular, when you’re saying some of these organizations are having to step back from what they’ve built up, maybe needing to reassess and say, okay, we need more volunteer effort to help us remain stable with our programs and whatnot, is that essentially so that overhead for paid staff can remain minimized in a sense, to deal, you know, so funds can go further for the staff. That is essential. I hate to use that word, as opposed to, you know, volunteers are essential and everyone is in the process. But is that really what we’re saying if I ask that candidly?
[00:42:46] Betsy Dittenber: Well, I think overhead is not a dirty word and that that is something that I really try to preach in every conversation I can have about it. You know, you’re talking about, you know, admin expenses, overhead at certain points, you know, in the nonprofit history, suddenly that became something that nobody wanted to give to, nobody wanted to fund. And I think that that is a disservice. I mean, the copier, the electricity bill, the staff to run, payroll, I mean those are functions that you need for a well run business. A nonprofit organizations are businesses. They just have a different tax code. You need those things to be considered well run.
And so I think that that is something that we kind of need to change the mindset on is that just because those expenses are not sexy doesn’t mean that they’re not absolutely critical to doing this work and doing it well. As far as staff positions, I really hope that we don’t have to see massive layoffs across the nonprofit sector in this community. You look at the portion of employees, employees that are nonprofit employees in Chaffee county and I think it’s more significant than folks realize. And so that’s where focusing on those safety net services, if that does have to become a reality, we at least have a soft place for them to fall. You know, if we’re, if we’re looking at unemployment in the nonprofit sector.
[00:44:02] Adam Williams: You mentioned Chief evolunteers.org I’m saying that correctly. I want to make sure. Okay, so that’s how people can get involved. What would I do if I want to go to that site and figure out how can I help some nonprofit organization in our community? What do I see there?
[00:44:17] Betsy Dittenber: So we like to call it Tinder for volunteering because you can go on and you can use it as robustly as you want. If you want to create a profile, you can fan organizations that are causes that you like and the system will actually send you notifications about new opportunities, let you know if something new gets posted. Needs in the community.
Not everybody wants that sort of interaction. So you can also just go and browse and see an organization and then find out more information about what volunteer needs they have. Some organizations are set up where you kind of need to make that profile to then sign up for their opportunity just because they are. It helps them manage the volunteers in the back end, send out communications, track everything.
Some just have a link to their website where you can then call someone and get involved. So it really is kind of choose your adventure. As far as how much you want to engage with the system, it’s a pretty cool tool. Not every community has something this comprehensive for connecting potential volunteers with organizations. The community foundation, we’re grateful because we get grants and sponsors that cover the full cost of that technology. And then this year we’ve made it free for any nonprofit organization in Chaffee and the surrounding areas to be able to use.
[00:45:29] Adam Williams: How many nonprofits do we have here? Do we have a number on that?
[00:45:33] Betsy Dittenber: There’s. Well, the number’s a little vague because I think there’s over 300, last time I checked, registered nonprofit organizations. However, that includes HOAS family trusts. Okay. You know, 5164 organizations, which are more like membership based organizations. The number that we typically go with is there’s about 70 active nonprofit organizations that have a budget showing that they’re doing active services in the community. So if you look at organizations that have at least $5,000 in an annual budget, there’s about 70 of those, I would say about 40 of those are getting over that 10,000 mark.
And obviously those numbers fluctuate year to year, so it’s a moving target. And looking at the numbers, we hear that a lot that there’s too many nonprofits. And I always like to push back on that concept as well, is that nonprofits are doing amazing things for a community. They’re providing jobs, they’re supporting various passions, they’re creating a much more robust community. And you would never say, well, we have too many businesses in this community. And I think that somehow people put nonprofits in this separate category.
And what we need is we need more well run nonprofits, we need less poorly run nonprofits. And so I do like to encourage people to kind of change their mindset about that. It’s not that there’s too many. If you look at other communities, we’re about on par with the percentage of nonprofits per capita as pretty much everywhere else in the United States. And so there’s not anything unique going on here.
[00:47:08] Adam Williams: I’m trying to get my head into this idea, like figure out where somebody who would say that we have too many nonprofits. I’m trying to figure out where they might be coming from. How is that a concern? Because what you just mentioned, from the numbers, there’s a lot that are under $5,000, a lot that are under 10,000. We’re not talking about, you know, it’s not my tax dollars funding millions of dollars to something that I just like, you know, those ways of thinking that People often have, like you said, if we go back to the overhead idea and this concept that, well, I don’t want to give to a non profit because of, you know, 30% goes to overhead. I want it to be 150% of what I give go to the person who needs clean water, whatever the case is. Yeah.
[00:47:49] Adam Williams: Where are they coming from when they.
[00:47:50] Adam Williams: Say there’s too many nonprofits?
[00:47:52] Betsy Dittenber: I think there’s a sense of donor fatigue. I think when you get asked so many times people want to say yes. When you ask them something in general, it’s hard to say no. And when people’s personal giving can’t match every time they get asked, there’s a sense of, well, I shouldn’t be getting asked so much. And I think that that’s a role that the community foundation can play for those who want a more, you know, detailed strategy for how they’re investing in community. That’s something that we offer to donors as well. If you want to really target your gifts to high impact activities that you know are going to have you feel good at the end of the day and also be transformative, that’s a, that’s a role that we can play almost as a like philanthropy broker in the community.
[00:48:35] Adam Williams: That makes sense. I think, you know, when we, when we tend to give, it’s almost like when we’ve gone to a university and then for the rest of our lives they’re wanting us to give more money. And I’d have to be honest that one of my first thoughts is I gave you an awful lot of thousands when I was there as a student that when we are asked, it also can trigger this sort of internal thing of well, then I guess I’m a bad person. I can get that I guess mindset with your explanation of it. But that’s interesting because I think about, well, if people have started nonprofits and they have this passion and there is this creativity and they are out there to solve a problem and they are trying to be of use, then why shouldn’t they exist? Why shouldn’t they be supported in that?
[00:49:15] Betsy Dittenber: If they’re providing value to the community, if they are well run and they are contributing, absolutely. We could use more nonprofits that are falling into that category.
[00:49:24] Adam Williams: Betsy, I appreciate getting this opportunity to learn from you, learn about you and also then get to learn about this robust non profit community that we have here and the ways that we can help. So thank you very much for everything you’ve shared.
[00:49:35] Betsy Dittenber: Well, I’m glad to talk about it. I love talking about our community and people that are doing good work here.
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[00:49:45] Adam Williams: Thank you for listening to the We Are Chaffee Podcast. You can learn more about this episode and others in the show notes at wearechaffeepod.com and on Instagram @wearechaffeepod.
I invite you to rate and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. I also welcome your telling others about the We Are Chaffee Podcast Help us to keep growing community and connection through conversation.
The We Are Chaffee Podcast is supported by Chaffee County Public Health. Thank you to Andrea Carlstrom, Director of Chaffee County Public Health and Environment, and to Lisa Martin, Community Advocacy Coordinator for the larger We Are Chaffee storytelling initiative.
Once again, I’m Adam Williams, host, producer and photographer for the We Are Chaffee Podcast. If you have comments or if you know someone in Chaffee County, Colorado, who I should consider talking with on the show, you can email me at adam at wearechaffeepod.com.
Till the next episode, as we say at We Are Chaffee, “Share Stories, make change.”
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