Imprint 2022

imprint

An analysis of philanthropic giving in Jackson Hole.

Dec. 14, 2022

t i r i p s g n i v i g s ’ n o Jacks

NATALIE BEHRING

2 - IMPRINT • JACKSON HOLE NEWS&GUIDE, Wednesday, December 14, 2022

Examining philanthropy and its impact on the valley

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Y

ou might have noticed the big bills on the cover of this special section.

Although those trillion-dollar greenbacks are fake, they helped raise real money as part of a longstanding philanthropic community tradition.

Titled “Dream Big,” the evergreen was among 24 trees and three wreaths auctioned at the Soroptimist of Jackson Hole’s annual Christmas tree auction and brunch. One of the group’s biggest fundraisers of the year, the event raised nearly $70,000 to better the lives of women and children by supporting high school scholarships and local organizations like Community Safety Network, Hole Food Rescue, Curran-Seeley, Horse Warriors and the 4-H Citizenship Club.

This special section captures Jackson Hole’s generous spirit of giving while also raising provocative questions about how people decide where to put their money. On one end of the spectrum, there is giving to those who have yet to be born and on the other end, fundraising directly to

your neighbor to help them pay their medical bills.

We also explore how sportsminded giving makes it possible for more kids to participate in athletics.

While lifting up the community, philanthropy also brings up some uncomfortable questions.

On Oct. 14 a Jackson resident driving by a building under construction near the corner of Kelly and Vine Streets reported it had been vandalized with graffiti. The bulk of the building is designed to be a storage site for an art collection. Graffiti on the north-facing side of the cinder block structure asked: “Why does our well-being depend on the philanthropy of the rich??”

While we don’t condone vandalism, we did find that question thought-provoking and posed it to community members, our columnist Paul Hansen and philanthropic leaders. Find their answers inside.

Ultimately, with countless donors big and small, philanthropy plays a tremendous role in our community.

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IMPRINT • JACKSON HOLE NEWS&GUIDE, Wednesday, December 14, 2022 - 3

Effective altruism: Who cares?

A philanthropic trend attracting scrutiny and billions evades influence in Jackson Hole.

F

un fact: Jackson Hole has about as many nonprofits as work days in a year. Old Bill’s charity fun run reported 239 participating charities this year.

Uncomfortable fact: If you wanted each dollar you gave to do the most good for the most people, you’d never give to one of these Jackson Hole nonprofits.

So goes the logic of a 12-year-old social movement led by high-earning millennials known as “effective altruism,” which bills itself as the “scientific method” of social change.

“At the end of the day, it can be viewed as a rigorous academic exercise in how to allocate resources,” said Gary Trauner, executive director of Silicon Couloir.

For example, practitioners strive to treat people equally and help as many people as possible, according to the movement’s website, using “evidence and reason.” It’s as detached as it sounds. In the early years, effective altruists were known for scrimping on clothes and vegan food to save for donations to the global South. They donated kidneys to strangers.

But even as it has grown in popularity, thinking of effective altruism as an “academic exercise” is as far as most people take it; the trend is still just that. In 2019 the movement’s blog estimated 7,400 active members. Affiliate groups have popped up in cities or on college campuses, with none located in Wyoming.

Trauner said he sees similarities between effective altruism and his organization’s mission of “doing good by doing well and doing well by doing good.” Silicon Couloir encourages entrepreneurs to have a “triple-bottom line” business plan that considers the environment and community in addition to the traditional profit-maximization.

Effective altruists also are trying to use the free market to their advantage.

Some adherents follow the ethos of “earning to give,” or choosing a career that makes more money to maximize one’s donations, and thus their impact.

Community Foundation of Jackson Hole President Laurie Andrews said her organization is moving to more “datadriven work” that is, at a high level, similar to effective altruism’s emphasis on impact quantification.

But instead of abandoning the needs of a wealthy, yet unequal community, Andrews said her goal is to ask more questions with discrete answers like “how many children are you serving?

How many are English or Spanishspeaking?”

“We’re gathering the specifics of what’s going on in our community and having a baseline to go from,” she said.

“We haven’t had that baseline before for mental health, housing.”

In recent years meta-charities associated with effective altruism have become popular assessors of other global charities, calculating more or less how many lives are saved by each dollar donated. Consistent top-scorers in these assessments include organizations that prevent malaria and provide Vitamin A to children with poor health care. Organizations like GiveWell assess these interventions as costing between $3,500 and $5,500 for each life saved.

While far from that extreme, Andrews said her organization is “leaning forward” on areas that cut across interests and benefit a greater number of people in the community, like housing and mental health. Otherwise she refrains from prioritization.

“I think there’s some positives to [effective altruism] ... definitely when tackling something as big as malaria,” Andrews said, “it’s great to know who’s

By Sophia Boyd-Fliegel

ANDY EDWARDS / NEWS&GUIDE ILLUSTRATION USING PHOTOGRAPHS (L TO R) FROM WIKIMEDIA COMMONS AND ASSOCIATED PRESS

Influential individuals like Willam MacAskill, Sam Bankman-Fried and Elon Musk steer philanthropy in ways they have calculated will aid the most people for the least cost. Founder of “effective altruism,” MacAskill encouraged Bankman-Fried to earn more to give more and has texted Musk about his philosophy, which hasn’t gained traction in Jackson Hole.

cutting edge and who’s making a differLongtermism is hard to pitch to anyence. But I do think it falls short when in one who wants to see their money make a community like this. People need to do a difference. their own homework, get on a board, volA two-time Democratic candidate for unteer, attend the organization’s events.” the U.S. House, Trauner agrees that “big Some work in effective altruism is, in issues matter.” He compared the chalessence, giving homework. lenge of effective altruism to politics.

Spin-off organizations associated “The further up the food chain you with the movement include Giving What get towards federal office, it’s much less We Can, whose members pledge to tangible,” he said. ”I think it’s probably give at least 10% the same when it of their future incomes to giving.” come to the most While longeffective causes, termism supports “I think we sacrifice increasingly popand 80,000 concepts like Hours, which helps what inspires people ular reducing the risk “talented college pandemics and graduates” reif we’re not careful.” of climate collapse, search how their money in 80,000 hours of — Laurie Andrews more career can best effective altruCOMMUNITY FOUNDATION help solve the ism is also spent OF JACKSON HOLE PRESIDENT on curbing rogue world’s most neglected problems. artificial intelliLike preventgence and, in Elon ing malaria, some Musk’s case, coloof those big problems are considered nizing space in the name of helping fu“near-term,” including solving animal ture people. cruelty and lifting people out of poverty.

Adding to the movement’s controversy, Others are less tangible. its richest adherent recently took a public As the movement has grown in prom- and possibly criminal fall from grace. inence and billions raised — an estiLast year at 29, Sam Bankman-Fried mated $23 billion in August 2022 with was estimated by Forbes to be worth only 1% spent annually— donations $26 billion, a fortune made as CEO of have become increasingly supportive of the world’s biggest and most trusted “longtermism.” crypto currency exchange, FTX. The If you believe people matter equally path from MIT boy-genius to propriwhether they’re a neighbor or a strang- etary trader to cryptocurrency tycoon, er across the globe, the theory goes, the he said, was all to give his fortune away. same argument can be made for strangBankman-Fried became a poster child ers in the next millennia. of earning to give, with his crypto com-

pany FTX’s philanthropic arm having given away $140 million, The New York Times reported in October, with $90 million put towards longtermism causes.

But in November reports of incestuous and possibly fraudulent trading

by FTX to another of Bankman-Fried’s crypto trading firms led to a ruinous bank run. Over a million people lost about $8 billion combined and he lost all but $100,000, he told the Times on Nov. 30. The effective altruism movement that once lauded the entrepreneur has since removed links to the disgraced founder’s nonprofit. Authorities arrested him Monday in the Bahamas.

While legal consequences for Bankman-Fried have yet to play out in court, his dark turn inside effective altruism shows that those using “evidence and reason” to do good are still capable of wreaking havoc.

Philanthropies in Jackson Hole are likely to stick to the “local first” logic of maximizing social good.

“We can develop a model of leadership that takes into account natural resources and takes into account the communities that you’re in, and then I do think we can scale it,” Trauner said.

Even if effective altruism recovers from a bruised public image, the philosophical extreme of a cold, calculated kind of philanthropy is likely to remain uncomfortable and carry its own risk.

“I think we sacrifice what inspires people if we’re not careful,” Andrews said.

Contact Sophia Boyd-Fliegel at county@jhnewsandguide or 307732-7063.

4 - IMPRINT • JACKSON HOLE NEWS&GUIDE, Wednesday, December 14, 2022

Donors up spending on behavioral health As public funding falls short, philanthropy fills gap, leaving wealthy to shore up basic needs.

By Kate Ready

P

hilanthropic spending on health and human services is catching up with conservation, education and arts donations in Jackson Hole.

“Health and human services are a part of every conversation we’re having now,” said Laurie Andrews, president of the Community Foundation of Jackson Hole. “People really care about food insecurity, housing and mental health.”

It’s a trend that’s been accelerating among donors.

“I would have told you three years ago there was a group of people interested in those, but now it’s a much bigger group,” Andrews said.

Just as a global pandemic was shutting down Jackson Hole in March 2020, Andrews moved into her role as president of the Community Foundation, which manages over $100 million in assets. Established in 1989, the Foundation leads donors through the giving process and organizes the annual nonprofit fundraiser, Old Bill’s Fun Run. “People have always been attracted to conservation and land,” Andrews said. “During COVID there was this reaction of ‘Whoa, people need to have food, they need to have shelter, they need to be taken care of.’ So we didn’t necessarily see a dip in those key areas, but we saw donors going ‘We’ve been giving to conservation, education, arts and culture and we also want to give to

health and human services.’”

To better address behavioral health — a term that encompasses both mental health and substance use — the foundation is taking on a “very different role.”

After a survey last year, behavioral health kept coming up as a top need for the community, which led the foundation to create a strategic plan with priorities around strategic initiatives, impact investing and resource development.

“We hired a position that is housed here in the foundation,” Andrews said.

“So often we see reports, good ideas, but no one is owning the next steps.”

As of Sept. 1, Kate Schelbe is the first director of the new Behavioral Health Alliance, which will oversee and coordinate behavioral health efforts by Teton County Public Health, the Community Safety Network, St. John’s Health and others.

“We’re making sure there is crosspollination and all the different organizations are also coordinating efforts and complementing what each other is doing,” Andrews said of the alliance.

“We’re holding space for that collaboration to happen.”

Andrews also addressed one of the key questions in this Imprint edition, stemming from an act of vandalism on what some have dubbed an “art bunker” that asked, in sprawled graffiti, “Why does our well-being depend on the philanthropy of the rich??”

“People aren’t having their basic needs met,” Andrews said. “It feels as if we’re housing art over people. ...

Then philanthropy is expected to cover housing, clean water and behavioral health.”

Andrews said it’s time to “think long and hard” about how three indepenSee TRENDS on 5E

BRADLY J. BONER / NEWS&GUIDE

Community Foundation of Jackson Hole President Laurie Andrews says philanthropic support for health and human services is “part of every conversation we’re having now.”

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TRENDS

Continued from 4E

dent sectors — public, private and philanthropic — are supporting each other — or aren’t.

“We’ve gone from 80% of our funding coming from the state to about 29% from the state over the last seven years,” said Sarah Cavallaro, executive director of Teton Youth and Family Services.

One of her organization’s jobs, classified as essential services during COVID, was to pick up children having suicidal thoughts from the hospital and then provide them with the services they needed.

At the same time, labor costs are increasing to keep Teton Youth and Family Services fully staffed to respond to such critical needs.

“We’ll be increasing our starting pay from $16 an hour to $25 an hour for our 50 staff, with no extra state funding,” Cavallaro said.

“We have to because we can’t keep staff. Right now at Red Top Meadows, a 14-bed residential treatment facility, we can only take six kids because that’s the staff we have. Red Top has a waitlist.”

Andrews sees public funding falling short of serving basic needs.

“The public funding is not supporting our community need,” Andrews said. “So that means we’re relying more on philanthropy for basics.

If one sector is being asked to really compensate for the other, it can’t for forever. Philanthropy can’t cover what’s not happening in the private and public sector.”

Andrews, like many, is concerned.

“Giving trends trend exactly to the stock market,” Andrews said. “Philanthropic dollars aren’t as flowing as they were a year ago. And having a lot of power in the hands of a few can feel really tenuous. It makes it very hard on nonprofits. If their budget goes up

IMPRINT • JACKSON HOLE NEWS&GUIDE, Wednesday, December 14, 2022 - 5 or down by 5%, that’s a big swing.”

Andrews posed a few solutions for how the public sector could step in to better share the load so help with meeting basic needs wouldn’t be in the hands of the wealthy.

“The government should be incentivizing building affordable workforce housing,” Andrews said. “When you look at the ways that you really can offset those people that are taking advantage of being in Wyoming by also allowing people to have an opportunity to work here.”

Andrews also sees the government’s role as one that provides the resources after a community has decided what’s important to its members. To use a local example that’s gaining traction, the push for clean water.

“For example, we have an organization here that’s focusing on clean water, but we then need the town and county to show up with the staff and resources to say this matters to us.”

Looking ahead, Andrews forecast some philanthropic trends gaining popularity in the valley.

One is the way people give and the other is how they’re determining philanthropic efficacy.

“I think that there are donors who are really open to different ways of giving, low-interest loans and impact investing,” Andrews said. “Donors are interested in different vehicles.”

Donors also are really tracking impact.

“They want to see how their donations are effecting a change, affecting a population, addressing a need, and they want measurements and they want data,” she said. “The next generation of donors, they really want to see how their donations are moving the needle.”

Contact Kate Ready at 732-7076 or kready@jhnewsandguide.com.

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6 - IMPRINT • JACKSON HOLE NEWS&GUIDE, Wednesday, December 14, 2022

Supporting student-athletes is Jackson’s way When it comes to giving for local sports, Jackson Hole has no shortage of generous donors.

By Mark Baker

T

he Jackson Hole Lacrosse Club might be a foreign concept to most communities around the nation, but not here, said Dave Madeira, the club’s executive director.

“In my experience, working in lacrosse in different parts of the country, our program is unique in the country,” Madeira said. “But it’s not unique in Jackson Hole.”

That Madeira’s job is a full-time paid position tells part of the story.

Jackson Hole takes its sports seriously. And giving to those organizations, whether it’s the lacrosse club, or Jackson Hole Youth Soccer, or Jackson Hole Youth Hockey, or the Jackson Hole Ski and Snowboard Club, or local high school sports is something that sparks a similar earnestness.

Because of generous donors the Jackson Hole Ski and Snowboard Club was able to grant $100,000 in need- and merit-based scholarship awards to 95 athletes last winter.

“Accessibility is such a big part of our culture,” said Grace Tirapelle, the Ski and Snowboard Club’s student-athlete support program director. The donations are “so appreciated, and we’re so grateful.”

As Jackson Hole’s population grows, more and more kids from underrepresented communities are provided various pathways to join the club, learn how to ski and snowboard and maybe even become a top competitor.

“This sport is accessible to anyone who wants to play in our community,” Madeira said of the nonprofit lacrosse club, which over the past 13 years has not only fielded highly competitive boys and girls high school teams but 14-and-under, 12-and-under, 10-and-under and 8-and-under boys and girls teams.

That doesn’t mean it’s free to the student-athletes.

It still costs high school players more than $800 a season to play. That covers coaching salaries and travel fees, among other expenses, Madeira said. The Jackson Hole boys team plays in an Idaho league and the girls in a Montana league because of a lack of lacrosse

LATHAM JENKINS / CIRC DESIGN

The Jackson Hole Black girls club lacrosse team celebrates its first-ever championship last spring in Helena.

teams elsewhere in Wyoming.

The club also provides scholarships, though, thanks to donations, Madeira said.

“It drops the barrier to entry, and it makes the sport accessible to anybody who wants to play,” he said.

And donations pay for things such as the $3,600 Hi-Pod camera the lacrosse club obtained last year so the athletes have game film that’s put on Hudl, the popular video analytics tool that helps high school athletes to be recruited by college programs.

When it comes to sports at Jackson Hole High School and Jackson Hole Middle School, activity fees per sport are $50, but then there are equipment and travel costs most student-athletes are expected to pay.

And that can be more than some families can afford.

In October the Jackson Hole Daily reported that a new fund, the Jim and Becky Rooks After School Activities Fund, was established to support students by covering some of those costs.

See ATHLETES on 7E

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8/9/22 11:38 AM

IMPRINT • JACKSON HOLE NEWS&GUIDE, Wednesday, December 14, 2022 - 7

We Teach Kindness

KATHRYN ZIESIG / NEWS&GUIDE

ATHLETES

Continued from 6E

The goal of the program is to promote student participation in arts, sports or educational activities. The program offers up to $200 per student for each activity.

“Mom and Dad strongly believed that if we were involved with school activities — sports, clubs, plays — we would stay out of trouble, be exposed to positive peers and role models, and ultimately learn the skills that would lead to success,” Jackson Hole Middle School teacher Michelle Rooks said of her parents’ passion for community engagement. “We know that Mom and Dad would want all students to be able to sign up, join, and participate fully in TCSD extra-curricular activities.”

Along with her siblings — Mikel, Rob and Jim Rooks — all four Rooks children grew up participating in

sports and other activities at Jackson Hole High School.

Giving back is what it’s all about, Madeira said.

Some donors to the lacrosse club give money through their businesses, some through the community’s biggest annual fundraiser, the Old Bill’s Fun run, but all “just care about the community and love the sport,” Madeira said. “And we’re always just extremely grateful for those people. Even some of our coaches donate generously.”

Most families realize how giving undergirds the team.

“It enables us to help other kids play, but it also keeps our fees down,” Madeira said. “Otherwise we’d have to go to a volunteer model. Most of our coaches are paid. And we take pride in the level of coaches we provide.”

Contact Mark Baker at 732-7065 or sports@jhnewsandguide.com.

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Mara Mayer, 5, holds out her hand to high-five her little sister, Nora, as she crosses the finish line during the 2021 Betty Woolsey Classic at Trail Creek Ranch in Wilson. The Jackson Hole Ski and Snowboard Club raised $100,000 last year to provide partial scholarships to 95 kids, lowering the barrier to entry for expensive snow sports.

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8 - IMPRINT • JACKSON HOLE NEWS&GUIDE, Wednesday, December 14, 2022

Local GoFundMe donations are leaner for Latinos Crowdfunding platform sees a disparity in donor generosity linked to visibility.

By Miranda de Moraes

B

enjamin Sánchez Nieto — a Jackson construction worker from Tlaxcala, Mexico — was stabbed inches from his heart when returning home on Dec. 30, 2020.

Tommy Rupp — retail director of Teton Gravity Research — suffered spinal injuries while mountain biking on Aug. 25.

Both men were airlifted to Idaho Falls for intensive emergency care.

Both had GoFundMe fundraisers started in their names to pay weighty medical bills and keep them afloat.

Massive medical bills are responsible for 66.5% of all bankruptcies in America, according to GoFundMe’s 2021 annual report.

Nieto received 311 donations; Rupp received 604 — almost double.

Nieto raised $34,987; Rupp has raised $101,900 so far — almost triple.

GoFundMe is a prominent crowdfunding platform in Jackson. Compared with New York County (home to Manhattan), GoFundMe donors in Teton County give two times more per capita.

“For one corner of the least populated state in the country, that’s a remarkable amount of generosity,” said Jeff Platt, communications manager for GoFundMe. “I’m not surprised.”

It’s also worth noting that Teton County leads the nation in per capita income at $318,297 — a 40% increase from 2020.

When it comes to fundraising on GoFundMe.com, campaigns for white Jacksonites have historically received more and greater donations than those for Latino community members.

Experts in the philanthropic sector in Jackson Hole say the reason is not racism, but visibility.

Voices JH, the local nonprofit that works to amplify the voices of immigrant groups in Teton County, attributes the donation disparities to disproportionate publicity.

The two most successful GoFundMe fundraisers for Latino residents that Jordan Rich, director of development and operations at Voices JH, could name were for the families of Nury Hernandez and Hector BedollaZarate. Hernandez is a single mother of two whose house, a double-wide trailer where she had lived with her family for 12 years, burned down.

Bedolla-Zarate, a 22-year-old Jackson native, died while floating with friends on Snake River on the Fourth of July.

The Hernandez family raised $42,000 while the Bedolla-Zarate family raised $22,950.

“I would attribute their success more to the news coverage they got than to the cause itself,” Rich said.

“There have been other really tragic situations that I feel like have not been as successful because there hasn’t been enough coverage.”

For example, Jackson resident Marco Quintos created a GoFundMe listing to raise money for the transportation and funeral expenses of a woman from Tlaxcala who died on Sept. 8 in California. With no publicity, only four people had donated a total of $160 in the past 10 weeks.

Local experts in the philanthropic sector agree the first step to raising money is making the need known.

“The number one reason people do not give is because they are not asked,” said Katharine ConoverKeller, who served as president of the Community Foundation of Jackson Hole for 14 years. “People tend to respond to the people that they know.

If they don’t hear about it, they won’t respond.”

Word of mouth, news stories and sharing of GoFundMe campaigns via social media is what lands potential donors on the site.

“I don’t think people go to GoFundMe looking for a cause to sup-

port,” said John Goettler, the former president of the St. John’s Health Foundation. “Your kids come home from school and say, ‘Hey, did you hear about the GoFundMe campaign for so and so.’”

Goettler didn’t realize, for example, that Friends of Pathways had launched a GoFundMe in November that has raised more than $7,000 for grooming over 12 miles of trail along Cache Creek.

Part of the problem is that the platform is less known among Gen X and Boomers.

“People of my generation are not as familiar with GoFundMe,” ConoverKeller explained. “We’re used to writing checks.”

Online donation sites are not the first route older donors would consider, even though Conover-Keller promised many know how to use the internet, “thank you very much.”

“GoFundMe projects I learn about because people email me,” she said.

“We have to be reminded of GoFundMe because it’s not going to be our first way of giving.”

All local organizations and community members have the ability to break down information silos, in order See DONATIONS on 9E

“The number one reason people do not give is because they are not asked.”

— Katharine Conover-Keller FORMER COMMUNITY FOUNDATION BOSS

RYAN DORGAN / NEWS&GUIDE

RYAN DORGAN / NEWS&GUIDE

After Benjamin Sánchez Nieto suffered a near fatal attack, 311 community members donated to his GoFundMe.

Sánchez Nieto was stabbed in the chest outside of his Jackson apartment the evening of Dec. 30, 2020. After he was airlifted to Idaho Falls for care following the near-fatal attack, a GoFundMe raised $34,987 to help with his medical bills.

IMPRINT • JACKSON HOLE NEWS&GUIDE, Wednesday, December 14, 2022 - 9

KAYLA RENIE / NEWS&GUIDE

Friends and family of homeowner Nury Hernandez, third from right, watch as Jackson Hole Fire/EMS responders hose down her home at Evans Mobile Home Court on April 18, 2021.

A GoFundMe campaign raised $42,000 for the family.

DONATIONS

Continued from 8E

to serve the needs of all community members, across ethnic lines. It is through reaching the various corners of the community that GoFundMe listings can receive the most support.

“I think there are lots of donors here who care about [the Latino] community, who do support them in the ways they know about,” ConoverKeller said. “They don’t always know about the other needs.”

She cited the nonprofit First in Family, which offers four-year scholarships to high schoolers in Teton County who do not have a family history of college education. The Jackson Hole chapter, she said, has received substantial financial support from white and non-white community members alike, in seeking funding though the Community Foundation.

This spring local donors sponsored higher education for 12 graduating seniors.

While GoFundMe listings for certified 501(c)(3) nonprofits are tax deductible, those for individuals or businesses are not. Donors are drawn to GoFundMe for that reason, though.

Fundraisers for individuals tend to be more poignant, as donors know exactly to whom their money is going and how it will be used.

“I think people want to give directly to the family in question, and not just on operations and overhead,” Conover-Keller said. “With GoFundMe you know exactly who you’re giving to.”

Nonprofits must adhere to a number of IRS regulations, which can muddy the money flow from donor to cause. Giving to an individual on GoFundMe allows for greater financial transparency, and also provides a fundraising platform for folks who don’t qualify for financial assistance programs. The site does take a transaction fee of 2.9%, plus 30 cents, from each donation.

“You see it mostly used by immigrants who don’t have health insurance, who have insane medical bills,” Rich said. “It’s one way that they can generate community support.”

SCREENSHOT OF WEBSITE

Tommy Rupp, the retail director of Teton Gravity Research, suffered spinal injuries while mountain biking on Aug. 25. A GoFundMe has raised more than $100,000 to help in his recovery.

To garner more and greater donations on GoFundMe for Latino community members, greater publicity across demographic lines in Jackson Hole is vital, because, after all, generosity seems to be a fundamental qual-

ity of Jacksonites.

“Jackson Hole is an isolated place, an expensive place, that requires a commitment to live here,” ConoverKeller said. “It gives such an intensity to our days and how we approach

philanthropy: It’s ours and we need to take care of it.”

Contact Miranda de at 732-7063 or jhnewsandguide.com.

Moraes mdm@

10 - IMPRINT • JACKSON HOLE NEWS&GUIDE, Wednesday, December 14, 2022

The kindness of neighbors backs up state spending

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

T

LOOKING FORWARD TO A BRIGHT & ARTFUL YEAR AHEAD.

he graffiti on an East Jackson revenue, the Legislature started cutbuilding reads: “Why does our ting mental health spending. Those well-being depend on the phi- cuts went deeper in 2016 with the enlanthropy of the rich??” ergy industry downturn and again in I would like to suggest an answer 2020 with the pandemic. At the Wy— it is because we live in Wyoming. oming Boys’ School — the state-run Increasingly, Teton County is on its facility that houses 12- to 21-year-old own and cannot count on the state of boys — service has deteriorated. ReWyoming to adequately support the liance on physical restraints and the basic services most states provide. use of solitary confinement are inWhile our state is woncreasingly common. Cuts derful in many ways, we are to staffing, programs and near or at the bottom of the infrastructure do not allow barrel among U.S. states for the level of care that when it comes to fundwas provided just a few ing social services, menyears ago. tal health and basic health Wyoming has not supcare. It is getting worse. ported basic health serFor example, Teton vices for low-income resiYouth and Family Services dents, even when it would is an essential and free sernot cost the state. For over vice for Teton County. For a decade Wyoming has re45 years it has been servfused to expand Medicaid Paul Hansen ing kids and families in criservices to low-income sis. Over the past 10 years residents. This is entirely it has experienced significant declines paid for by the federal government. in state funding. Ten years ago Wyo- We have walked away from over $1 ming provided 80% of the depart- billion in federal aid. ment’s budget, but now provides only Medicaid expansion would help 30%. Fortunately, through private our low-income neighbors statewide. philanthropy and modest funding in- It would support our community hoscreases from the town of Jackson and pitals. It would provide jobs and imTeton County, it is able to continue to prove the state’s economy. South provide this vital service.

Dakota voters just approved a ballot The rest of the state is not so lucky. initiative expansion of Medicaid in In 2013, facing the loss of fossil fuel See COMMON GROUND on 11E

Common Ground

Albert Bierstadt, Winter Dawn— detail, c. 1890. JKM Collection®, National Museum of Wildlife Art. 406949

Connecting generosity to the community since 1989

cfjacksonhole.org

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IMPRINT • JACKSON HOLE NEWS&GUIDE, Wednesday, December 14, 2022 - 11 The Community Foundation has a great curriculum of courses it offers Continued from 10E on nonprofit governance and mantheir state, because their elected of- agement. As a response to our doficials would not act. Wyoming is the nors’ generosity, taking these courses only one of 11 western states to not should be standard for nonprofit staff expand Medicaid. and board members. They are inexSince Teton County is not able to pensive, effective and fun. count on the state of Wyoming, we New data on personal income are indeed fortunate to have such a from the 2021 U.S. Bureau of Ecoremarkable tradition of philanthropy. nomic Analysis indicates that Teton With a strong community foundation, County’s average income is over Anne Donated 10% of Her Commissions on a large number of high-net-worth $318,000 — highest in the nation. philanthropists According to $55M in Sales to Local Nonprofits in 2022. and a love of local econoplace, there are mist Jonathan few communities Schechter, our with as robust an median income A Teton County independent secis $55,000. That tor as this special 50% earn real estate sales tax means valley. more and 50% This year earn less than would easily raise the Community $55,000.

This Foundation of tells us that a $20 million a year.

Jackson Hole’s relatively small Old Bill’s camnumber of very paign brought in high earners acalmost $20 milcount for the lion — another high average inrecord. The founcome. dation reports over $35 million in gifts Tourists would pay 60% of a sevand over $33 million in grants. It man- enth cent of sales tax, which could be ages another $96 million in fellowship, used to fill the social service spenddonor-advised, designated and schol- ing gap. A real estate transfer tax on arship funds. No one seems to know home values over $1.5 million would Anne Fish the total given to our charities each raise from $15 million to $20 million Engel & Völkers Jackson Hole year, but it must be in the neighbor- every year. It is the only way we will Real Estate Advisor, GRI, ABR hood of $200 million. ever dig out of the workplace housing With this much revenue being do- shortage so we can fill essential serWY | ID nated, we need to do everything we vice positions. can to assure that this vast support is We have no state income tax, so we 307.413.1159 used as well as possible by every non- can and should do this. Without much anne.fish@evrealestate.com profit. All nonprofit groups have re- state support, we need to adopt effiannefish.evrealestate.com porting requirements on their IRS 990 cient ways locally to raise revenue to forms. Groups like Charity Navigator, provide essential community services GuideStar and Consumer Reports rate and house the people who provide many charities. However there are ex- them. amples of nonprofit boards and organizations not operating according to Columns are solely the opinion standard best practices. Ambiguity of their authors. Contact Paul via columnists@ on the respective roles of a board and Hansen 412411 jhnewsandguide.com. staff is a common flaw.

COMMON GROUND

GIVING 10% TO WHAT MATTERS

IMAGINE The Impact!

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12 - IMPRINT • JACKSON HOLE NEWS&GUIDE, Wednesday, December 14, 2022

How to vet nonprofits

before you give Using free research tools and a charity’s own documents, you can make a more informed decision about giving.

C

harity solicitations are as much a part of the holiday season as decorations. If you give, it’s a good idea to know what the nonprofit organization does with your money. Here’s one way: Use ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer, a tool for researching the financial details of nonprofits.

Organizations that receive a tax exemption from the Internal Revenue Service and take in at least $50,000 a year must file an annual report, called a Form 990, which can serve as a guide to how they operate and what their programs are. Nonprofit Explorer summarizes the financial data in 990 forms and also provides links to the documents. While not a complete picture of an organization’s activities, the form does provide insight on how a nonprofit operates. Here are a few things to look for when deciding whether to make that contribution:

Program Spending

Charities often tell donors that a certain amount of every dollar goes directly to “programs,” which usually mean direct services provided to the recipients of their assistance (the homeless, for example, or children). But read the fine print, says CharityWatch: Sometimes these statements say “of every dollar spent” and sometimes they say “of every dollar donated.” Those are two different numbers, as ProPublica’s reporting on the Red Cross demonstrates. The Form 990 not only lists the totals for money coming in and going out, but in Part III (often the second page of the completed form, as with the 2013 form for the New Yorkbased Coalition for the Homeless), the group also describes the program services that it performed, how much they cost and indicates whether there were any significant changes to existing programs. If you’re unsure about exactly what a charity does, Part III can help clear up that uncertainty, but it is also the place where charities promote their accomplishments.

Amount Spent on Professional Fundraisers

Charities rely on volunteers to ask for donations, but many also pay for-profit companies to help them raise money via telephone and mail solicitations. In its investigation of “America’s Worst Charities” the Tampa Bay Times and the Center for Investigative Reporting identified nonprofits that raise millions via professional fundraisers and “regularly give their solicitors at least two-thirds of the take.” One organization, the Committee for Missing Children in Lawrenceville, Georgia, paid its fundraisers nearly 90% of the $27 million it raised during the decade the report examined.

The more that charities spend on fundraisers, the less money they have for direct program spending — the reason the organizations exist. On a 990 form look for this amount on line 16a of the first page, labeled “professional fundraising fees.”

Executive Compensation

Charity organizations are also required to list officers, directors, trustees, key employees and the five highest-paid employees of the organization — and the amount each person was paid — in Part VII of the 990 form. Because of this public disclosure, executive salaries are sometimes contentious, as recently highlighted during a congressional hearing on Planned Parenthood. (In 2013 the organization’s president, Cecile Richards, was paid $590,928 in salary, retirement contributions, bonuses and other pay.) But a high salary alone isn’t a red flag. The IRS requires only that compensation is “reasonable,” or what a similar position would be paid by a similar organization. A Charity Navigator study of charity CEO compensation noted that, unsurprisingly, “as the size and to some degree the complexities of running a nonprofit increases, so does the salary of the institution’s top executive,” recommending that donors compare an organization’s executive salaries to other charities for a better assessment.

The study also points out that organizations that show $0 paid to executives may also warrant a closer look. “There are very few individuals that can afford to work full-time managing complex, multi-million dollar organizations without receiving any compen-

sation.” There may be legitimate reasons for this, or the compensation figure may have been misreported to the IRS. According to Ray Madoff, director of the Boston College Forum on Philanthropy and the Public Good, this could also be caused by a nonprofit outsourcing staff and management duties, essentially hiding the individual salaries of an organization by reporting it within an aggregate contractor payment. She points to Fidelity Charitable, the second-largest nonprofit in terms of donations: Although officers are listed in Part VII of the form 990, all salaries are listed as “$0*”, with the asterisk noting that “all services are provided to Fidelity Charitable” by FMR LLC, the parent company of the for-profit Fidelity Investments. A Fidelity spokesperson confirmed simply that “Fidelity Charitable does not report individual salaries because it does not itself pay any salaries” and that “it hires FMR LLC […] to provide a wide range of services.” They also point out that the charity “does, of course, report the fees paid to service providers, including FMR LLC.” According to Schedule O of the 990, FMR received over $32 million in “contractor compensation” from Fidelity Charitable.

Beyond the 990

While the 990 can help you root out scammers and gross underperformers, it does not tell you how effectively money spent on programs translates into results. In the words of the Foundation Center’s Luz Rodriguez, “some not-so-great charities are just really good at finances.” To examine a charity’s reputation in its target community, Rodriguez suggests looking through its social media for positive testimony or service complaints. GreatNonprofits. org aggregates crowd-sourced reviews of nonprofits. GuideStar has experts in the field weigh in on their favorite nonprofits on Philanthropedia.

In the absence of robust data on results, GuideStar CEO Jacob Harold said donors should look for groups that set out their work and measures of success with clarity and specificity. “Clarity is all too rare in the nonprofit sector,” he said. “Look for groups that clearly articulate the solution rather than just talking about the problem.” He recommends GiveWell, one of the more quantitatively rigorous nonprofit watchdogs, which weighs charities by lives improved per dollar spent. Its list is far from exhaustive, but incorporates the concept of scalability — it selects groups that have “room for more funding,” and can do the most with your money

Giving Overseas — One Thing To Remember

Sometimes your charity of choice’s mission could cause more harm than good by having unintended consequences for the recipients of its donations.

This is particularly relevant to “gift-in-kind” donations — those old clothes, shoes, toys and food that well-intentioned Americans send in bulk to the developing world. These influxes of free second-hand goods can undercut and destroy local industry. Indigenous manufacturers are priced out of the market, and the community is denied the growth benefits of textile and food processing industries that placed countries like Mexico and South Korea on the development ladder. Countries like Kenya and Haiti are having this first rung broken right under their feet by good intentions.

Charity evaluators like GiveWell prioritize health and infrastructure sectors instead, in which nonprofit interventions have an exponential effect on the local economy by attacking the problems of poverty at their core. They also recommend GiveDirectly, a direct cash transfer charity with a 90% program-to-overhead cost ratio that consistently ranks among GiveWell’s top performing nonprofits. GiveDirectly sends donor money straight to the poorest families in Uganda and Kenya through mobile banking.

The mobile route ensures that the entire sum reaches the target family, and is even safer than in-kind donations, which can be siphoned off to the black market.

As a nonprofit, ProPublica also files Form 990; you can see the most recent one via the Nonprofit Explorer database.

IMPRINT • JACKSON HOLE NEWS&GUIDE, Wednesday, December 14, 2022 - 13

AT GATEWAY CHURCH,

we’re all about people!

We love our community, and we love people. From encouraging messages and fun children’s ministry to small groups and outreach, our heart is to show God’s love to everyone!

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“Why does our well-being depend on the philanthropy of the rich?”

Christmas is the season of joy, of gift-giving, and of families united.

-Norman Vincent Peale

Comments curated from the News&Guide’s Facebook page

Vandals spray-painted a question on a building in Jackson this fall: “Why does our well-being depend on the philanthropy of the rich??” We asked readers for their reactions to this question. Here are some of their answers shared via our Facebook page.

-Bradly J. Boner

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2 02 2 oldbills.org

TOTAL DESIGNATED: $14,951,322

TOTAL MATCH: $5,005,979

TOTAL # OF DONORS

4,193

TOTAL RAISED IN 2022:

$19,957,301

GRAND TOTAL RAISED IN 26 YEARS:

$228,714,344

A program of the Community Foundation of Jackson Hole

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