Dear Community,

A Story of Impact
2022-2023

Dear Community,

A Story of Impact
2022-2023

Dear community,

This has been a big year for DPS Foundation, and that’s thanks to each of you. As the catalyst for community investments in schools, this support came at a critical time as our schools are overwhelmed by a number of challenges. These challenges are surmountable, but only when we come together as a community. We believe that when you remove the challenges a school faces, the focus can be on what it does best: teaching and learning. With that, we are so grateful to all of the individuals, foundations, and corporations that have stepped up to be donors and partners in this work the past year, as we collectively lift our public schools to bring our students and educators to a higher place of achievement. And this lift is indeed getting them to higher ground, so our community can thrive. See within for key highlights of this past year, made possible thanks to you, our community.

Richard Tagle
President & CEO

CLASS Framework

In its pilot year, DPS Foundation’s Theory of Change framework, CLASS (Community Leads and Students Succeed) has taken off! This framework implements a strategy to improve student and school outcomes across Denver public schools. The CLASS framework covers four quadrants: student & academic growth, life skills and social emotional learning, family engagement and supports and educator leadership development. All that we do, including in our initiatives and grantmaking, now falls into each of these four quadrants. This year, we’ve selected schools, the pilot cohort has been identified and corporations have been identified.

Thank you, CLASS partners for your support including BKV, Chevron, DaVita, Delta Dental, Janus Henderson, Liberty Global, PNC Bank, RevGen, TIAA and United Airlines. School partners include Bruce Randolph School, Cole Arts and Science Academy, Ellis Elementary, Pascual LeDoux Academy, Samuels Elementary, and Valverde Elementary.

CLASS Framework Key

Student & Academic Growth

Life Skills & Social Emotional Learning (SEL)

Family Engagement & Support

Educator Leadership Development

Initiatives

Afterschool Programs

Thanks to funder support, we provided comprehensive afterschool programming through Discovery Link at seven schools, at no cost to participants for at least 400 students! Community support also provided grants of up to $15,000 each for 10 schools to participate in Lights on AfterSchool, giving 2,000 students the opportunity to participate in afterschool enrichment!

Community Hubs

Community Hubs have hosted more than 80 financial literacy workshops during the 2022-2023 year, thanks to support from DPS Foundation donors! To date, Community Hubs have assisted 2,064 participants with basic needs assistance (food, clothing, rent assistance, baby essential items, and more)!

Launch Internship Program

The Career and College Success Launch Internship Program, which provides paid opportunities for students in grades 10-12, hosted 75 interns this Fall and 93 interns this Spring–the largest number of participants in the last four years of the program! This program helps young professionals become immersed in an industry and build their career and college portfolios, while contributing to the host company.

GRANTMAKING

A to Z Fund

This year we increased our classroom grants to teachers from $2,000 to $3,000 for A to Z Fund grants. This resulted in the awarding of $188,523 to 76 schools (and departments) during the last Spring cycle. This is the largest amount of funding we have ever granted in one cycle, by more than 60%!

Educators Take Flight

A new grantmaking program, Educators Take Flight (ETF), was launched in March 2023! Since then, DPS Foundation has approved travel for 23 educators to travel to 8 states for professional development opportunities. Of the educators who were able to travel thanks to ETF, 66% said they would have had to cancel their trip had DPS Foundation not provided a flight voucher. Professional development topics included Social Emotional Learning (SEL), racial justice, Whole Child learning, instructional practices, teaching children with exceptionalities, ethnic studies, bilingual education and more.

Events

Achieve Gala 2023 was a night where we put our students center stage and celebrated A World of Possibilities. New this year, the dinner menu was inspired by family recipes from East High School student, Eddie Jackson. Student entertainment included a special black light theater performance from Valdez Elementary followed by a powerful original poem by East High School juniors, Elias and Elijah. Thank you to all of our sponsors, including Presenting Sponsor DaVita, and gala co-chairs Dr. Shandra Wilson and George Sparks for making this night possible. Together we raised more than $910,000 in support of DPS students and schools.

Watch the poem performance here:

Back to Class Bash 2022 was a big success! We saw a huge transformation at our two school sites, Escalante-Biggs Academy and Pascual LeDoux Academy.

We are extremely grateful for all the work done by DPS Foundation, sponsors and volunteers today! A lot of this work wouldn’t get done before the beginning of the school year or it would take months for painters to come in. I know our students will be so excited to come into their classrooms!

Marta Rodenas

Principal, Escalante-Briggs Academy

Thanks to the generosity of our sponsors and donors, we raised $50,500 for DPS students!

Insiders Events and State of the Foundation – Through intimate events throughout the year we gather in person and virtually to keep the community informed and engaged on what’s going on in DPS and education as a whole. These topics often deep dive into initiatives that the DPS Foundation helps to support. Topics this past year have covered Community Hubs, an overview of DPS Foundation including a tour of a school site, an exclusive look at the district budget and a school tour of afterschool programs. We’ve also hosted convenings with other local funders on how we can collectively work together to help improve student safety.

Financials

Fiscal year ended June 30, 2023
The complete audited financial statements, with an unmodified opinion, are available upon request

Teacher and school leader growth & support – $2,157,772
Whole child, whole family – $1,474,467
Unique opportunities – $514,777
Workforce development – $356,137
Direct school support – $244,496

Total grants funded – $4,747, 649

Total Revenues for 2022-23 pie chart graphic

Contributions:

Family and grant-making foundations and organizations – $3,206,343
Corporate & corporate foundations – $818,994
Individuals – $623,137
Local government & agencies – $75,000
In-kind – $396,574

Special events, net – $825,160
Transfers from DPS – $313,000
Investment income, endowments – $12,669
Investment income – $391,985
Other income – $86

Total revenue, gains, and other support – $6,662,948

Program services & grants – $4,989,376
Management & general – $1,108,201
Fundraising – $897,508

Total expenses – $6,995,085

Change in net assets – -$332,137
Net assets, beginning of year – $12,113,430
Net assets, end of year – $11,781,293

Thank you to our hardworking team!

Richard Tagle
President & CEO

Traci Brooks
Operations Manager

Hannah Cooper
Development Specialist, Corporate Relations

Sara Hazel
Vice President of Development & Impact

Jen Mays-Krimmer
Grant Engagement Manager

Lauren Lindgren
Development Officer, Grants & Foundation Relations

Joslyn Lopez
Bookkeeper & Operations Assistant

Jenny Martin
Development Officer

Ashley Muramoto
Vice President of Marketing & Communications

Kimberly Reynders
Database Manager

Samantha Rogan
Events and Communications Specialist

Erin Shelby
Development Specialist, Annual Giving

Jennifer Struthers-Johnson
Finance Controller

Maia Parkin
Communications Intern

OFFICERS

Carmon Hicks
Chair, Chair of Executive Committee, Senior Managing Director, Jones Lang LaSalle

Jacqueline Molnar
Chair-Elect, Chair of Governance Committee, Community Impact Leader

Mary Clark
Treasurer, Chair of Finance Committee, Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor, University of Denver

Suzanne Kelley
Secretary, Regional Vice President of Human Resources, HealthOne

Rebecca Grant Zarret, Ed.D.
Educator, Consultant, Coach

EX-OFFICIO

Richard Tagle
Non-voting, President & CEO, DPS Foundation

Dr. Alex Marrero
Non-voting, Superintendent, Denver Public Schools

Xóchitl Gáytan
Non-voting, President, DPS Board of Education

Kim Allegretti
President, Venn Travel and Attorney, McCollum Crowley, Moschet, Miller & Laak

Marisa Carson, Ph.D.
Vice President of Talent Management, TIAA

Ashley Dimond
Director of Strategy, Stonebridge Companies

Jennifer Evans
Shareholder, Polsinelli

Joe Fortna
Executive Vice President, FirstBank

Dan Galemba
Vice President of Revenue Strategy and Operations, DaVita

Sylvia Hilario
Corporate Controller, Burgerville LLC

Michael V. Kapoor
Chair of Development Committee, Vice President, Majestic Realty Colorado

Vanecia B. Kerr
Chief Impact Officer, Mile High United Way

Tyler Loy
Chair of Audit Committee, Chief Financial Officer of The ONE Group

Matt Miller
Community Impact Leader

Jonathan Narlock
Senior Vice President, PNC Public Finance Group

Kelli Clifton Ogunsanya
Chief Operating Officer, Delta Dental of Colorado

Crystal Potter Rivera
Executive Director, Denver Health Foundation

Ruth Rohs
Senior VP Corporate Communications and Executive Director, IMA Foundation

David Salazar
Vice President of Sales & Marketing, Comcast

Kwame Spearman
Community Leader

Kristin Stork
Director of Strategic Partnerships, Denver 7

Nancy Walsh
Vice President of Experiences & Partnerships, Denver Museum of Nature & Science

DPS Foundation Team