About the Empty Stocking Fund Partners

The Gazette - As a corporate citizen, literally since the founding of Colorado Springs, The Gazette seeks opportunities to enhance the vitality and spirit of our community. Gazette Charities was established as a multi-dimensional, strategically targeted and outcome-oriented program to support the vital work of enhancing the quality of life and capacity of our community to meet the needs of the future.

Focus of attention is on strengthening civic life, encouraging self-sufficiency and self-responsibility, strengthening families and youth, sustaining major cultural institutions, and nurturing the environment through voluntary action.

In addition to the Empty Stocking Fund, The Gazette contributes more than $1.2 million in cash awards, advertising donations and other in-kind services each year to hundreds of nonprofit programs and fund-raising events.

The vision of The Gazette philanthropic program is to build meaningful community partnerships and connect citizens with opportunities to be engaged in the life of our community.

El Pomar Foundation - Philanthropy, whether institutional or personal, is viewed today as perhaps the best means of both restoring and enhancing the sense of individual commitment and responsibility necessary for our communities to prosper and care for those in need.

The same perspective was evident in Colorado more than 100 years ago.

In 1892, Spencer Penrose arrived in Colorado Springs and would invest his life and re-invest his wealth to provide opportunities for generations of Coloradans to come. In building for tomorrow, he established a living legacy, El Pomar Foundation.

The foundation's trustees have continued Penrose's commitment to the future. El Pomar has grown to become one of the largest private foundations in the Rocky Mountain West. Its programs and staff are active throughout the state, assisting nonprofits with their worthwhile activities and lending support and recognition to nonprofit leaders and their organizations, while also identifying and preparing their successors from the next generation of Coloradans.

Bruni Foundation - The Greek scientist Archimedes once said that if he had a lever long enough he could move the world. Such is the power of leverage, and the Bruni Foundation is pleased to add its support to effective programs designed to strengthen and leverage our community's ability to care for its citizens. The Empty Stocking Fund, which magnifies community support during the traditional holiday giving season, is an excellent example of such a program.

The Empty Stocking Fund has come a long way over the years, due primarily to the generosity and commitment of the Colorado Springs community together with strong, innovative support furnished by The Gazette and El Pomar Foundation. It is an ideal example of a how a community of diverse interests and outlooks can pull together, as successful communities throughout history have, to care for those in need.

Successful communities, like successful individuals and companies, invest wisely in their own futures. At the Bruni Foundation, we believe that the holiday season represents an excellent time to reflect on the future that we desire and to join with our community to invest in support of the Colorado Springs area. After all, together we can move our world.