Pictured above: Irene Rothgerber, a philanthropist and highly impactful donor of The Denver Foundation.
This is an excerpt from Chapter 2 of our book, “A Century of Impact: The Denver Foundation’s First 100 Years.” It offers a glimpse into the history of the foundation, highlighting our ongoing journey to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in our work.
The Denver Foundation honors donors’ wishes to dedicate their funds toward specific organizations or causes, and, in return, donors and fundholders make the foundation’s philanthropy possible. Over the years, for instance, donors have specified that their funds be used for medical care, children’s needs, or education. When donors provide more flexibility in their intentions, their legacy funds can meet the changing needs of the community. For example, rather than donating toward a specific hospital, which might close someday, a donor can dedicate funds more broadly for use in health care or medical research.
The Irene G. Rothgerber Trust was one such fund. Irene Rothgerber was born in Denver in 1924 and educated in the Denver Public Schools. Her father, Judge Ira Rothgerber, was on the founding board of the foundation in 1925. Like her father, Irene kept abreast of community issues. Throughout her life, she wanted to help those in need. This lifelong passion lived on after her death. In 1985, the foundation received $8 million from her estate to provide solutions for issues facing families in Metro Denver. Housed within The Denver Foundation’s permanent Community Endowment, now called The Fund for Denver, the original donation has contributed to more than $98 million in grants. Thousands of individuals and many nonprofits throughout Denver have benefited from Rothgerber’s act of kindness.
Other donors’ acts of kindness created unrestricted funds within The Fund for Denver, such as the remarkable gift of Frances Charsky. A successful investor and financier who, along with her husband, Louis, managed properties in the Denver area. Charsky loved to travel. She particularly enjoyed collecting antiques, jewelry, art, and more. Later in her life, she decided that her collections should go to good use, so she began talking to her friends and acquaintances about her legacy.
One of those friends was Beatrice Taplin, a former trustee and longtime, active fundholder of The Denver Foundation. Taplin and Charsky explored the options, and Charsky decided to leave her entire estate to the foundation. In 2003, after her death, the real estate was sold, and her valuable art, jewelry, antique and furniture collections were auctioned by Christie’s in New York City. The $30 million auction and real estate proceeds went directly to the foundation’s Community Endowment, making it the biggest gift to the foundation to date. This generous gift to the foundation’s unrestricted endowment has contributed to more than $92.7 million in grants. The funds are doing exactly what Charsky wanted: helping those in need in the city she loved.
The personal, respectful manner in which the foundation manages relationships hasn’t gone unnoticed by the charitably inclined residents of Denver. Through donors and fundholders, gifts endowed and otherwise, the foundation has grown its portfolio and assets and paved the way for further benefits to its community.
