“I remember the late 90s when The Community Foundation was really just a small outfit,” said Jamie Dawson, a Boulderite and an independent financial advisor with Raymond James. “Having known a lot of great people at the Foundation personally for a long time, I was helping them along when they were operating out of a single office space – from doing some rote computer work to upgrading their database. So it feels like a long-lasting partnership.”
Indeed, Dawson has since participated in Foundation committees.
“I served on two different NOVA award committees – education and civic,” he said. “Those were fantastic committees to be on. We designated awards to outstanding nonprofits based on a set of criteria toward innovative thinking in the nonprofit world. It was amazing to meet so many dynamic, creative people doing such great things in the community. I felt honored.”
“First and foremost, though, I have such high regard and admiration for the people who work at the Foundation,” Dawson continued. “I feel like I’ll do anything I can to support what they’re working to achieve. My support of the Foundation isn’t mission-specific – it’s toward helping them along in what they’re trying to accomplish throughout Boulder County.
“The Community Foundation itself does a great job of identifying mission-specific goals, such as flood relief. We were all impacted by last year’s flood to some degree – and to see what was happening to our friends and neighbors in Lyons, Jamestown and other places motivated me to help the Foundation with fundraising.
“I admire their ability to step up – be it floods or fires – and to very quickly meet the needs of the community.”
Dawson also sees The Community Foundation as a role model.
“The Foundation and the people in it are a tremendous asset to the community,” he said. “That’s what inspires me to partner, support and help them however I can. They have an ear to the ground, they know where the needs are.
“Contrary to our self-perception, we’re not a philanthropic community. There’s an assumption of affluence. So I really appreciate the Foundation’s dialogue through Culture of Giving, the mission of which is yet unfulfilled…but we’ve made progress, and we’re all learning what it means to have a responsibility to the community that has given us so much. We need to give back however we can, and The Community Foundation is doing just that.”
