2024 End of Year Letter
Hello KAF Partners! Here we are at the end of a tumultuous year, and we know all of you have worked so very hard. We hope there is some downtime and restful moments in your near future. We just wanted to share a little bit about what we’ve been up to this year – and thank you immensely for your efforts.
The Katz Amsterdam Foundation and Katz Amsterdam Charitable Trust contributed over $11.5M in 2024 in four grant cycles. We made grants in the following program areas to 101 organizations, including sub-grantees:
- Civic Engagement – $3.3M
- Mountain Mental Behavioral Health – $2.8M
- Reproductive Justice – $3.5M
- Youth Winter Sports – $2M
In our longest standing program area, four new communities joined the KAF Mountain Mental Behavioral Health (Mountain MBH) Network, as we decided to focus our efforts on mountain resort communities in the Western US. Our new communities are:
- Aspen, CO
- Jackson, WY
- Sun Valley, ID
- Telluride, CO
They join already very engaged mental behavioral health professionals from other resort communities – Crested Butte/Gunnison (CO), Eagle County (CO), Park City (UT), Summit County (CO), and Tahoe/Truckee (CA/NV).
The annual KAF Convening in Boulder, CO hosted over 70 from the Mountain MBH Network, where we examined data collected in each community to best understand trends – both what has been working and where focus is still needed. Community leaders shared innovative ideas in the MBH space – expanding insurance coverage for mental health, raising awareness in small communities through “green light” campaigns, and designing programs by and for the Latino/a/e community to best meet specific cultural needs.
Just a few weeks ago, KAF held our first ever Fall Forum – to create space for a mid-year connection of mountain communities and to launch a KAF MBH Network resource sharing project. Communities shared updates and had a great dialogue about “drink less” campaigns aimed at lessening the impact of much higher rates of substance misuse in mountain towns. We can’t wait to all be in person again in Boulder for the annual Mountain MBH Network Convening – May 13-15, 2025.
Through our civic engagement and reproductive justice programs, Katz Amsterdam supported many organizations with innovative ideas to engage communities and educate voters. We are awed at the sheer number of people you outreached, organized, and motivated to be active in their community and to take part in our democratic process.
Majorities in Arizona, Nevada, Montana and Missouri all voted to protect abortion access in their states, and the effort in Florida came so close. These wins build on those from the last couple of years – and highlight how the vast majority in our country want to secure the right to abortion and access to reproductive health care for ALL. I know there is already work planning for similar ballot efforts in 2026.
We appreciate the efforts of so many of our grantees through the Reproductive Justice Voter Collaborative, which toured across several cities to engage, organize and mobilize on RJ issues. We hope your work is building generations of activists!
The work of state-based partners in Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina was remarkable – identifying, organizing and educating voters. Groups are still working to understand the full impact of their efforts, but we have heard about tremendous collaboration – including Blueprint NC’s conference that hosted 82 organizations and 200 leaders, setting the stage for collective voter registration and election protection efforts. And, Arizona Native Vote’s Young People’s Program reached 10 high schools across the Navajo Nation engaging hundreds of new first-time voters. We are excited to learn more, and plan to visit partners in Arizona and North Carolina in February.
This past year, Katz Amsterdam joined the All by April Coalition – a group of philanthropists that committed to making civic engagement grants before the end of April. We intend to continue this goal in 2025 and beyond. Moving forward, we have decided to narrow the focus of our civic engagement program to Arizona and North Carolina.
In partnership with Vail Resorts, the Katz Amsterdam Youth Access to Winter Sports program supported 20 organizations that will introduce snow sports to almost 2,600 youth during the 2024-25 season. One of the new grantees last winter, Corner65, provided the opportunity for many kids to have their very first experience on snow, having just arrived in the U.S. from diverse corners of the world – including Congo, Ukraine, Nepal and Sudan. Leaders of Refugee Response shared that the program helped build camaraderie and self-confidence among the youth participants.
Internally, the KAF team has continued our team building work with an outside consultant to facilitate discussions about how to best practice racial equity together. We finalized specific racial equity commitments, in addition to our previously shared commitment statement, which are meant to guide our day-to-day activities and provide a way to measure our efforts. Our goal is to embrace diversity in our actions and be transparent about who we are and what we are supporting.
We understand that you may be nervous about what our collective future holds. Please know that we stand with you, and we look forward to supporting your efforts to build community and help create the world we all hope to live in.
May you get some rest and peace this holiday season,
Beth Ganz
Executive Director