2025 End of Year Letter

Hello KAF Partners!  As we close out the year, I want to extend my deep appreciation for your partnership, and your unwavering commitment to building healthier and more equitable communities. This has been a year of profound change, great resilience, and shared purpose—and we are grateful to be walking this journey alongside you.  

At the forefront for us this year, we experienced a heartbreaking loss with the passing of our founder, Board member and friend, Elana Amsterdam. Throughout her life, Elana demonstrated an unwavering passion for social justice – encouraging us always to work toward a more just world. To honor her memory, we remain steadfast in our commitment to eliminating inequities, ensuring people receive the health care they need and deserve, and doing our part to create a better, more inclusive world for all. Her spirit guides our work, and we carry her legacy forward with gratitude and resolve.

This year also brought the significant news of Rob Katz returning to Vail Resorts as CEO. We are excited for his leadership in this renewed role, and we look forward to the collaboration and alignment that his return brings to our shared commitment to mountain resort communities.

To share a bit about what we’ve been up to – the Katz Amsterdam Foundation and Charitable Trust contributed over $8,757,511 in 2025.  We made grants to 97 organizations in the following areas:

• Civic Engagement – $2,825,000
• Mountain Mental Behavioral Health – $3,204,500
• Social and Reproductive Justice – $1,400,000
• Youth Winter Sports – $1,328,011

It has been another year of growth and great momentum for our Mountain Mental Behavioral Health Network.

• Expansion of the KAF Network: We welcomed two new mountain communities into the KAF MBH Network – Big Sky, MT and Steamboat Springs, CO – we are now 11 communities strong! 
• Annual KAF Network Convening: Our May Convening was our largest yet—featuring meaningful conversations on Influential Storytelling and even a restorative sound bath session.  As always, the highlight was the connection and sharing within and across communities. Please save the date for next year’s Convening in Boulder, Colorado: May 4–6, 2026.
• Fall Forum: In November, nearly 100 mental and behavioral health professionals from across mountain communities joined us for a virtual session of learning, connecting, and sharing experiences.
• Community Visit Program: We launched our inaugural visit exchange program, bringing Summit County partners to Park City—and later, Park City partners to Telluride. These exchanges were energizing and deeply valuable, strengthening cross-community relationships and shared learning.

SMF Survey Project: Looking ahead, preparations are underway for the 2026 KAF Shared Measurement Framework Survey Project. All 11 mountain communities will be participating, creating one of the most robust data sets to date and helping inform strategic mental behavioral health efforts.

Across the country this year, it has been a wild ride – almost every day seems to bring new challenges and forces us all to find greater resilience. Despite the changes within KAF and externally, our focus has remained clear: deepen and strengthen relationships with our grantee partners doing critical civic engagement work in North Carolina and Arizona. Your leadership in strengthening democracy and community voice continues to inspire us, and we look forward to building upon these partnerships in the year ahead.  

• North Carolina: Amazing partners went to great efforts to protect votes cast in November 2024 and make sure every vote was truly counted.  The coordination and dedication were truly impressive!  And throughout the year, there are so many examples of strong local action efforts, including We Are Down Home mobilizing its membership base to engage in conversations and take actions around education cuts, rising health care premiums, and threats to our democracy.
• Arizona: We love the creativity in base-building at so many organizations. Our partners Chispa, AZ AANHPI, and Mi Familia hosted a community learning & resource event, “Let’s Taco’about Energy Bills” focused on rising energy costs which drew close to 100 community members.  And One Arizona is driving a statewide collaborative planning effort with other civic organizations to better coordinate efforts.

As our civic engagement work has evolved, so too has our grantmaking approach to reproductive justice. This year, we made the difficult decision to narrow our efforts to ballot measures and other democracy initiatives that advance reproductive equity.  

For the fifth year, in partnership with Vail Resorts, the Katz Amsterdam Youth Access to Winter Sports Program supported 21 organizations that will introduce over 2,500 kids to snow sports this coming winter.  Our $10 million commitment for this effort will conclude next year, and we are buoyed by how many great experiences it has helped create.

We continue to think about how we can be of better service to our mountain communities – we hope to share news about exploring new partnerships in the new year.  

Thank you for all you do—for your leadership, your dedication to community, and your willingness to continue pushing forward in difficult, complex, and uncertain times. We are honored to partner with you, and we remain committed to supporting your efforts to build stronger communities and help create the world we all hope to live in. 

With great appreciation,

Beth Ganz

Executive Director