As the Daniels Fund closed its 25th year this past December, Philanthropy Roundtable is celebrating its dedication to improving the lives of men, women and children in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming through its grants and scholarship programs. Our first article told the story of donor intent lost and then recovered.
The second piece, an interview with Bo Peretto, the Daniels Fund’s senior vice president of legacy and donor intent, took the story from recovery to celebration. As Peretto noted, the goal is now not only to protect Bill Daniels’ intent but also to project his values and principles into the future.
This third installment describes how grantmaking at the Daniels Fund continues to honor and confirm the values and philanthropic intent of its founder. Bill Daniels’ many interests were molded by the challenges and successes he experienced in his own life, and those he witnessed in the lives of others. By staying consistent with his values and true to his mission, his foundation has improved outcomes and overall impact on its grantees and the communities and individuals they serve.
It takes only a brief look at the website of the Daniels Fund to appreciate the broad scope of its grantmaking work. Committed geographically to a region with a collective population of over 12 million, the foundation provides support in eight issue areas:
- Aging
- Amateur Sports
- Disabilities
- Addiction
- Early Childhood Education
- Homelessness and Disadvantaged
- K-12 Education Reform
- Youth Development
In addition, the Daniels Fund operates the Daniels Scholarship Program for high school graduates in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. Daniels Scholars can attend the college or university of their choice throughout the country and receive both financial assistance and personal support.
Finally, the Daniels Fund is committing resources to a series of Big Bets both within and beyond its stated grantmaking issue areas and geographic region:
- Educate one million young Americans in the rights, responsibilities and values derived from civic knowledge. This work includes the National Civics Bee, a competition launched in 2022 by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation in partnership with the Daniels Fund as founding sponsor.
- Create 100,000 new high-quality choice seats to give families more options for a quality education across the Rocky Mountain West.
- Give one million youth access to participate in sports throughout its four-state region. The Daniels Fund supports Youth Sports Giving Day, an annual campaign that currently unites Colorado communities to expand access to sports for kids and teens and plans to expand beyond Colorado.
- Cut homelessness in Aurora, Colorado by 50% through work-first solutions. The fund aims to use its work in Aurora as a blueprint for other communities.
- Challenge 15,000 emerging leaders to apply principle-based ethics. A centerpiece of the Big Bet is the National Ethics Case Competition that immerses university students in a challenging business ethics case. The case is focused on a company’s development of a cutting-edge artificial intelligence system that mirrors real-world scenarios and equips them with practical tools for ethical decision making.
In all its giving decisions, the Daniels Fund can draw a straight line back to the interests and intent of Bill Daniels – a connection made clear to anyone exploring its funding areas on its website. A closer look at four grantees – one in each state served by the Daniels Fund – demonstrates the fund’s determination to project its founder’s values and principles well into the future through a clearly stated strategy and desired results. “The things he told us to do,” says chief impact officer Luke Ragland, “are timeless.”
Step Denver, founded in 1983 as Step 13, first operated as a transitional housing program where recovering alcoholics and addicts worked with homeless men in the mutual recognition that addiction was a prime factor in homelessness. Bill Daniels understood their challenges and spoke publicly about his own struggles with alcoholism. After being introduced to Step 13 by his friend, Stephen Schuck, Daniels provided financial support to the organization.
He also recognized the need for its residents to form relationships which would provide peer support during their ongoing recovery efforts to reinforce each other’s personal responsibility. One of his memorable gifts was a new – and quite large – television around which residents could gather to watch shows and sports events.
Schuck said of this gesture, “First, you have to understand that Bill lived and breathed televisions. But more important, he recognized the struggle these men faced and wanted to help on a personal, human level.”
Step Denver’s success has been recognized at both a national and regional level. In 1991 the organization received the 540th “Daily Point of Light” Award from President George H. W. Bush. And in January 2024, the Daniels Fund awarded Step Denver its inaugural Medal of Excellence. The medal was accompanied by a $250,000 grant to increase the organization’s presence in Colorado. Step Springs, a replication of Step Denver, was founded in Colorado Springs later that year.
In 2025 the winner of the Medal of Excellence was Wyoming’s Child Development Center (CDC) of Natrona County. CDC provides free services to any child with a diagnosis or signs of a developmental delay. The Daniels Fund’s financial award of $250,000 was made in recognition of the impact the agency has had on the more than 700 children served each day.
Bill Daniels, who grew up with a sister with developmental disabilities, understood that disabled individuals could enjoy happy and healthy lives with appropriate care and assistance to achieve the greatest level of independence possible. The success of CDC is testimony to his wisdom and philanthropic intent.
This year, the Daniels Fund has named Excellent Schools New Mexico the 2026 winner of the Medal of Excellence, providing $250,000 to support its mission of providing increased school choice for parents. Excellent Schools New Mexico achieves its mission by making startup capital grants to launch and expand new public schools which show strong family demand and serve at-risk students; by providing zero-interest loans to high-performing, growing partner schools to ensure they have excellent facilities and by supporting the development and growth of educators.
Its approach, the organization’s website states, is to partner “with entrepreneurial local educators to create innovative public schools that put the needs of children and families first.” Its effectiveness reinforces Bill Daniels’ belief that “free enterprise principles – like competition and choice – have the power to achieve systemic reform and foster excellent schools.”
By combining those principles with parental engagement and programs designed to ensure high-quality teachers and leadership, the Daniels Fund is well on its way to creating 100,000 new school choice seats by 2030 across Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.
Bill Daniels’ desire to see as many young Americans as possible participate in sports and amateur competition stemmed from his belief that these opportunities “could change the direction of a young person’s life for the better.” This aspect of his donor intent has spurred not only the Big Bet regarding Youth Sports Giving Day noted above, but also a recent $20 million grant to Utah 2034 in support of the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games in Salt Lake City that year. The Daniels Fund grant will help scale long-term strategies to expand youth sports participation at all competition levels.
For the Daniels Fund, following Bill Daniels’ donor intent in all its grantmaking is hardly the burden critics of donor intent may claim. It truly is the gift that keeps on giving. By working diligently to understand the values and principles undergirding the list of areas of interest their donor left behind, and by carefully considering the strategies needed for success, its leaders have been able to move forward with confidence in the region they serve.
