Sudden Impact: How Colorado Gives Day Benefits Local Golf

The Colorado Golf Association, Colorado PGA and The First Tee are among the groups that have benefitted from the state’s annual philanthropic effort.

By Anthony Cotton

Ask Ed Ainsworth for an example of someone who’s benefitted from donations made to the Colorado PGA on Colorado Gives Day, and the executive director and CEO pauses and takes a deep breath.

“There’s our Golf in Schools program and our Youth on Course, which is part of the Junior Golf Alliance of Colorado; we do things with the military—we’ve got a retired Army veteran, Joseph Robinson, who’s our PGA HOPE (Helping our Patriots Everywhere) Ambassador…

“There are dozens and dozens of examples of how it’s impacted us.”

Tuesday, December 8, is the annual Colorado Gives Day, 24 hours of online philanthropy that benefits nonprofits across the Centennial State. Since its inception in 2010, the event has raised more than $256 million for Colorado nonprofits.Last year, more than 2,500 nonprofit organizations in the state received almost $40 million in donations.

Included among those recipients were a number of golf-related programs; besides the numerous programs within the Colorado PGA, the Colorado Golf Association and the Colorado Golf Foundation,  the First Tee of Denver and Green Valley Ranch and Golf 4 The Disabled have also been beneficiaries of the event.

“It’s a wonderful, wonderful platform for us,” said Kevin Laura, the CEO of the Colorado Open Golf Foundation, which includes the First Tee program at Green Valley Ranch. “When Colorado Gives Day got started, we made it the December fundraising effort for the First Tee; we use Colorado Gives Day as the main day we ask people to contribute for their year-end giving.

“We’ve been very pleased—we’ve probably raised more than $100,000 in each of the last five or six years.”

Laura points out that Colorado Gives further assists the nonprofits with a $1 million incentive fund—if an organization receives 10 percent of the total amount of money raised on Colorado Gives Day, that same nonprofit gets a bonus—10 percent of the $1 Million Incentive Fund. So, for example, if the CGA raises $10,000 next week, and the total amount of donations for the day total $10 million, then the group gets another $1,000 from the incentive fund.

It will be interesting to see how the golf/charity connection plays out this year—of course, 2020 has been dominated by the novel coronavirus. While horrific globally, the pandemic has also been a boon to golf, particularly in the United States, where tee sheets at local courses have been overflowing throughout the 2020 season.At the same time though, even the most avid golfer has likely seen his or her plans to get away on a golf excursion severely curtailed because of the threat of COVID-19.

How much of the money that wasn’t spent on golf travel will instead go to local golf charities next week—or will donors decide that it might be better spent on a pandemic-specific cause?

“The wonderful thing about Colorado Gives Day is that there are so many things people can give to,” Laura said. “You can search by youth development, you can search by an area of town, like Northeast Denver, you can search for at-risk kids…there’s a plethora of choices; we’re just happy that some people do decide to include us—I always say it’s better to get a percentage of something than 100 percent of nothing.”

The Colorado PGA’s Reach program is designed to bring golf into local communities, not just to play the game but also incorporate its values in everyday life. When the PGA held its inaugural PGA HOPE National Golf and Wellness Week last year in suburban Washington, D.C. Joseph Robinson represented the Colorado Section. Robinson, a resident of Centennial who served 20 years in the Army, Suffering from PTSD, Robinson said he needed an outlet to help him cope with his mental health challenges—a friend directed him to the PGA and he enrolled at a PGA HOPE program at Wellshire Golf Course in Denver.

“I have experienced firsthand how healing the game of golf can be for veterans,” Robinson has said. “Golf is always engaging–you can never know enough, learn enough or practice enough. I can get out on the course and be by myself. I don’t have to worry.

“The golf course wraps its arms around me and tells me I’m safe. It reminds me to just do what I was taught to do and to not worry about anything else.”

For more information on Colorado Gives Day, please go to www.coloradogives.org.

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Colorado AvidGolfer Magazine is the state’s leading resource for golf and the lifestyle that surrounds it. CAG publishes eight issues annually and delivers daily content via coloradoavidgolfer.com.

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