Grandeur Peak Community Involvement
In our travels we have seen first-hand many of the challenges facing communities around the globe. We founded Grandeur Peak with a commitment to share a meaningful portion of our profits with our local and our global community. As a firm, we jointly select organizations that we believe are doing important work. Every year we choose organizations to support in each of these three categories: Global Charity, Local Charity, & Local Community.
We also have a charitable giving matching program for our team members. We match significant donations in order to ensure that we are supporting the charitable organizations for which any member of our team has a passion.
Our Choice Humanitarian Expeditions to Ecuador and Guatemala
In March of 2018, the Grandeur Peak team had the incredible opportunity to travel to Ecuador with their spouses for a humanitarian project. The team partnered with Choice Humanitarian, an organization working to end global poverty.
Our team joined with villagers in Cotacachi County in building a vocational school to give access to technical training for the 1,500 families in the region. The worksite, in the Intacara Valley, is susceptible to generous rainfall, so our team worked to install a drainage canal by digging trenches, moving rocks, mixing, hauling and pouring cement and bending rebar for the forms. The school is scheduled to be completed in June 2019.
In our travels we saw first-hand many of the challenges facing communities around the globe. We founded Grandeur Peak with a commitment to give back to our local and global community. We worked hard to serve the people in Ecuador. We hope to have made a difference, however small, in their lives, and acknowledge the great impact the people in Ecuador had on our lives. Each of us came home with a new outlook on life and a stronger and closer work family.
In March of 2014, the Grandeur Peak team and our spouses had the unparalleled opportunity to participate in a Grandeur Peak sponsored Choice Humanitarian Expedition to La Reforma, Guatemala. La Reforma is a small village, about ten hours of bumpy bus rides through the jungle from Guatemala City.
Our mission was to help the villagers build wood burning stoves inside their homes in order to increase efficiency and self-reliance, and decrease the major health hazards that come from burning an open fire inside their one-room homes. While we hope we made a difference in their lives (no doubt the stoves do, but our help in building them is questionable), it cannot compare to how our lives were changed because of them. We will never forget their smiles, humility, strong sense of community and simplicity of life, or the energy and laughter of their children. With bittersweet feelings, we left the village, having a greater desire to serve others, be grateful for what we have, and develop a community atmosphere in our firm. We were a team when we arrived, but we came out a family.
Organizations Grandeur Peak has Supported
Global Charities
American Red Cross: Disaster Relief. Each year, the American Red Cross immediately responds to about 70,000 natural and man-made disasters in the U.S., ranging from fires to hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, hazardous materials spills, transportation accidents and explosions. In the aftermath of these events, the American Red Cross gives millions of people access to shelter, food, support and supplies.
Choice Humanitarian: Choice Humanitarian's Center for Humanitarian Outreach and Inter-Cultural Exchange, is a strategic non-governmental agency (NGO) currently working in five countries: Kenya, Nepal, Bolivia, Guatemala and Mexico. Their overriding goal is to end extreme poverty and improve quality of life through a bottom-up, self-developing village-centered approach.
Escalera Foundation: The Escalera Foundation is focused on helping underprivileged children in Mexico gain an education. Escalera is on a mission to send 30,000 kids to school. 100% of all public donations directly fund school projects.
Liahona Children’s Foundation: The Liahona Children’s Foundation was started in 2008 in response to the problem of malnutrition among children living in resource-poor countries. The Foundation aims to alleviate malnutrition through the best scientific and medical information available.
Moran Eye Center: The Moran Eye Center tackles the problem of blindness, which affects 39 million individuals worldwide. Ninety percent of those without sight live in the developing world, and the Moran Eye Center brings promising international surgeons to Utah for intensive training, while sending American residents abroad to restore sight to hundreds of patients.
Operation Underground Railroad: Founded in December 2013, Operation Underground Railroad (O.U.R.) brings together the world's experts in extraction operations. Their anti-child trafficking efforts have a goal to bring an end to child slavery. O.U.R.'s Underground Jump Team consists of former CIA, Navy SEALs, and Special Ops operatives that lead coordinated identification and extraction efforts. These operations are always in conjunction with law enforcement throughout the world.
Shot@Life (UN Foundation) Shot@Life is a movement to decrease vaccine-preventable childhood deaths and give every child a shot at a healthy life. Shot@Life aims to protect children worldwide by providing life-saving vaccines where they are most needed. The organization champions vaccines as one of the most cost-effective ways to save the lives of children in developing countries.
The Alzheimer's Association The Alzheimer’s Association is the largest nonprofit funder of Alzheimer's research. They connect with scientific, academic, government and industry thought-leaders and key stakeholders worldwide to accelerate the global effort to eliminate Alzheimer’s disease.
The Breast Cancer Research Foundation: Our mission is to achieve prevention and a cure for breast cancer in our lifetime by providing critical funding for innovative clinical and translational research at leading medical centers worldwide, and increasing public awareness about good breast health.
The Hunger Project The Hunger Project is an organization whose mission is to end hunger and poverty by pioneering sustainable, grassroots, women-centered strategies and advocating for their widespread adoption in countries throughout the world. It has ongoing programs in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
UNHCR The UN Refugee Agency is committed to protecting refugees and resolving refugee problems worldwide. Its primary purpose is to safeguard the rights and well-being of refuges. It strives to ensure that everyone can exercise the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge in another State, with the option to return home voluntarily, integrate locally or to resettle in a third country.
World Wildlife Fund: The World Wildlife Fund protects the future of nature with a foundation in science, involves action at every level from local to global, and ensures the delivery of innovative solutions that meet the needs of both people and nature.
Youth Making a Difference: Youth Making A Difference (YMAD) is a Utah non-profit organization that prepares high school-aged students to provide meaningful service to less fortunate children in countries such as India.
Local Charities
Catholic Community Services: Since 1945, Catholic Community Services (CCS) of Utah has been empowering people in need along the Wasatch Front to reach self-sufficiency. By giving strength to the weakest in their midst, CCS is able to lovingly serve and provide hope to those with the greatest need in the community.
Good in the Hood: Good in the Hood provides resources and opportunities for community members to unite through the powerful principle of service. Started in 2009 as a simple service project of picking fruit for a widow, the group has grown to coordinate teams of local volunteers who hold monthly activities on behalf of their neighborhoods.
Intermountain Research & Medical Foundation: Intermountain Research and Medical Foundation (IRMF) provides support for a wide variety of causes throughout the Intermountain Central Region. They aspire to improve the quality of healthcare throughout the world.
Make-a-Wish Utah: Every 38 minutes Make-A-Wish® grants the wish of a child diagnosed with a life-threatening medical condition in the United States and its territories. Their end goal is that the wish experience can be a game-changer and change the lives of the kids served.
People Helping People: People Helping People is dedicated to reducing the number of children living in poverty by teaching low-income women, primarily single mothers, how to earn an adequate income through stable employment that pays a living wage.
Primary Children’s Hospital: As one of the best children’s hospitals in the western United States, Primary Children’s Hospital is equipped with 289 beds and staffed to care for children with complex illness and injury. Primary Children’s is part of Intermountain Healthcare, a non-profit healthcare system, and is the pediatric specialty teaching hospital for the University of Utah School of Medicine.
Rape Recovery Center: The Rape Recovery Center empowers those victimized by sexual violence through advocacy, crisis intervention, and therapy, and educates the community about the cause, impact, and prevention of sexual violence.
The Children’s Center: The Children's Center provides comprehensive mental health care to enhance the emotional well-being of infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and their families.
The Hope Alliance: The Hope Alliance is a humanitarian organization that provides a combination of resources and services necessary to address unhealthy and under-educated populations and the lack of economic development. Local organizations and villages co-lead these projects that include health worker training, vision, dental and medical care, clean water and sanitation projects, micro-economic development opportunities and education projects.
The Road Home: The Road Home is the largest emergency shelter in Utah, providing social services to individuals and families. As a private, non-profit social services agency, The Road Home assists people in identifying and overcoming the obstacles that have led them to becoming homeless.
Utah Clean Energy: Since 2001, Utah Clean Energy has lead the transition to a new clean energy economy in Utah and the West. Through advocacy, policy, and public outreach they tackle today’s serious energy challenges with a toolbox of innovative solutions and workable strategies.
Utah Youth Village: Utah Youth Village changes the lives of troubled children and families. The Village offers residential care in Treatment Foster Homes and in Group Homes. The Village also offers in-home help through Families First, an intensive program that teaches parents valuable skills. Other programs include Parenting For Success classes, therapy, and privately funded higher education grants for Village graduates.
Volunteers of America Utah - Homeless Youth Resource Center This organization is focused on helping homeless teenagers get out of poverty in the local community. Through the Homeless Youth Resource Center, they provide shelter, food, clothing, and mentor programs to help young people achieve their individual goals.
Local Community
Brigham Young University Student Scholarship: Students at Brigham Young University with a concentration in Finance may apply for a one year, full-tuition scholarship provided by Grandeur Peak Global Advisors.
KUER Public Radio: KUER is a public radio station broadcasting from the Eccles Broadcast Center at The University of Utah in Salt Lake City. KUER’s mission is to build a community of world citizens through story and art, discussion and debate, sound and creativity. KUER is a charter member of National Public Radio (NPR), a non-profit and tax-exempt organization striving to enhance the lives of its audience with a blend of news, information and entertainment in an unbiased, noncommercial context.
The University of Utah: Crocker Science Center The construction of the University’s new Crocker Science Center will provide students with modern equipment & advanced teaching laboratories to aid in their success towards graduation. It is focused on helping students generate new ideas in a new innovative space.
University of Utah Eccles Executive Education Building: The 150,000-square-foot University of Utah Eccles Executive Education Building will house the school’s MBA, Professional MBA, Executive MBA and MBA Online programs. The building will also support an Executive Education Center, an expanded Business Career Services Center and other centers for use by faculty and students.
University of Utah Student Scholarship: Students at the University of Utah with a concentration in Finance may apply for a one year, full-tuition scholarship provided by Grandeur Peak Global Advisors.
University of Utah: The Beverley Taylor Sorenson Arts and Education Complex The construction of the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Arts and Education Complex represents one of the most exciting and important recent developments in the evolution of public education. The Complex will serve as the nation's premier academic hub of evidence-based, K-12 arts integration research, training, practice, and advocacy.
Utah Museum of Contemporary Art: Offering innovative exhibitions and programs, the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art is a hub for the community to explore the contemporary cultural landscape.
