The Anschutz Family Foundation was created in 1982 by oil and gas developer and founder of The Anschutz Corporation Fred Anschutz and his wife Marian Pfister Anschutz. ¹ Fred Anschutz’s son, Philip Anschutz, dramatically expanded the Anschutz Corporation, but is not involved in the Anschutz Family Foundation.

Fred Anschutz’s daughter, Sue Anschutz-Rodgers has headed the Anschutz Family Foundation since 1983. It primarily funds Colorado nonprofits, with an emphasis on poverty-fighting organizations and nonprofits in rural Colorado.

Background

The Anschutz Family Foundation was created in 1982 by Fred Anschutz (1909-1993) and Marian Pfister Anschutz (1910-1986). ¹ Anschutz developed oil and gas properties in the western United States and was the founder of the Anschutz Corporation, which his son, Philip Anschutz, dramatically expanded. Philip Anschutz created the Anschutz Foundation to support his personal philanthropic interests and is not involved in the Anschutz Family Foundation.

Sue Anschutz-Rodgers

Since 1983, the Anschutz Family Foundation has been run by Fred Anschutz’s daughter, Sue Anschutz-Rodgers. Four of Fred and Marian Anschutz’s grandchildren and five of their great-grandchildren sit on the Anschutz Family Foundation board as of 2021. ²

In a 2017 interview in Denver Woman, Anschutz-Rodgers said she talked to her father about his intentions in setting up the foundation. “In his words, he wanted to help children, the elderly, and the poor, which essentially takes in the whole world,” she said. “It was extremely important to honor the donor’s intent. So we’re basically a human-services oriented organization.” ³

Interest Areas

Rural Philanthropy Days

Anschutz-Rodgers said that she wanted Anschutz Family Foundation giving to be “50 percent rural” and fifty percent the Denver metropolitan area. ⁴ To that end, the Anschutz Family Foundation created Rural Philanthropy Days in 1991, an annual event in which between 400-500 potential grant recipients meet with funders in a different rural part of Colorado. “We reversed the typical process,” Anschutz-Rodgers said in 2015. “The funders were going to come to people, rather than people going to the funders.” ⁵

Conservation

Anschutz-Rodgers has used the foundation to support conservation and environmental programs, and she has sat on the boards of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the Aspen Valley Land Trust, and the Colorado Cattlemen’s Agricultural Land Trust. She told the Denver Post in 2006 that her primary interest was in preserving ranchland from development, saying, “I call myself an environmentalist, but I’m not way out there. Anyone who has land knows, if they have half a brain, that what you take out of the land you must put back in.” She added that environmentalists “who live on the west or East coasts that start these campaigns, like ‘Cattle-free by ’93,’ really don’t know what they’re talking about because they’re not here all the time.” ⁶

Grantmaking

Nearly all grants made by the Anschutz Family Foundation in 2019 were for $10,000 or less.  The only exception was a $30,000 grant to the Community Resource Center to support Rural Philanthropy Days. ⁷

1. “History of the Foundation.” Anschutz Family Foundation: History. Archived from the original January 10, 2016. Accessed September 24, 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20160110123103/http://www.anschutzfamilyfoundation.org/history.aspx.
2. “Anschutz Family Foundation:  About Us,”  https://anschutzfamilyfoundation.org/our-history/ (accessed September 21, 2021)
3. Ellen Gray, “The Powers that Be,’ Denver Woman, January.February 2017, https://web-archive.org/web/20160830194655/http://denverwoman.com/1008/upfront.html.
4. Ellen Gray, “The Powers That Be,” Denver Woman, January/February 2017, https://web.archive.org/web/20160830194655/http://denverwoman.com/1008/upfront.html
5. ^[1] Kate Menzies, “Granting Hope,” Rural Monitor, July 8, 2015, https://ruralhealthinfo.org/rural-monitor/granting-hope/ (accessed September 21, 2021)
6. Colleen O’Connor, “Cattle Queen,” Denver Post, January 3,2006, https://www.denverpost.com/2006/01/03/cattle-queen/ (accessed September 21, 2021)
7. Anschutz Family Foundation 2019 Form 990.