{"id":22504,"date":"2025-04-26T00:21:09","date_gmt":"2025-04-26T00:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/the-lor-foundation-reflects-on-four-years-in-cortez\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:14:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:14:12","slug":"the-lor-foundation-reflects-on-four-years-in-cortez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/the-lor-foundation-reflects-on-four-years-in-cortez\/","title":{"rendered":"The LOR Foundation reflects on four years in Cortez"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The
The LOR Foundation funded new uniforms for the M-CHS band. This is the band posing at the Intermountain League choir gathering in Pagosa Springs. (Marla Sitton\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Four years ago, on April 5, 2021, the LOR Foundation<\/a> first opened its office doors in Cortez.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore then, I met with people at Parque de Vida, or at my home, on the porch,\u201d said the LOR Foundation\u2019s community officer in Cortez, Nicci Crowley, with a laugh.<\/p>\n

At that point in time, the family\u2019s foundation had just two other offices: One in Lander, Wyoming and another in Taos, New Mexico.<\/p>\n

Since then, it\u2019s expanded to Monte Vista, Colorado, Questa, New Mexico, Libby, Montana, and Weiser, Idaho.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe family loves the Mountain West,\u201d Crowley said. \u201cThat\u2019s why it\u2019s in those five states.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the towns the foundation chooses to enter and uplift are all rural.<\/p>\n

Crowley called rural people \u201ctough\u201d and \u201cingenious\u201d and underscored how they\u2019re used to doing things with the least amount of resources available.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut what if there were just a little more resources?\u201d she questioned. \u201cWhat if it wasn\u2019t about what the minimum is you need, but instead what you really need?\u201d<\/p>\n

The LOR Foundation \u2013 which stands for Livability Opportunity Responsibility \u2013 works with individuals, nonprofits and everything in-between to uplift the work they\u2019re doing, primarily through financial support.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we also do skill building for our nonprofit partners,\u201d Crowley said. \u201cAnd we try to connect nonprofits and individuals to larger funders.\u201d<\/p>\n

Offering those resources \u2013 whether they\u2019re financial or skills-based \u2013 makes it so people can enter and work from a mindset of abundance rather than one of scarcity, said Crowley.<\/p>\n

In Cortez alone, in the four years it has been around, the LOR Foundation has awarded more than $2.4 million to 316 projects. Already in 2025, its funded 44 projects.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s averaging 11 projects a month,\u201d Crowley noted.<\/p>\n

The foundation makes a real effort to move quickly; Crowley said that project proposals $10,000 and under typically have a response back from the review committee in under 48 hours.<\/p>\n

Plus, there\u2019s no grant cycle, so there\u2019s no deadlines; LOR funds year-round.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany other funders have narrow parameters,\u201d Crowley started.<\/p>\n

But not LOR.<\/p>\n

As Crowley said, \u201cjust about any idea\u201d will fit within its \u201ceight elements\u201d of education, economy, engagement, environment, health, transportation, water and housing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose are big boulders in the community that are very hard to move,\u201d she said, referring to those eight elements.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur hope is that individuals will come away with an idea to chip away at those boulders. And even if they may never fix them, if we can chip away enough, we can maybe move those boulders,\u201d she said. \u201cLittle projects can make a big difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which is why the foundation funds a lot of projects under $10,000: \u201cThe idea is many and small,\u201d said Crowley.<\/p>\n

Of the 316 projects the LOR Foundation has supported over the years in Cortez, Crowley estimated that 275 different community members brought ideas forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing that I think makes us so special is that we can work with individuals \u2026 we can work directly with community members,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve got the best job in town.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because community members come into her office at the Cortez Chamber of Commerce with solutions in mind, ideas to make things better.<\/p>\n

\u201cI get to walk alongside them in that process,\u201d said Crowley.<\/p>\n

She remembered one project that a Montezuma-Cortez High School student named Megan Schmalz proposed.<\/p>\n

\"Megan
Megan Schmalz poses by Montezuma-Cortez\u2019s new band uniforms. The LOR Foundation awarded them money to buy 71 dresses and 51 tuxedos. (Matthew Tangeman\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

At the time, the high school band didn\u2019t have uniforms for concert season \u2013 they all dressed in black, but the clothes were all different and thus the band lacked cohesion. So Schmalz talked to Crowley and the LOR Foundation funded black dresses and suits for the whole band.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey look sharp,\u201d Crowley said. \u201cNow when they go to states or regionals, they look so professional.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added that they\u2019ve funded 37 projects in the school district, and a few \u2013 like the band uniforms \u2013 have been brought forth by kids.<\/p>\n

The LOR Foundation will be active in Cortez until Sept. 30, 2027.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs Cortez rolls off, most likely a new Colorado community will roll on,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The office in Lander, Wyoming, will be the first to close; Crowley said the board is being very intentional and taking its time to exit that community \u2013 and Cortez in a few years\u2019 time \u2013 in the least disruptive way possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully, we can leave the connections needed that\u2019ll keep this energy going,\u201d said Crowley.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

four years in town, and it has funded 316 projects in that time<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22505,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-22504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22504"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77738,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22504\/revisions\/77738"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22504"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=22504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}