25 Year History
The Cordillera Presidents Foundation began in 1982, founded by seven individuals including the governor of Colorado at the time, Richard Lamm. The Foundation is constituted as a 501(c)(3) exempt organization under the federal tax code and as a corporation under Colorado law. Throughout most of its history, attorney James E. Bye led the Foundation. Following Mr. Bye’s death in April of 2007, Denver businessman Jim Polsfut became its president.
In support of the service mission of the Foundation, neither Mr. Bye nor Mr. Polsfut has accepted compensation from the Foundation for their services. In fact, all overhead expenses of the Foundation are covered by its Board of Directors, either through in-kind donations, cash-contributions, or both.
The Cordillera Foundation has two primary functions:
Dialogue Creation has been a focal point of the Cordillera Foundation since its inception.
- Initially, the focus was internal, with the holding of one or two Cordillera Plenary Sessions each year among the Foundation’s Canadian, American, and Mexican membership base. In 1990, Cordillera then introduced the Colorado Advisory Council on Mexico, designed to expand the dialogue for North American Integration among far more participants. In 2002, sensing a need once again for the public to engage in dialogue on the topic of North America and Mexico in particular, Cordillera created a six-lunch series focused on Mexico’s NGO sector, called Puente Colorado. Finally, in 2008, Cordillera led the 2008 Rocky Mountain Roundtable, a ten-part, non-partisan dialogue series for the benefit of the general public during the Democratic National Convention.
International Grantmaking began at the Cordillera Foundation in 1997, designed to expand its promotion of dialogue to incorporate active solicitation and application of financial support to NGOs.
- For more than a decade, the Cordillera Foundation has accepted funds from a diverse array of donors. Through periodic action by its Board of Directors, the Foundation has established where to deploy those funds and in the process supported numerous organizations in Mexico in particular – from the IPODERAC home for boys to the JUCONI program for marginalized families and the Casa del Sol orphanage for abandoned or abused infants.