Four years ago, on April 5, 2021, the LOR Foundation first opened its office doors in Cortez.
“Before then, I met with people at Parque de Vida, or at my home, on the porch,” said the LOR Foundation’s community officer in Cortez, Nicci Crowley, with a laugh.
At that point in time, the family’s foundation had just two other offices: One in Lander, Wyoming and another in Taos, New Mexico.
Since then, it’s expanded to Monte Vista, Colorado, Questa, New Mexico, Libby, Montana, and Weiser, Idaho.
“The family loves the Mountain West,” Crowley said. “That’s why it’s in those five states.”
And the towns the foundation chooses to enter and uplift are all rural.
Crowley called rural people “tough” and “ingenious” and underscored how they’re used to doing things with the least amount of resources available.
“But what if there were just a little more resources?” she questioned. “What if it wasn’t about what the minimum is you need, but instead what you really need?”
The LOR Foundation – which stands for Livability Opportunity Responsibility – works with individuals, nonprofits and everything in-between to uplift the work they’re doing, primarily through financial support.
“But we also do skill building for our nonprofit partners,” Crowley said. “And we try to connect nonprofits and individuals to larger funders.”
Offering those resources – whether they’re financial or skills-based – makes it so people can enter and work from a mindset of abundance rather than one of scarcity, said Crowley.
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.
“That’s averaging 11 projects a month,” Crowley noted.
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.
Plus, there’s no grant cycle, so there’s no deadlines; LOR funds year-round.
“Many other funders have narrow parameters,” Crowley started.
But not LOR.
As Crowley said, “just about any idea” will fit within its “eight elements” of education, economy, engagement, environment, health, transportation, water and housing.
“Those are big boulders in the community that are very hard to move,” she said, referring to those eight elements.
“Our 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,” she said. “Little projects can make a big difference.”
Which is why the foundation funds a lot of projects under $10,000: “The idea is many and small,” said Crowley.
Of the 316 projects the LOR Foundation has supported over the years in Cortez, Crowley estimated that 275 different community members brought ideas forward.
“One thing that I think makes us so special is that we can work with individuals … we can work directly with community members,” she said. “I’ve got the best job in town.”
Because community members come into her office at the Cortez Chamber of Commerce with solutions in mind, ideas to make things better.
“I get to walk alongside them in that process,” said Crowley.
She remembered one project that a Montezuma-Cortez High School student named Megan Schmalz proposed.
At the time, the high school band didn’t have uniforms for concert season – 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.
“They look sharp,” Crowley said. “Now when they go to states or regionals, they look so professional.”
She added that they’ve funded 37 projects in the school district, and a few – like the band uniforms – have been brought forth by kids.
The LOR Foundation will be active in Cortez until Sept. 30, 2027.
“As Cortez rolls off, most likely a new Colorado community will roll on,” she said.
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 – and Cortez in a few years’ time – in the least disruptive way possible.
“Hopefully, we can leave the connections needed that’ll keep this energy going,” said Crowley.
