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Park City Community Foundation
Cumming established the foundation after recognizing that the same resort-town dynamics driving prosperity for ski operators and developers were squeezing out...
Park City Community Foundation
Cumming established the foundation after recognizing that the same resort-town dynamics driving prosperity for ski operators and developers were squeezing out the local workforce and undermining community resilience. Park City Community Foundation bridges that tension by aggregating philanthropic capital — including Donor-Advised Funds and field-of-interest vehicles like the Housing Fund and Climate Fund — and deploying it toward community-defined priorities. Rather than a single-family structure, the foundation serves as a collective platform for local donors, businesses, and nonprofits. The foundation's approach spans grantmaking to local nonprofits, direct real estate investments, and strategic partnerships aimed at structural problems. Its most visible capital deployment has focused on affordable housing: acquiring and redeveloping workforce residential properties such as the Holiday Village and Parkside Apartments, in collaboration with operating partners like Mountainlands Community Housing Trust. The asset mix also includes a hard-assets portfolio, reflecting a willingness to hold real property in a market where land scarcity is the core driver of affordability challenges. Solomon Family donors Beano, Virginia, and Jenn Solomon provided a $1 million matching grant to seed the Housing Fund (per Altss research). The foundation's geographic focus remains concentrated in the Wasatch Back region of Utah, specifically Summit and Wasatch counties. The foundation's governance reflects deep ties to the local resort and outdoor-recreation economy. Board Chair Paige Penze is a director at Bank of America. Investment chair Curtis Feeny is a senior advisor at Peterson Partners. Other board members include the CEO of Ski Utah and the COO of Park City Mountain, linking governance directly to the major operators that shape the regional economy. The foundation is also accredited under the National Standards for U.S. Community Foundations, providing a structural commitment to governance and ethical standards that is unusual for a foundation of this size. What distinguishes Park City Community Foundation structurally is its integration of direct real-asset investment with traditional community-foundation grantmaking — a hybrid model more commonly seen in larger place-based foundations. The presence of operating-company leaders on the board creates tight alignment between the entities that generate wealth in the region and the vehicle designed to recycle that wealth into community stability. This governance architecture, paired with permanent endowment capital and dedicated thematic funds, positions the foundation as a patient, locally anchored counterparty in a resort real estate market dominated by transient institutional capital.
General information
Firm type
Endowment / Foundation
Year founded
2007
Location
Region
North America
Country
United States
City
Park City
Corporate office
Park City, UT, United States
Principals
John D. Cumming
Founder and Board Emeritus
Paige Penze
Board Chair
Curtis Feeny
Chair of Investment & Finance Committee
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
Who runs investment decisions at Park City Community Foundation?
The Investment & Finance Committee, chaired by Curtis Feeny (Senior Advisor at Peterson Partners), oversees investment decisions. The committee operates under the governance of a board whose members include senior executives from Park City Mountain, Ski Utah, and Bank of America, providing deep local market and financial expertise (per Altss research).
Does Park City Community Foundation operate like a donor-advised fund sponsor or a traditional grantmaking foundation?
It operates as a hybrid: the foundation sponsors donor-advised funds for local philanthropists while also managing focused grantmaking vehicles — such as the Housing Fund, Climate Fund, and Solomon Fund — that pool charitable capital for specific community priorities. This dual structure allows it to channel both donor-directed giving and foundation-led strategic investments.
How does Park City Community Foundation deploy capital into affordable housing?
The foundation makes direct real estate acquisitions of workforce housing properties and redevelops them with operating partners like Mountainlands Community Housing Trust. Documented projects include the Holiday Village and Parkside Apartments redevelopments in Park City. The Housing Fund was seeded with a $1 million matching grant from the Solomon family (per Altss research).
What is the foundation's investment posture beyond grantmaking?
Beyond traditional grantmaking, Park City Community Foundation holds a private hard-assets portfolio and has made direct residential property investments in the Park City area. This reflects a strategy of deploying permanent capital into real assets where the foundation's local knowledge and patient time horizon provide an advantage over conventional institutional buyers.
How is governance structured to reflect local economic interests?
The board intentionally includes senior leaders from the core engines of the Park City economy: the COO of Park City Mountain, the CEO of Ski Utah, and the executive chairman of POWDR Corp. This governance model aligns the foundation's grantmaking and investment strategy with the operators whose businesses depend on a functioning local workforce and community infrastructure.
Profile maintained by Altss using OSINT (open-source intelligence), regulatory filings, licensed data partners, and verified direct submissions. Read the methodology. Last updated: . Continuous refresh with full update cycles at least every 30 days.
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