100+ Men Who Care – Colorado Springs: “Now this is the way the fellows like to have meetings and raise money,” one enthusiastic member said.

A drink with friends at the El Paso Club after work, five-minute presentations and a potential $10,000 raised for a local charity. Over and done.

Founders Bill Kurtz and Russ Wiley set out a couple of years ago with a mission of making a difference in the community by finding at least 100 – or more – men who would contribute $100 four times each year to charities and organizations that would use the funds locally. “It’s fast, simple and amazingly effective,” they said.

Both men are longtime downtown businessmen who support a long list of local community and professional organizations and charities, serving on the board of many.

Kurtz has lived in Colorado Springs for 50 years. Wiley has an El Paso County genealogy, coming from a family of early settlers. The downtown power plant bears the name of his great-grandfather Martin Drake.

For their philanthropic group, Kurtz and Wiley sought ways to contribute with “no board meetings, no silent auctions and no tedious committee meetings.”

Members nominate charities at each meeting, three are drawn randomly from Kurtz’s elegant top hat, and there are five-minute presentations and five-minute question-and-answer periods for each. Members vote anonymously and the top vote-getter is announced. Checks brought by the members are made out to the group chosen and turned over immediately.

“The idea is to keep it local and have an impact that we can see in our community,” say the founders.

At the group’s spring meeting, the money went to military support group The Home Front Cares; described by representative Tom Daschbach as “an emergency financial bridge to the enlisted and their families in our community.” The nonprofit dealt with 350 cases last year.

“We had learned no one was taking care of the families,” he said.

Other contributions have gone to:

The National Museum of World War II Aviation; C.A.M.P. (Christopher Ames Matthews Project) group home; Parents Challenge; Colorado Springs Down Syndrome Association; LEAD (Learning and Educating About Disabilities) Foundation; Junior Tigers Sled Hockey; Blight to Bright neighborhood initiatives

Mike Kloenne, director of the St. Mary’s High School Engineering Program, recipient of the previous meeting’s donation, returned to report on how the money had been used.

For more information: 100mwc.com.