When tiny, would-be Matt Hollidays and Ken Griffeys slam home runs at Triple Play Sportz, they make their coaches smile.

Little do they know that as they improve their batting and their pitching, they're helping out abused and neglected children and homeless teens.

The business of Triple Play Sportz, which has a master plan for multiple indoor youth sports facilities in the area, is dedicated to offering club-level teams a place to hone their skills.

The fees paid by sports teams and athletes, however, go to the nonprofit Colorado Springs Youth Foundation,which is dedicated to providing "opportunities to make a difference in the lives of young people. To use education, recreation and rehabilitation to help keep kids out of trouble."

Colorado Springs Youth Foundation is like several local nonprofits that fund their work through for-profit business.

Many nonprofits are funded solely by regular personal and corporate donations and sponsorships, with fundraisers making up any difference in meeting operating expenses.
"We're different," said Colorado Springs Youth Foundation marketing and business-development director Brandon Shupp.

He describes the organization as a "business revenue-supported charitable organization."
The group's sports facilities are "a mission-minded business."

The foundation started when local resident John "Jack" Bruening wanted a special way to honor his wife, Vera, after her death in 1996.

Bruening had diligently set aside money during his working days and the foundation was started in 2000. Bruening died in 2001.

"Everything we've done, we ask, ‘Is this something Jack would have liked?'" Shupp said.
Money went to Northern Churches Care, which needed Christmas help for kids during a year when funds were especially tight after the Castle West apartments fire. The foundation partnered with Colorado Springs Christian Schools for a new athletic practice field and Academy Little League to build baseball fields. The foundation was there for Urban Peak's homeless teens, the alternative high school Pikes Peak Academy and CASA's abused and neglected children. It also partnered with the July Pro Football Camp, where more than 200 youngsters learned from NFL players and local coaches.

But you won't find the Colorado Springs Youth Foundation's name promoted at the projects it has helped fund, Shupp said. The foundation operates quietly.

Plans originally called for multiple large sports facilities that would fund nonprofit work. Changes in the economy have forced the group to work in other directions, however.
"In the past 12 months, we had two large facilities under contract. We had business plans, had done due diligence and then the funding fell through in the current economic climate," Shupp said. "We could sit on our hands, but we needed a track record."

It kick-started its projects by creating a smaller location inside Mr. Biggs at 5825 Mark Dabling Blvd. There are four batting and pitching lanes. Three batting cages can be raised to the ceiling via a remote control winch-pulley system to open up 3,000 square feet of open space for fielding drills and speed and agility work.

A mural artist turned the blank walls into a ballpark, complete with spots for sponsors. Next up, a pro shop.

The IRS, Shupp said, requires that for-profit businesses be substantially in line with the foundation's mission. If not, the business would pay Unrelated Business Taxable Income.
He said that he, executive director Mike Hestermann and the board are aware that when a nonprofit loses sight of its mission, it becomes self-focused.

"We'll be certain that doesn't happen," he said. "We're never working to just make Colorado Springs Youth Foundation great."

Shupp points to other nonprofits that have successfully led the way with their profitmaking, business-supporting, nonprofit-foundation format.

Salvador Imaging Inc., is using millions of dollars from its recent sale to aid people in other states and countries. The company makes high-speed, high-resolution cameras for industrial, medical and military companies.

In 2005, founder David Gardner created the Salvador Foundation to help a local illegal-immigrant family, started a revolving loan fund in Honduras and donated to Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind and a group working with the homeless in Texas. Stock and proceeds from the sale of the company went to the Salvador Foundation.

One of the most familiar examples of local nonprofit foundations owning business enterprises was El Pomar Foundation. Before his death in 1939, The Broadmoor hotel guiding light Spencer Penrose formed El Pomar Foundation to continue the charitable work he and his wife, Julie, had begun. It also served as a tax shelter.

Pressure on Congress in the 1960s forced an examination of all nonprofit foundations.
According to foundationnews.org, "At the time of the hearings there was considerable public media attention given to foundation ‘loopholes,' with emphasis on involvement in voter registration, grants to individuals and connections with government agencies and officials." There was also the question of taxation.

Along came the Tax Reform Act of 1969, which in part forced all nonprofit foundations - politically involved or not - to sell off by 1989 half their for-profit businesses. An additional 15 percent was to be sold by 2004. Over time, The Broadmoor was acquired by Edward Gaylord's Oklahoma Publishing Co.

El Pomar Foundation, with offices it still owns in the hotel, today has assets of $550 million. It gives out $25 million each year "to support Colorado nonprofit organizations involved in health, human services, education, arts and humanities, and civic and community initiatives."