Valley Teams Love to Give Back

By Jamie Killin
Phoenix Suns Charities

Giving is the legacy of The Phoenix Suns.
They were the first professional sports team in Phoenix and began their philanthropic efforts 30 years ago.
“We’re the first sports team here, we know that this community has been here for us and supportive of us for 50 years and we understand the responsibility that we have to give back and invest in our community,” executive director of Phoenix Suns Charities, Sarah Krahenbuhl said.
Over the last 30 years, the team has invested $19 million into the community, with a focus on improving the lives of children and providing family services.
“We’ve been here contributing for 30 years so we’ve been strongly impacting the lives of our most precious assets, our children, for many, many years,” Krahenbul said.
Right now, the organization is focused on Central High School, where the Suns’ investments are helping students succeed with higher graduation rates and more students moving on to college.
“We invested in that school to help raise graduation rates about six years ago and that was a passion of our owner Robert Sarver,” Krahenbul said. “We’ve really been moving the needle there as far as improving the lives of those kids and giving them the opportunity to graduate from high school and go on to college.”
At the Suns, the philanthropic passion of the staff — from players to ownership and everyone in between, makes all the difference, with initiatives like monthly volunteer opportunities.
“Our organization is very centered around giving,” Krahenbul said. “We have monthly volunteer services and engage in different activities.”
 
Arizona Diamondbacks Foundation

The Arizona Diamondbacks have contributed over $50 million to the community — more than all of Arizona’s other sports teams combined.
To make this kind of impact, giving back to the community is a focus of the organization’s culture that reaches everyone on its staff.
“It’s always been a top priority of the organization and it’s consistent with our players, our coaching staff, our front office and our ownership to really be positive contributing members of the community,” president and CEO of the Diamondbacks, Derrick Hall said.
This commitment comes from the team’s dedication to serving the fans, and the community that they play for.
“It goes back to us understanding our social responsibility,” said Hall. “We feel like we’re a community asset and knowing that we can’t control what’s going on on the field result-wise we always are making an impact on the community so our state and our fans can always be proud of our engagement.”
That engagement touches all parts of the community — from military and education initiatives, to fundraising for cancer awareness to their field building program and youth jersey program, which provides 50,000 jerseys and caps to youth baseball and softball leagues each year.
“There’s such a wide variety of causes and there aren’t many that we turn away,” said Hall. Through our grant process, the Grand Slam process, we want to help as many as we can.”
“I think it’s that enthusiasm that as a whole unit, a whole organization, that we want to do more so we challenge ourselves to give more each and every year.”
 
Arizona Coyotes Foundation

For the Arizona Coyotes, using their platform to bring awareness to important causes in the community is as important as their service.
“Our goal when we we’re doing different things or activations in the community or going out and volunteering, we want people to know about that cause more so than ‘Hey this is what we’re doing,’” Olivia Matos, executive director of the Arizona Coyotes Foundation said. “We want to do it so that people know it’s a need that’s out there in the community.”
That’s not to say the organization doesn’t dedicate a lot of time to philanthropic efforts — the Coyotes host staff volunteer outing at least once every month.
“It’s genuinely an organization-wide thing,” said Matos. “Hockey players in general, the hockey community is just naturally very giving so I think for us it’s just part of the culture of what you do and for us it’s really about wanting to share the message of what the needs are in the community.”
The Coyotes primarily focus on helping children and service men and women, but don’t limit their involvement as to encourage the participation of as many people as they can.
“We’ve learned over the years that people will jump in to help out a myriad of different organizations,” said Matos. “It’s more beneficial for us to stay broad in what we support and activities we do because one week we may go to a homeless kitchen serving food and we’ll get a completely different group of people that are interested than if we go the next week to a Habitat Humanity Build.”
 
Fiesta Bowl Charities
Community service is an integral part of most sports organization’s cultures — but for Fiesta Bowl Charities it’s the primary focus.
“We are nonprofit ourselves so at the end of what we do our goal is to be able to give back to the community every single day,” said senior director of marketing and community relations, Jose Moreno.
Fiesta Bowl Charities also has the longest history of giving for a sports organization in Arizona — spanning nearly 50 years.
“We’re a homegrown organization,” said Moreno. “We started here in 1971 and to be able to say we’ve been here almost 50 years, for almost 50 years of giving, to have those years of giving really sets us apart.”
Fiesta Bowl Charities primary focuses are youth, sports and education, and their reach spans the entire state by using revenue from the Fiesta Bowl and Cactus Bowl college football games to invest in the community.
“By purchasing a ticket you’re able to make a difference whether that’s with teachers, with youth, with veterans, with any one of our pillars that we support out in the Arizona community,” Moreno said.
One of their most impactful programs, Wishes for Teachers, has impacted 27,000 students by giving $5,000 grants to 100 teachers to invest back into their classrooms and students in whichever way they felt was best.
“Our goal is to be able to honor and inspire teachers in any way we can,” Moreno said.
Cardinals Charities
Cardinals Charities has worked to improve the lives of Arizona’s children, women and minorities for nearly 30 years — hoping to maximize its impact by focusing on specific causes.
“There are so many valuable and worthwhile causes both in our own community and beyond,” Cardinals owner, Nicole Bidwill said. “With Cardinals Charities, it was important for us to target our efforts in those three specific areas so that we could try to maximize our resources to have the greatest impact.”
These efforts and values are instilled in all of those in the organization, ensuring that all those associated with the team are as invested in the state of Arizona as the state is in them.
“People look to their hometown teams things for many things,” said Bidwill. “Hopefully through our play on the field we can provide them with tremendous enjoyment and excitement. We also have the ability to instill pride and at times provide inspiration. But we also enjoy a unique leadership position and are expected to do things the right way, in part because others often model that. That’s certainly the case with philanthropy and giving back and why we see it as so important.”
For Bidwill, the philanthropic efforts hit close to home as she incorporates her therapy dog, Barney, into many of the team’s community relations activities — like hospital visits.
“So often we visit kids in the hospital and they may be having a really tough day but when they see this big, nearly 200-pound St. Bernard walk into the room everything changes and they light up,” she said. “Even if it’s just for a little while, they’re able to take their mind off their situation and just be a kid playing with a real big dog. I love that and I know Barney does too.”
“With Cardinals Charities, it was important for us to target our efforts in those three specific areas so that we could try to maximize our resources to have the greatest impact.”
These efforts and values are instilled in all of those in the organization, ensuring that all those associated with the team are as invested in the state of Arizona as the state is in them.
“People look to their hometown teams for many things,” said Bidwill. “Hopefully through our play on the field we can provide them with tremendous enjoyment and excitement. We also have the ability to instill pride and at times provide inspiration. But we also enjoy a unique leadership position and are expected to do things the right way, in part because others often model that. That’s certainly the case with philanthropy and giving back and why we see it as so important.”
 
 
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