Rebel With a Cause

Gil Gillenwater turned a wrong turn to Mexico into a decades-long crusade to upend poverty — and in the process, found a path to salvation. 

The tequila is flowing in the border town of Agua Prieta, Mexico, a four-hour drive from the Valley. Someone strums a guitar as Powell “Gil” Gillenwater raises a glass to a group of exhausted volunteers. They’ve just framed a house in a single weekend — for a family they’d never met.

On one side of the border, Gil is a cowboy-philosopher, part mystic, part Marlboro Man. On the other side, he’s a beloved disruptor of destiny — building homes, funding schools and helping thousands of families climb from extreme poverty into something like a middle class.

At 71, Gil is energetic but reflective as he looks back on his decades of work with the Scottsdale-based Rancho Feliz Charitable Foundation, a philanthropic powerhouse that has funneled more than $18 million into a maverick kind of binational human uplift.

“At Rancho Feliz, we don’t serve the less fortunate out of guilt or obligation,” he said. “We understand that our own liberation is bound with those we serve. In other words — we serve ourselves by serving others.”

That’s not just talk. Since founding Rancho Feliz in 1987, Gil has led the creation of a full-fledged master-planned community, three orphanages, two education centers, two childcare facilities and a scholarship program that’s funded more than 3,700 students. Over 64,000 bags of food and countless tons of medical supplies have crossed the border with him. But those statistics only hint at the scale of what’s been built: not just homes and infrastructure, but opportunity and dignity.

He isn’t regarded in Sonora as some do-good gringo. Rather, in 2021, he was chosen by the Premio a la Sonora Filantropia as the individual philanthropic person of the year, the first non-Mexican to win the prestigious award.

Gil’s accolades — and reputation — loom to a ridiculous degree. He’s trekked through 75 countries, co-authored a book about finding Tibet’s fabled Hidden Falls, and taken the Bodhisattva vow of compassion from the Dalai Lama himself. He’s a certified yoga instructor, a black belt in Kenpo Karate and an explorer with a spiritual streak.
The Arizona Trail Association will soon spotlight him in a documentary, and he’s been awarded the Hon Kachina, the state’s highest honor for volunteerism.

But back at his house in the upper reaches of Scottsdale, he is a mortal man in the middle of a photo shoot. His wife Izuru — patient and perceptive — helps him select a cowboy hat, while Gil thinks about his past.

That other life — the one where he structured limited partnerships that purchased, zoned and sold over 10,000 acres of Arizona land — is still part of his story. But everything shifted one fateful Thanksgiving, when Gil and his brother Troy loaded up a Jeep with supplies and headed to Mexico to deliver them to people in need. They took a wrong turn, missed their intended destination and ended up in Agua Prieta. What they saw there changed them forever.

“There were kids wandering the streets, families living in homes made from wooden pallets. No plumbing. No electricity,” he said. “It shifted something inside me.”

The jolt was an extension of his meditation practice. “When we silence the mind, the hard line between me and you gets blurred, and all of a sudden, you start seeing yourself in others,” he said. “No longer could I sit back and say, ‘Well, shoot, that’s their bad luck.’ I had to do something about it, because I was doing it for me.”

Over the past four decades, Rancho Feliz has evolved from a borderland charity handing out food and supplies into something more revolutionary — one that replaces pity with purpose and handouts with human connection. Through its Vecinos Dignos (Worthy Neighbors) subdivision, families apply to earn their homes, quite literally. Under a rent-to-own agreement, the tenants make no-interest payments and donate volunteer hours, and their children are offered scholarships to attend bilingual schools. Gil calls this “reciprocal giving” — a loop in which both giver and receiver are empowered. No handouts or hierarchy, just a system that nurtures self-reliance
and change.

“Right now, I’ve got two families — two single mothers with six children, each with no money. And then I come in and say, ‘My organization, these beautiful donors and volunteers, are going to build you a three-bedroom home with a heating and cooling unit, electricity and water, where you can live with dignity.’ That’s 14 people whose lives we have changed forever,” he said. “That’s a joy that will not go away.”

Gil is determined to share that joy, hosting over 27,000 volunteer visits, where volunteers work in soup kitchens, orphanages, animal shelters and community gardens, in addition to building homes. Rancho Feliz began a recycling program that has collected more than 20 million pieces of trash and recycled them to fund high school scholarships.

In this pragmatic way, Rancho Feliz aims to make a dent in the border crisis. Providing people with opportunities, not welfare, allows them to live with dignity in their own country, eliminating the need to migrate illegally into the United States.

Informed by his travels, Gil is horrified at the imbalance in our backyard. “I know of no other place with the disparity that we experience here in southern Arizona. You go from India to Pakistan, and it’s not a big deal. Here, you go from working for $14 or $15 an hour to $12 to $14 a day. Of course, you’re going to have people that want to go from one economic situation to another,” he said.

Through Rancho Feliz, Gil sees a practical approach to addressing two prongs of poverty at once — the material poverty many Mexicans feel and the spiritual poverty that plagues the affluent on this side of the border.

This brings us to perhaps the most revolutionary aspect of Rancho Feliz, and the message Gil is eager to share with the world. “I believe there’s something missing in our lives,” he said. “We’re communal. And when that’s removed and replaced by the almighty dollar, we’re all missing something.”

He believes that the remedy can be found in service. “It’s not Sedona hocus-pocus,” he said. “There are real psychological and physiological changes that take place.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by volunteers, many of whom describe Rancho Feliz trips in almost mystical terms.

“It was definitely a magical weekend,” said Nili Azhar. “Lina and I have been lamenting it being over and keep talking about the next trip.”

At Rancho Feliz, service work takes on the guise of a party. Volunteers from the U.S. and Canada stay at the Hacienda Feliz dormitory and gather when the work is
done for tequila and Mexican feasts. The good will and good feelings are palpable.

“We could feel the strong Rancho positive vibes and love the moment we arrived,” said volunteer Pat Mahoney. “It engulfs everything and everyone.”

This happens naturally, Gil posits, through a natural vetting process. “I don’t mean to be crude,” he said. “But assholes don’t volunteer.”

That filtering effect — where only the spirited and motivated show up — has shaped more than just the volunteer experience. It’s helped Gil refine a philosophy of giving that challenges convention and flips the script on who truly benefits from philanthropy.

“I live in Scottsdale, Arizona,” he said. “There are wonderful people in Scottsdale, but they’ve got a whole lot of money and could make a real difference, not only in the world, but in their own lives. Because many of them I talk to are not particularly happy people.”

In his view, the comfort class feathers its own hereditary nests in a constant quest for happiness. Sprawling houses, new cars, overseas travel and always-on technology provide distractions from life’s larger questions. “We’re entertaining ourselves to death,” Gil said.

He knows something about this, having spent his formative years looking for the next better thing. Gil was a restless freshman on a football scholarship at Brigham Young University, from which he dropped out to play at Rice University before graduating from ASU. Later, he left his first marriage after a brief year-and-a-half to go on adventures around the world.

He doesn’t regret his early days as a seeker. “It’s incumbent upon us to find out what truly makes us happy,” he said. “If you read any of the great philosophers and spiritual leaders from the beginning of time, it all comes back to serving others.”

This realization has informed his approach to charity, a word he despises. “It’s such a weak term,” he said. “In the United States, what does the First Lady do? Oh, she works on charity. It’s when I have enough time, when I have leftover money. It’s a sacrifice. Who’s gonna sign up for that?”

Instead, Rancho Feliz positions philanthropy as an absolute blast. From happy hours in a tower built specifically to provide sunset views while raising a glass, to extreme sport/extreme karma fundraising fandangos, Gil attempts to make service work fun. “We’re here only one time. So why wouldn’t you make life as happy as it can possibly be?” he said.

Indeed, the grueling, multi-day fandangos are the stuff of legend. Participants raise funds and pay their own expenses for these endurance events. Starting in 1997, when 10 volunteers and five Tarahumara Indians ran 678 miles in a 114-hour relay from Kanab, Utah, to Agua Prieta, Mexico, and raised over $160,000, to the 2009 five-day, 333-mile bicycle odyssey across the Navajo Nation, raising $775,000 in the process, these sporting events have generated outrageous times and impressive hauls.

Which brings us back to the copious good the charity has done. With millions already invested in reshaping lives along the U.S.-Mexico border, the organization is at an inflection point. Originally, Gil intended to sell the real estate, put the proceeds into scholarships and walk away some day. But Jim Armstrong, the Canadian founder
of JDA Software, made an impassioned case for otherwise. Armstrong, who began volunteering with his family in 1998, has been critical to Rancho Feliz’s growth. He impressed Gil that its programs and scholarships must continue.

And so, Gil is reentering the Scottsdale scene, determined to lay the groundwork for a future without him. Last fall, he hired community leader Donna Valdés as Rancho Feliz’s first CEO while he continues as its president on a messianic mission to share its story with the world.

“I’ve done this for 40 years. I don’t have children of my own,” Gil said. “To me, raising children is the largest service project you can possibly do. I waived that and did this instead. So I’m hopeful we can find people of enthusiasm and resiliency who can take this project on, because it’s all in place.”

He’s been thinking about this a lot lately — his place in the world — here in his house with Izuru by his side. “I don’t know how I could do it without her,” he said, describing the enormous leveling effect she’s had on his life. Gil didn’t remarry until he was 63, after Izzy waltzed into a Bikram hot yoga class.

“She’s from Japan. Talk about the yin and the yang,” he said. “She runs the little tienda at Rancho Feliz and decorates the rooms. She’s an amazing partner and has been a gift.”

Gil is grateful for his abundant life, but it’s not posturing to say that he is anxious — really anxious — to get his message out. He recently finished writing a book called “Hope on the Border,” an edgy manifesto that lays his beliefs on the line. His message is clear: Service isn’t sacrifice. It’s salvation.

“The purpose and joy I have gotten from Rancho Feliz far exceeds my business successes. I really do believe when we are in service to others, God or spirit or whatever you’re more comfortable with reveals itself to those with a higher purpose,” he said. “The most selfish thing that we can do is serve.”

To learn more, go to ranchofeliz.com.