Beverly Rogers focused on ‘vertical philanthropy’ for education and the arts

Those who cognize Beverly Rogers cognize that erstwhile she puts her caput to a goal, it’ll get done.

Look nary further than The Lucy, an arts and literate abstraction successful downtown Las Vegas.

Rogers, a philanthropist who was joined to erstwhile TV presumption proprietor Jim Rogers until his decease successful 2014, ever had a passionateness for arts, speechmaking and Las Vegas. When she realized she could enactment each involvement unneurotic and make a originative country successful Las Vegas, 1 not antecedently seen, she wouldn’t springiness up.

“She spent hours driving astir municipality looking for the cleanable spot to fulfill the imaginativeness she had successful her mind’s eye. A spot wherever originative radical could congregate and make together,” said Rory Reid, the co-trustee of The Rogers Foundation and longtime person of the couple.

“She didn’t prosecute a consultant, she didn’t prosecute a existent property agent. She got successful her car, drove around, she recovered the property. She convinced the proprietor that her thought was a amended usage for it. And past with the parcel adjacent to it, she persuaded them to sell. And ultimately, she had a spot to ticker her imaginativeness go reality.”

Rogers, described by colleagues arsenic a pragmatic and graceful visionary, has agelong played a relation successful the Las Vegas nonprofit sector. From her aboriginal days of unpaid enactment astatine University of Nevada, Las Vegas, to the inception of a premier acquisition and arts instauration for Southern Nevada, Rogers has honed her ngo for philanthropy — and for Las Vegas.

Opportunities successful Las Vegas

Rogers, 70, moved to Las Vegas successful 1962. Her parent and stepfather brought their household from Pennsylvania to the valley, knowing nary one, but seeking opportunities, she said. Their quality to found themselves near a heavy content connected her astir the city. Her stepfather became a bowling alley mechanic, and her parent became an bureau manager for an orthodontist.

“I saw the accidental that Las Vegas gave them, knowing nary 1 and with a small gumption, however good they could do,” Rogers said. “And past I watched them bring their friends out, and their friends did the aforesaid happening — possibly with a small spot of their help, but not truthful much. Just with their ain gumption and the opportunities that Las Vegas offered them, I deliberation that’s reasonably uncommon successful the country.”

She sold vigor and TV advertisements opening successful the 1980s, yet landing astatine KSNV-TV, Channel 3. In her spare time, she recovered things she was passionate astir — lit and speechmaking — and turned them into volunteering opportunities. She work for unsighted students astatine her alma mater, UNLV, earlier books connected portion became popular.

“I would work — I’m telling you — bass sportfishing magazines,” she said. “I curse to God, I work immoderate of the astir boring things. But it felt bully to bash it, and it satisfied thing successful maine due to the fact that I felt similar each I did was enactment to marque wealth and that didn’t consciousness good. I liked my job, but I conscionable needed thing else, and that was it.”

Her philanthropic engagement changed aft marrying Jim Rogers successful 1997. She began getting invitations to beryllium connected country nonprofits’ boards. Those roles showed Rogers a caller broadside to philanthropy and getting progressive successful the community, she said. Over the years, she noticed however galore nonprofits duplicated services offered by others and began looking for ways to spell deeper.

But it was Jim Rogers’ decease successful June 2014 that launched her flagship endeavors arsenic a philanthropist. Her hubby acceptable up the instauration spot successful 2013 and near Reid and Rogers with a wide ngo to code acquisition — a shared passionateness of the Rogers’ — nevertheless the 2 saw fit.

With specified a wide mission, the instauration had galore callers, Reid said.

“Everybody successful the satellite had america with ideas of what we should do, and mostly their ideas were, ‘Give maine your wealth truthful I tin bash what I want,’” helium said. “Bev’s absorption to that says a batch astir her arsenic a philanthropist. She’s ever been precise intentional. She believes that the 2 champion ways to alteration the satellite are done acquisition and the arts, and she didn’t privation to conscionable constitute a clump of checks, beryllium successful a formation location somewhere. She wanted to make her ain programs that would further those 2 interests.”

Building a philanthropic mission

Soon after, The Rogers Foundation was established: a spot for Rogers to trial retired her thought of “vertical philanthropy.”

“My thing, past and now, is that if you instrumentality what you have, beryllium it ample oregon small, and absorption it and spell deep, you’re ever going to bash a amended happening than if you tin interaction thousands and thousands of radical due to the fact that this is temporary,” she said.

The instauration is simply a azygous transmission to enactment charitable efforts for acquisition and the arts. It offers higher acquisition scholarships for the instauration of their choice, nationwide, to precocious schoolhouse seniors successful Southern Nevada. It created and powers an acquisition equity betterment program, Educate Nevada Now. It supports CORE Academy, an in- and after-school programme supporting students and their families from sixth people done graduation. It co-sponsors, with The Smith Center, the Heart of Education awards for Clark County teachers.

The enactment estimates it has fixed much than $89 cardinal to children and programs since its inception. Rogers points to the fig of recipients successful enactment roles arsenic impervious of success.

“If you wanted to cognize wherefore I ne'er privation to halt doing this, it’s the look connected their face,” she said. “It’s to ticker them outcry and outcry too. It’s to spot their absorption to being fixed thing that volition alteration their lives. It’s an accidental for them — they’re the ones that are going to marque their dreams travel true.

“I similar knowing that we’re the radical who tin marque that accidental to assistance marque their dreams travel true. I similar seeing myself, and seeing the foundation, arsenic we backmost leaders and we connection opportunities. And that’s however I effort to live, personally.”

Creating originative spaces

Rogers besides has utilized the instauration to marque philanthropic inroads successful her passions: arts and literature.

The Lucy is its astir disposable proof. The arts, lit and assemblage halfway connected Sixth Street and Bonneville Avenue is simply a twelve loft-style residences for artists and writers successful residency, done some The Rogers Foundation and UNLV’s Black Mountain Institute (also supported by Jim and Beverly Rogers’ philanthropy). There is lawsuit and schoolroom space, each anchored by autarkic bookstore-cafe Writer’s Block. And successful 2022, the abstraction adjacent doorway volition beryllium an autarkic movie house, The Beverly Theater.

Rogers, a partial proprietor of Writer’s Block with Drew Cohen and Scott Seeley, bought retired the Downtown Project’s stock of the bookstore and helped it determination to the existent determination successful 2019. The concern owners person recovered that Rogers’ no-nonsense attack to her goals keeps her connected track.

“She’s got a clarity of intent that I deliberation is perchance uncommon successful a philanthropist,” Cohen said. “I deliberation she has a wide thought of what she wants her relation successful this assemblage to beryllium and what she does not privation it to be.”

Her adjacent goals are publically indistinct, arsenic she’s hesitant to marque herself the halfway of the foundation’s work: “Just due to the fact that I’d similar to freak radical out, I’d emotion to bargain the remainder of the block,” she joked.

Rogers didn’t place circumstantial missions erstwhile The Beverly Theater opens. It’s much important to find places that volition bash “exponential good” for radical and for Las Vegas, she said, portion keeping up with her vertical philanthropy process.

“You’ll marque an exponential quality due to the fact that what you bash for others, they’ll bash for others,” she said. “You don’t person to inquire them, radical conscionable bash that. They conscionable wage it guardant and it works.”

McKenna Ross is simply a corps subordinate with Report for America, a nationalist work programme that places journalists into section newsrooms. Contact her astatine mross@reviewjournal.com. Follow @mckenna_ross_ connected Twitter.