Founders' Message
Why We Established the Kiita Foundation
We are often asked to explain what the Kiita Foundation does and whom we intend to help. We are less often asked why we established it. That question goes to the heart of who we are and what we hope to accomplish.
To provide philanthropic funding, one must first have the financial resources to do so. Those resources can come from many sources—a lottery, an inheritance, a successful professional career, or the creation of a successful business.
In our case, they came primarily from JDA Software, a company we founded in Canada in 1978 and later moved to the United States. JDA grew to become the world’s largest provider of retail and merchandising information systems and later a significant provider of supply chain management solutions. Its growth was accelerated through the acquisition of a number of smaller companies. We took the company public in 1996 and ultimately sold our interests in 2012. The company is now part of Panasonic. Subsequent business endeavors further expanded our financial resources.
We began our philanthropic journey shortly after JDA’s initial public offering. As we gained experience, it became increasingly clear what we wanted our philanthropy to accomplish. In many ways, we brought to philanthropy the same vision and business principles that had guided us as entrepreneurs.
Our Guiding Principles
Our philanthropy is guided by three fundamental beliefs.
First, wealth carries responsibility. We believe that financial success creates an obligation to help others. Success should carry with it a willingness to help people develop the capacity to succeed for themselves.
Second, philanthropy should reflect personal values and passions. The involvement of our family and board members in the scholarship programs and charitable organizations we support is central to both our mission and its meaning. Without personal involvement, we believe philanthropy can become distant and impersonal.
Third, people without family or institutional support deserve particular attention. We have concluded that education and opportunity are among the most effective forms of assistance. Whenever possible, we believe in providing a hand up rather than simply a handout.
Both our business experience and our personal experiences growing up shaped these principles.
In business, our practice was to identify potential, provide resources, accept risk, and help something grow. That “something” might have been a product, a service, an acquisition, or, importantly, an employee. We believe the same approach can be applied to philanthropy.
That is why education has become such an important focus of the Kiita Foundation. Our scholarship programs are designed not simply to pay for college, but to help create long-term independence. We believe that providing resources at a critical stage in a young person’s life can create lasting and positive change.
Our Focus
The primary focus of the Kiita Foundation is assisting students who have become financially independent and who lack meaningful family support. This includes students coming through the foster care system and others who have no practical alternative means of obtaining an education but who have demonstrated the determination and character to make use of the opportunity.
This focus has resulted in scholarship programs in Arizona, Colorado, and Montana. Our family’s involvement with Rancho Feliz reflects the same commitment.
Many of the students we support have overcome extraordinarily difficult backgrounds. With a measure of assistance—and a great deal of their own determination—they can create a very different future.
A secondary focus of the Foundation is helping to relieve human hardship.
Where Our Values Began
Our business experience was important, but the environment in which we grew up had an equally profound influence on why and how we have dedicated so much of our lives to philanthropy.
We grew up in Elliott Lake, Ontario, Canada, a small and remote uranium-mining community. It is a long way from the wealthy part of Phoenix, Arizona, where we spend much of our time today—not only geographically, but in terms of the life we knew growing up.
In Elliott Lake, there was little difference in income among most residents. Nearly everyone had a parent who worked in the mines or in a service industry dependent upon them. Almost everyone had parents who had experienced a world war. No one was rich, but no one lived on the street. There were no private schools, yacht clubs, or mansions.
When someone had a problem, people pitched in to help. No child was abandoned. No family went hungry. Everyone had friends. Children participated in sports or outdoor activities. Most parents encouraged their children to become educated. Few people paid much attention to politics, yet nearly everyone believed in capitalism and in the possibility of improving their circumstances.
That environment shaped us.
Why We Believe Help Is Needed
We see a very different reality in America today.
The financial community speaks of a “K-shaped” economy, in which those who are already doing well continue to prosper while others fall further behind. Whatever the political causes, the result is an extraordinary disparity in opportunity and security.
Many of the most serious challenges facing our society remain inadequately addressed. Access to quality education, food security, health care, affordable higher education, and the security of children and families continue to be matters of profound concern.
Given the environment in which we grew up, we came to believe that helping society’s most disadvantaged individuals was an area in which we could make a meaningful contribution.
While we have personally been fortunate to enjoy strong family support, many young people do not have that advantage. Some age out of the foster care system at eighteen. Others have experienced abandonment or family disruption caused by alcoholism, drug abuse, or other hardships. Many have little or no family support and can pursue higher education only through limited scholarship opportunities or burdensome student loans.
This is where we chose to focus.
We have supported hundreds of financially independent students and intend to continue doing so. We do what we can to address the disparity we see, hoping—and believing—that education and opportunity can make a lasting difference.
Everyone Needs a Rock
We credit much of our desire to do this to the environment in which we grew up. The values we gained there are the bedrock of our philanthropic efforts. Elliott Lake has an iconic symbol: a large, old rock sitting just offshore in the lake for which the town is named. As large as a house, it was a familiar part of our lives. We saw it every day. To us, that rock represents the solid foundation our hometown provided.
Everyone needs a rock.
For the students we support, our hope is that the education made possible, in part, through the assistance we provide—but more importantly through their own stubborn determination—will become their own rock: a foundation on which they can build independent, meaningful, and successful lives.
- Jim and Jo-Ann Armstrong
