“We work at the intersection of transportation equity and environmental sustainability.” For Donna Matturro McAleer, executive director of Bicycle Collective, those are not simply words describing a nonprofit organization. They are evident throughout a building where donated bicycles arrive every day, professional mechanics work alongside longtime volunteers, and customers search for everything from a vintage part to a one-dollar inner tube. Somewhere in the midst of it all, another bicycle is being prepared for someone for whom two wheels may mean an entirely different level of independence.

“I had a soft spot for the underdog, so I just kind of went in - and who needs sleep?” Bruce Robertson says it with a laugh, but after twenty-eight years as executive director of Visual Art Institute, the sentiment goes a long way toward explaining both the man and the place he has devoted much of his life to preserving, expanding, and quietly transforming.

“I think everything around us can be art if we really want it to be.” For Chris Jensen, executive director of the Salt Lake Art Museum, that belief extends far beyond what hangs on a gallery wall. It includes an old house and its craftsmanship, a classic automobile painstakingly restored, a changing landscape, a historic building given another life and, perhaps most importantly, the people and communities whose stories are embedded within them. It is an expansive way of looking at art, and one that has found an ideal home inside the former B’nai Israel synagogue, where the new museum is bringing together Utah art, history, and place in ways that Chris hopes will encourage people to see all three differently.

“There were little bits and pieces that directed me - little crumbs that led me here.” Long before Mariah Mellus, Executive Director of the Utah Film Center, found herself championing filmmakers, artists, and audiences across the state, there was a little girl whose parents realized, by the age of four, that movies held a special place in her heart. Even her name has a cinematic beginning.

“We get to vote with our dollars. And I know we hear that all the time. But it is very much true that we can create the community we want by financially supporting these small businesses as they are coming up, as they are incubating at the market.” That belief sits at the heart of Director, Carly Gillespie’s work with the Downtown Alliance and the Downtown Farmers Market, but it began long before she found her way into nonprofit leadership.

“What we do is share stories. At the very heart of it, we take the written word, the passed-down tale, the brand-new idea, and we project it into real life so a room full of people can feel it together.” As Managing Director of Pioneer Theatre Company, Adrian Budhu lives by those words every day. His life traces a beautiful arc of places, people, and purpose - an arc that explains why that sentence lands with such conviction.

“This is actually the most exciting position I have ever had.” For Jody Engar, Arts Programming Coordinator for the City of South Salt Lake, her role with the South Salt Lake Arts Council combines everything she has learned in her professional life with her passion for community engagement.

“Once you are at Osher, age does not matter,” said Jill E. Meyer, Director of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Utah. “The joy of learning is what unites us. It is a place to rediscover passions, meet people who share your interests, and be part of something bigger than yourself.”

“I was born in Salt Lake City, but I moved every six months until I was sixteen. By then, I had lived in more than thirty cities. I tell people that it gave me a huge appreciation for the world, but what it really taught me was not to need anyone. I raised my siblings, mostly my sister, by the time I was five. I lost my childhood in order to protect her, but it gave me a sense of purpose.” Today, Celeste Edmunds leads The Christmas Box International, a nonprofit serving Utah’s most vulnerable children - an organization deeply tied to her own story of survival.

“I have spent most of my life in and out of jail, and now I get to run a donut shop. I wake up and get to make people happy. I never thought that would be my life.” Nicholas Smith, General Manager of The Other Side Donuts, was born in San Diego, California, but moved to Vernal, Utah, before his second birthday. The second youngest of six boys, Nicholas grew up in a deeply troubled home. His father, a towering Polynesian man from Fiji, was abusive toward Nicholas’s mother. Nicholas still remembers hiding behind couches, calling 911, and watching the chaos unfold around him.

“I like to say, ‘One mission, two locations.’” Tim Brown smiled as he spoke, the phrase capturing both the scope and the spirit of the organization he leads as President /CEO - Tracy Aviary in Liberty Park and the Nature Center at Pia Okwai along the Jordan River.

“Housing alone will never solve homelessness, but community can,” shared Camilla “Winnie,” Vice President of The Other Side Village. From the moment she voiced that conviction, everything began to align. Inspired by what she had witnessed at Community First Village in Austin, Texas, she returned to Utah with a vision - not just for housing, but for healing. “It’s the whole person, first. Housing comes last.”

At the end of the day, we are here for young people. To see them. To believe in them. And to give them a space where their voices are not just heard but celebrated.” That is how Larissa Trout, Executive Director of Spy Hop, summed up the heart of an organization that has been quietly and powerfully transforming the lives of Utah’s youth for over twenty-five years. “I don’t know if I’ve ever worked anywhere else that centers young people as intentionally and as fully as this place does.”