Hacking Capitalism for Liberation ✹
Investing to Heal Our World
WHAT IS CALM DOWNS?
Calm Downs is a business management consulting firm and business and nonprofit developer. We’re a private company that invests in businesses that are creating positive change in our world, with a current focus on the Natural Medicine, Security, Aviation, Energy, Creative Writing, Affordable Housing, and Cannabis industries.
We live in an increasingly unequal society where the wealth of a few often results in the impoverishment of many. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
We believe that prosperity can be a force for good.
To build community wealth, it takes an entire ecosystem of businesses, nonprofits, and social movements to develop our economic structures and create positive change. Calm Downs reinvests most of its resources towards growing these elements and providing the resources necessary to help the ecosystem thrive, looking to build a future where all can thrive. When we allow these things to grow, a few trees will eventually become a forest.
Who Are We?
Tom Downs
Owner & Principal Partner
Tom is a social entrepreneur, artist, philanthropist, and political activist. He has always been an observer and has had an outsider perspective developed from his time growing up as a light skinned Black teenager in Alabama, where he often felt alienated. It was as a moody 17-year old that Tom started his healing relationship with psilocybin, going from the kid who wasn’t living up to his potential to the straight-A student earning a scholarship to attend Mizzou — arguably one of the best Journalism schools in the nation. Tom would like to thank the many teachers who have helped him along the way and who shared the healing wisdoms that inform his practice, including his adopted dad Chief Lee Plenty Wolf and Zen Master Thay Thich Nhat Hanh. Tom has operated Calm Downs for the past seven years and lives with his wife and dog in Boulder, Colorado.
Andy Vo
Chief People & Culture Officer
Andy Vo (he/him) is an Operations and People/HR professional with international (10 years in NYC, US-wide scope; 5 years in London, EMEA-wide scope) and diversified specialist experience (business analysis & process improvement, reporting & analytics, DEI/compensation analysis/performance management/recruitment). Andy grew up in Pennsylvania and is the son of Vietnamese immigrants. In his personal & professional life, the core values that drive him are that he loves to learn and to help others. Andy obtained his Bachelors in Communication Studies at Shippensburg University and his Human Capital Management Certificate at Cornell University. Andy is an avid rock climber and is passionate about using this platform to pursue self-development, community building, and traveling to experience new cultures. After relocating back to the US, Andy started working with Tom and Calm Downs in 2019 and spends his free time exploring the abundant mountains, forests, and canyons of Colorado!
Featured Projects
Some of these “succeeded” and some did not. We like to call it “Lessons learned through iterative practice.”
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A boutique luxury wellness retreat center nestled between Aspen Park and Morrison, Colorado. CO Healing House partners with therapists specializing in Ketamine Assisted Protocols for individuals, couples, and groups, and will seek to partner with therapists specializing in MDMA Assisted Protocols once this important therapy is approved by the FDA in 2024.
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A 501(c)(3) organization founded in 2017 to ensure that indigenous residents participated in, and helped plan, the annual Boulder Valley Indigenous Peoples Day events.
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A case study in literal heartbreak, this company was originally co-founded by Tom Downs in 2015. At a high point in 2018, Flatirons Political Art designed and printed t-Shirts for the Colorado Abolish Slavery ballot initiative. Unfortunately, Tom and the business faced a series of insurmountable challenges, and the company was eventually liquidated in 2022. Shortly thereafter, Tom Downs suffered a massive aortic rupture. Against the odds, he survived. Labeled a “failed venture” by most people’s definition, he is nevertheless grateful for the gift of clarity the entire Flatirons Political Art experience gave him.
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An encrypted mapping and communication app concept that took roots in 2015. The idea was to help families and high-risk activists from marginalized groups to participate safely in mass protests. Tom Downs agreed to fund the project completely. What he learned was the importance of ironclad contractual agreements in any business venture.
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With a lifelong passion for the profession, Tom Downs created this agency to push back against the fallacy that the ultimate goal of journalism is to provide the absolute, unvarnished truth. GIJA reporters have covered events from protests on the Trump inauguration, Pizzagate, Roger Stone’s trial and subsequent conviction, and other events leading up to the January 6th insurrection.
Are you a catalyst?
GET INVOLVED
We’re looking for people who are catalysts for change — those individuals and organizations that are going to influence society for the better. If you have an idea that’s destined to make an impact, we want to hear it.
