Photo: Healthy Air and Water Colorado

In 2023, Rose Community Foundation awarded $2,485,000 in support of Greater Denver’s diverse and dynamic ecosystem of organizations that leverage policy and advocacy efforts to help communities furthest from opportunity create conditions for equity, justice, inclusion and engagement.

Examples of the type of activities funded through this opportunity include:

• Advocacy – including lobbying – for specific statewide, municipal or district policy efforts that close systemic gaps and grow financial, social, political or cultural capital for those furthest from opportunity.
• Advocacy on behalf of communities that are furthest from opportunity and that lifts up impacted community voices to help advance policy priorities.
• Research that informs policy actions and recommendations or strengthens mission-aligned policy campaigns.
• Impactful advocacy coalitions that are collaboratively working toward shared policy objectives.
• Implementation of recently passed policies that Rose Community Foundation endorsed.

Community participation and engagement was one of several key criteria used in evaluating applications for this opportunity. Thirty-five percent of the grantee organizations are led by a person of color (POC). Of the organizations receiving funding, eight are new to the Policy and Advocacy Ecosystem Cycle and five of those organizations are new grantees of Rose Community Foundation.

The full list of grantees is below. Learn more about the Foundation’s Policy and Advocacy work on our website.

9to5 Colorado: Improving working and living conditions across Colorado by advancing economic security for women of color and their families through grassroots community organizing, issue-based policy advocacy, and leadership development efforts.

American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Colorado: Building a more just and equitable Colorado by deploying integrated advocacy, policy, organizing and legal strategies to advance systemic equality, smart justice, and privacy and liberty.

Bell Policy Center: Community-engaged policy research, education, and advocacy that advances equitable public funding, strengthens economic supports for childcare and direct care workers, and addresses structural equity in key economic mobility systems.

Cobalt Foundation: Supporting advocacy, education, and outreach activities that advance the goal of codifying the right to an abortion in the state constitution and reversing the state’s ban on the public funding of abortion.

Colorado Ceasefire Legislative Action: Working to break the cycle of gun violence by passing, implementing and maintaining gun safety reforms that keep families and children free from harm.

Colorado Center on Law and Policy: Partnering with communities, grassroots organizations, and families to alleviate poverty and advance economic security for all, with a specific focus on addressing the unique challenges associated with the end of pandemic-era public assistance programs.

Colorado Children’s Campaign: Advocating for the development and implementation of data-driven public policy that improves child well-being, with a focus on early childhood, family economic prosperity, youth success, and child and family health.

Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault: Addressing sexual violence and advancing policy and advocacy efforts that support community-based supports, strengthen physical and behavioral health services, and improve access to safe housing, education, and workplace protections.

Colorado Coalition for the Homeless: Advancing housing advocacy for low-income Coloradans, especially those who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless, through state and local policy development that creates more housing for low-income populations.

Colorado Community Health Network: Supporting community-based health coverage assisters and advocating for state-level improvements to the eligibility processes that increase enrollment and decrease administrative barriers.

Colorado Consumer Health Initiative: Implementing new policies that improve health equity, access, and affordability through strengthened community and consumer engagement.

Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition: Advocating for economic and social justice for people with all types of disabilities through community-informed policy development and implementation.

Colorado Fiscal Institute: Advancing people-centered fiscal and economic policies through research, statewide education, community connections, and advocacy efforts that support and empower working families and build on past policy wins.

Colorado Health Institute: Providing technical assistance and creating health and climate communications materials for cross-sector partners across Colorado to implement a policy agenda for climate change and health adaptation.

Colorado Legal Services: Launching a legislative campaign to increase civil court filing fees to expand dedicated legal aid funding for Coloradans living in poverty.

Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights: Protecting proactive reproductive justice policies that expand access for those furthest from opportunity.

Colorado Perinatal Care Quality Collaborative: Addressing systemic disparities in perinatal health outcomes and reducing maternal mortality and morbidity by establishing mandatory hospital participation in quality improvement and a state maternal data center.

Community Economic Defense Project: Facilitating client-led organizing movements to reform and reimagine inequitable systems that lead to the creation and implementation of public policies that advance housing and economic justice.

Council for a Strong America: Equipping unexpected messengers – law enforcement, military, and business leaders – to promote evidence-based policy solutions and investments that strengthen early childhood programs and make them more accessible and equitable.

Early Milestones Colorado: Bringing together data, analysis, and stakeholder engagement to elevate early childhood mental health as a policy and investment priority.

East County Housing Opportunity Coalition: Creating a culture on local town and council boards in Eastern Boulder County that evaluates and takes proactive steps to ensure that future housing and economic decisions are made through a lens of equity and affordability.

Ednium: The Alumni Collective: Mobilizing Denver Public Schools alumni as a force for change by ensuring effective implementation of Prosperity Denver Fund’s eligibility expansion and DPS’s new financial literacy curriculum.

Elevation Community Land Trust: Supporting the Colorado Affordable Homeownership Alliance’s efforts to build wealth for low- and middle-income Coloradans by creating permanently affordable for-sale homes.

Enterprise Community Partners: Supporting equitable affordable housing policy creation and implementation in Greater Denver and statewide that ensure new resources and attention benefit Coloradans facing the greatest systemic challenges to high-quality, affordable homes.

Envision:You: Informing state officials and policymakers about disparities in care facing LGBTQ+ people and ensuring that LGBTQ+ individuals’ mental health concerns are being addressed through legislation.

Great Education Colorado: Creating a durable movement for the welcoming and adequately and sustainably funded public schools that Colorado students deserve by combatting anti-revenue and anti-equity coalitions.

Growing Our Future Coalition via Colorado Children’s Campaign: A coalition of Colorado advocates fighting for caregiving to be respected, prioritized and funded as an essential service.

Healthy Air and Water Colorado Action: Advocating for the adoption of statewide and local climate resilience and adaptation plans that prioritize equity and sustainability.

Laboratory to Combat Human Trafficking: Supporting anti-trafficking advocacy through community-based research that identifies strengths and gaps in combating human trafficking; empowers communities with data; and informs policy, strategy and action to create collective approaches.

Mental Health Colorado: Broadening Coloradans’ access to mental health supports by advocating for policies that not only dismantle barriers to care and services for individuals and families, but also reshape statewide care systems to be more adaptable to people’s needs.

New Era Colorado Foundation: Harnessing and organizing youth power to advance a youth policy agenda aimed at creating a more equitable future, especially around reproductive rights and economic justice.

One Colorado: Protecting and advancing equality for LGBTQ+ Coloradans.

Out Boulder County: Facilitating connection, education, research, advocacy, and legislative campaigns informed and guided by the lived experiences of LGBTQ+ people.

Spring Institute for Intercultural Learning: Supporting immigrant and refugee integration and inclusion in Colorado by improving language access pertinent to civic engagement, advocating for better mental health supports, and promoting workforce integration of internationally trained physicians.

Together Colorado: Statewide community-led organizing efforts to advance integrated, equitable structural change around housing, criminal justice, economic justice, climate, immigration and health care.

United For A New Economy: Growing the leadership and civic engagement of people of color and low-income people in Adams County and statewide to advance policies that increase renters’ rights and build a more equitable and racially just tax code.

University of Colorado Foundation: Supporting the Korey Wise Innocence Project’s efforts to amplify the voices of incarcerated people and pass legislation that improves transparency and timeliness around the commutation application review process.

The Women’s Foundation of Colorado: Advancing gender, racial and economic equity in Colorado through public policy and advocacy, with a focus on equitably generating resources for people who have been historically and systemically denied them.

Rose Community Foundation strives to advance inclusive, engaged and equitable Greater Denver communities through values-driven philanthropy. The Foundation envisions a thriving region strengthened by its diversity and generosity, and it utilizes the varied tools at its disposal – grantmaking, advocacy and philanthropic services – to advance this aspiration. Since its founding in 1995, the Foundation has granted more than $400 million to over 2,000 organizations and initiatives, including $60 million in facilitated grantmaking from donor-advised funds. The Foundation also supports nearly 100 nonprofit organizations in creating and growing endowments to sustain their vital work into the future, currently stewarding $70 million in endowed assets. The Foundation has $385 million in total assets under management, with annual grantmaking of over $20 million. Learn more at: rcfdenver.org.