Our CEO Kayla spent a week in San Diego meeting the people behind our fastest-growing market in person, and came back with a lot to be excited about.

She welcomed two new team members on the ground: Emma Burns, our new bilingual Outreach Coordinator, and Crystal Hilsley, our newest board member (more on her below!). Together, they visited four of our San Diego operators, including Healthy Day Partners, Heaven's Windows, I Love to Glean, and Porchlight Community Services, each doing the work of turning donated produce into meals in their own way.

The trip closed with an evening at Healthy Day Partners' Encinitas headquarters, bringing together gardeners, operators, funders, and staff to celebrate the season.

The highlight? Pam MacCallum was honored as Fresh Food Connect's #1 contributing gardener in the entire country, having donated 1,500+ pounds of homegrown produce to Healthy Day Partners over the past few years.

Growth like this doesn't happen without the community behind it, so a heartfelt thank you to everyone who made the trip possible, especially Bill Hornung of the Harry Chapin Foundation and our partners at Hunter Industries.

After nearly two years away and more than five years since we first imagined what this campus could become, Project Worthmore has officially returned home to The Roots!

The Roots allows us to expand the way we serve our community. Our newly reimagined food market provides a grocery store–style experience where clients can browse fresh produce and culturally familiar foods with greater choice and dignity. Later this year, we will open a medical clinic, expanding access to primary care and helping remove barriers that too often prevent families from receiving the healthcare they need

We are thrilled to report that tax fairness will be on the November ballot! The Colorado Secretary of State informed us earlier this week that we had collected 130,938 valid signatures, exceeding the required threshold both statewide and in each of Colorado's 35 Senate districts. The graduated income tax is on the ballot! That means Colorado voters will decide whether they want to cut state income taxes for 97 percent of Coloradans and raise them on those making more than $500,000 a year. The graduated income tax measure would bring in $2 billion annually that will be used for child care, healthcare, and K-12 education. Members of the Protect Colorado's Future coalition, which has backed the measure, are ebullient and energized for the next two months of campaigning.

From Pueblo to Boulder and Beyond: Dulce Valenzuela Leads with Love and Compassion

Deeply rooted in her hometown of Pueblo, Dulce carries the strength, generosity, and resilience of her family and community into every space she enters. She is a first-generation Latina student at the University of Colorado Boulder, double majoring in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology and women and gender studies. She also is minoring in sociology, public health, and biochemistry.

Sign Up for Our AI Confluence Program by Tomorrow!

Registration Closes Tuesday, September 1st

AI is already changing how nonprofit teams work. The question is no longer whether AI will show up in your organization, but how your team will navigate it thoughtfully, responsibly, and strategically. If your organization has been wondering where AI fits, what risks to consider, or how to move forward with confidence, now is the time to join AI Confluence.

AI Confluence: Build

Girls Inc. of Metro Denver Announces New Board Chair and Board Leadership for Next Phase of Expansion

Denver, CO – Girls Inc. of Metro Denver (GIMD) is proud to announce Simone D. Morrison, CEO of the Colorado Women’s Chamber of Commerce, as its new Board Chair, leading the organization into its next chapter of growth, expansion and community impact.

The statewide questions on the November ballot are varied and important, ranging from increasing penalties for fentanyl crimes to prohibiting students from participating on sports teams that are not aligned with their sex assigned at birth. In years past, we have waited for the entire ballot to be set before sharing our ballot guide. But this year, as ballot questions are certified for the November 2026 ballot, we are analyzing them and posting them here on a rolling basis so you have the information you need as soon as possible.

HOW OUR RECOMMENDATIONS WORK

As always, this ballot guide is the result of research and analysis by Bell staff, who have examined history and context to provide you clear arguments in favor and against each of the questions on the ballot. For the measures that impact the values the Bell has identified for this ballot guide, we’ve provided recommended votes. For the remainder, we have offered facts, analysis, and pros and cons, but did not take a position.

As Alexis de Tocqueville observed nearly two centuries ago, private giving is an essential part of the American enterprise. In Democracy in America, the French philosopher highlighted Americans’ unique commitment to philanthropy—the desire to use one’s own talent and treasure to promote the welfare of others. “Americans of all ages, all conditions, all minds constantly unite,” he wrote. “Americans use associations to give fêtes, to found seminaries, to build inns, to raise churches, to distribute books, to send missionaries to the antipodes; in this manner they create hospitals, prisons, schools.”

In societies with large and growing governments, it can be easy to doubt the need for private giving and dismiss the essential role philanthropies play in solving difficult social challenges.

This report explores the impact of philanthropy—how and whether it contributes to vibrant communities, growing economies, the strength of families, individual educational outcomes, and more. It examines what Colorado would look like without its philanthropic sector and attempts to quantify what level of taxation would be necessary to replace the state’s vibrant tradition of private giving.

ORDWAY, Colo. — Mario Rios’ paintings have graced the walls of the Colorado State Capitol, SUNY Fredonia and the Museum of Art Fort Collins. But his most ambitious project yet is also the most exclusive, on view only within Arkansas Valley Correctional Facility, where Rios is serving a life sentence without parole.

Over the last seven years, Rios has transformed the hallway of the prison’s mental health wing into a floor-to-ceiling mural. Titled “Metamorphosis of Change,” the mural is inspired by the story of Frankenstein’s monster.

Rios, 47, has been incarcerated for 19 years. The mural has been a work-in-progress for more than a third of that time. The artwork, he said, is a source of pride, an opportunity for reflection and a chance to connect with other incarcerated people.

Trees, Water & People, an environmental nonprofit based in Fort Collins, created “In the Right Hands”, a short film that explores the importance and impact of trust-based philanthropy.

https://www.trustbasedphilanthropy.org/tools-resources/intherighthands

Trust-based philanthropy is a growing movement and practice in the philanthropic sector which encourages authentic donor-grantee relationships, unrestricted and long-term grant structures, and more flexible reporting requirements; ultimately, trust-based philanthropy seeks to reduce burdens upon nonprofits and other grantees, and facilitate investment in more long-term, systemic change by allowing communities greater autonomy and flexibility in the use of funding. Though these practices are not entirely new, the concept of trust-based philanthropy became more formalized under the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project and gained further momentum following the COVID-19 pandemic, which demonstrated the need for more flexible funding structures.

DENVER — Colorado turns 150 years old this year and to mark the milestone — and the concurrent 250th anniversary of the founding of the country — the state Legislature established a commission to plan a series of commemorative events.

And what are Colorado’s Indigenous communities planning to bring to the parties?

The truth.

On a bus.

“We want to talk about what happened, what really happened, and our histories and bring that into the modern day, and see how we can we heal from this,” said Diné artist Nazhoné Morgan, who helped turn an ordinary school bus into a mobile exhibit on Colorado’s Native culture and history that will travel the state sharing the stories.

Earlier today, five speakers from the Colorado Clergy Alliance gathered outside the State Capitol with a crowd of 50 supporters, representing Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, and Unitarian faith communities. The rally sought to “decry the federal government’s attempts to interfere with election administration and to remove voting rights from eligible voters, because the right to vote and freely elect our leaders is the most foundational democratic right that we have locally here in Colorado,” according to Rev. Dr. Jenny Whitcher, the co-founder and co-leader of the Colorado Clergy Alliance.