Letter from CLCT Managing Director, Marco Dorado
As we kick off 2026 and reflect on 2025, I’m proud of what Communities Lead Communities Thrive has built alongside community-rooted nonprofits across Colorado, and even more proud of how we’ve built it: by listening first, organizing collectively, and remaining focused on transforming systems, not just navigating them.
In 2024, the state took an important step forward by disbursing Nonprofit Infrastructure (NPI) grant funds. Nearly 500 organizations across Colorado received grants of up to $100,000 to recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. This was the culmination of advocacy efforts CLCT started in 2022 to ensure small nonprofits serving historically underinvested communities. In 2025, CLCT set out to ensure that this progress didn’t stall. We renewed our efforts to ensure future state funding systems work better for the small, community-based organizations addressing the most pressing challenges in communities across Colorado.
We did this by pairing policy advocacy with practical capacity-building. Through statewide listening sessions and dozens of one-on-one conversations, more than 40 nonprofit leaders shared their experiences navigating Colorado’s fragmented, inequitable grant systems. Their insights shaped our Funding the Frontlines Policy Agenda, which lays out clear, community-driven solutions to improve access, transparency, and trust in state grantmaking.
This year, we also helped advance reform through direct advocacy, including support for House Bill 25-1101 and public education efforts through social media, editorial columns, and coalition letters. Below, you’ll find highlights of this work and the progress we’ve made together this year.
At the same time, we focused on tools to meet immediate needs – most notably launching Colorado’s first State Grant Database for Nonprofits in late June. This resource is already helping organizations save time, plan more strategically, and better access public funding opportunities. Guided by feedback from nonprofit leaders across the state, we look forward to launching an improved version of the database soon that will be even more accessible, intuitive, and useful. Stay tuned for more!
None of this work happens in isolation. CLCT’s growing coalition of over 55 organizations across Colorado reflects a shared belief that when community organizations build power together, we can shape policies that affect us. I am grateful for the partnership and support of our Coalition members, along with the support of our Steering Committee, including the Asian Pacific Development Center, Aurora Mental Health, Black Resilience in Colorado, Latino Community Foundation of Colorado, and Rocky Mountain Equality for their guidance, insight, and drive to kickstart CLCT.
Thank you as well to our foundation partners – including the Colorado Health Foundation, The Denver Foundation, Rose Community Foundation, and Caring for Colorado Foundation – for investing in this vision and trusting community leadership to guide the way.
As we look ahead to 2026, our path is clear. We will continue advocating for more equitable access to state funds for small, community organizations in the form of a state grant system that recognizes nonprofits as essential partners in public service delivery – and ensures that resources reach communities equitably and efficiently.
In the coming months, we’re also excited to share our plans for policy advocacy in 2026, an improved State Grant Database for Nonprofits interface, as well as our plans to support public education and engagement efforts around the 2026 Census test taking place in Colorado Springs.
Thank you for being part of this work. Together, we are building the conditions for communities not just to survive, but to thrive.
Here’s to the work ahead in 2026,
Marco Dorado
Managing Director
Communities Lead Communities Thrive