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WFCO Announces 23 WINcome Grantee Partners
WINcome Grantee Partners Support Colorado Women’s Autonomy Over Their Financial Futures
WINcome Awards $900,000 to 14 Direct-Service, 9 Public Policy Organizations
The Women’s Foundation of Colorado (WFCO) selected 14 direct-service and nine public policy advocacy organizations across the state to receive three years of WINcome funding to support Colorado women’s autonomy over their financial futures. Starting in 2024, we awarded $900,000 to 23 total grantees.
WINcome grantee partnerships from 2021-2023 showed that trust, flexibility, and autonomy are the way forward. Our 2024-2026 WINcome grantmaking strategy is rooted in these values and reflects the tenet that women and gender-expansive individuals are the experts in their own lives.
Women + Income = Women Thriving
WINcome stands for Women + Income = Women Thriving. Like the first three years of WINcome, the strategy focuses on improving access to increased incomes and holistic resources for women, so that they have more of what they and their families need. For public policy grantees, all funding is for general operations. Up to 50% of grants to direct-service organizations can be utilized for general operating and 50% for flexible cash assistance distribution. WINcome grantees from the first iteration demonstrated that flexible cash assistance – paired with holistic resources such as child care, education and training, capital for women entrepreneurs, and support for basic human needs – supports women in reaching their financial goals.
Collaboration Will Ensure Women’s Autonomy Over Their Financial Futures
Whether childrearing, securing physical and mental safety, or building a business, in most areas of life it takes a village. This is especially true in creating systems change. Key updates to the WINcome grant include an additional focus on collaboration, storytelling for narrative change, and increased investment in public policy advocacy. To create a world in which everyone can flourish because their basic needs are met, WFCO recognizes the need to invest in increasing collaboration across fields, changing the stories we hold about poverty and deservedness, and working together over the long term.
WFCO will more deeply leverage partnerships between direct-service partners and public policy advocacy organizations. We’ll connect organizations doing related work and host grantee gatherings to support systems change and narrative change to advance polices that support women’s and gender-expansive individuals’ economic security.
We invite you to learn more about the incredible organizations addressing women’s autonomy over their financial futures with us.
Six Continuing, Eight New Direct-Service Grantee Partners
*+Action is Safer is a harm reduction and mutual aid-based organization led by women of color in Mesa County and serving the 22-county surrounding area. It focuses on safety and grassroots advocacy for BIPoC, queer, and other marginalized individuals. Action is Safer will offer cash assistance to women and gender-expansive individuals, resource connections, and advocacy in a region that is under-resourced for those with intersectional, marginalized identities.
*Alianza NORCO, based in Larimer County with statewide reach, offers free legal services for noncitizen immigrants seeking economic stability. Alianza NORCO will offer cash assistance to cover U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services filing fees and other individualized needs to help immigrant women advance their immigration status and gain employment opportunities.
*Center for Community Wealth Building (CCWB) provides small business and cooperative training in the Denver Metro Area and offers virtual training to serve the entire state. CCWB will support participants in their Family Business Preservation Program and cooperative training for child care providers who are women, Spanish-speaking, and mostly immigrants with cash assistance.
*+Collaborative Healing Initiative Within Communities (CHIC) helps families break intergenerational cycles of poverty and violence by focusing on strengthening women and girls in the Denver Metro Area. They offer culturally relevant, whole family supports, including cash assistance to women in their construction and trade pre-apprenticeship cohorts. CHIC will continue dispersing cash assistance, individualized resources, and address issues in education, workforce, and the criminal justice system.
*+Colorado River Valley Resident Team supports the Latina community, particularly undocumented individuals and families facing economic challenges in Eagle, Garfield, Mesa, and Pitkin counties. Their cash assistance helps alleviate financial stress, supports long-term goals, provides leadership development, and offers bilingual trade classes.
Deaf Overcoming Violence though Empowerment (DOVE) is the only organization in Colorado providing culturally sensitive resources for Deaf, DeafBlind, DeafDisabled, and Hard of Hearing (DDBDDHH) survivors of abuse. Staff share similar identities to foster trust and effective support. Services include technical assistance, direct advocacy, a survivor resiliency program, and flexible cash assistance for survivors.
*Denver Indian Family Resource Center (DIFRC) offers culturally responsive programs and services to strengthen American Indian/Alaska Native families involved with or at risk of involvement with the child welfare system. Primarily serving the Denver Metro Area, it provides cash assistance to women and their families based on their needs, encouraging its use not only for basic necessities, but also for self-care.
Elephant Circle supports marginalized populations throughout the state through community organizing, direct cash assistance, and doula training. Using an intersectional, anti-racist, and reproductive justice approach, they advocate for birth equity policy and work alongside other organizations to advance cash assistance policy.
Impact Charitable manages several direct cash programs in Colorado, including the Thriving Providers Project, which supports a majority Spanish-speaking women who provide child care as family, friend, and neighbor (FFN) providers. Through the WINcome investment, Impact Charitable will establish Childcare Provider Savings Accounts for FFN providers to promote long-term financial stability, with funds being flexible for account holders’ needs. As a leader in the cash assistance movement, Impact Charitable is a co-convenor of the Cash for Coloradans Coalition.
*+Latina SafeHouse serves Latine survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault in the Denver Metro Area, focusing on those with multiple marginalized identities, such as immigrants, refugees, and undocumented individuals facing economic insecurity. It provides bilingual, culturally responsive, and trauma-informed services, offering flexible financial assistance to survivors in case management to help them secure immediate safety and long-term stability.
PM.GRAN.TE (pronounced pomegranate) serves women, queer, trans, and marginalized individuals who are primarily current or former sex workers facing significant barriers such as financial insecurity. Based in Pueblo, they offer essential services including clothing, sexual health resources, hygiene supplies, meals, and emergency cash assistance through weekly drop-in events, while also collaborating with the national Rouge Support Network to improve public health and reduce incarceration, homelessness, and food insecurity.
Rise Above Violence is the sole provider of direct victim services in Archuleta, Mineral, and Hinsdale counties, supporting survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault, with a focus on marginalized communities. They offer culturally appropriate services, flexible cash assistance, housing support, and a micro-loan program for clients to build financial stability without negatively impacting their credit.
Soul2Soul Sisters serves Black women, girls, and gender-expansive individuals through a love-based revolution that addresses anti-Black violence and promotes Black liberation, combining direct services with policy advocacy on initiatives like birth justice, reproductive justice, and baby bonds to combat the racial wealth gap. Led by and for Black women, femmes, and gender-expansive people, they provide flexible cash assistance and comprehensive support to alleviate immediate financial strain.
*The Gathering Place serves women, non-binary, and transgender individuals experiencing homelessness and poverty, offering low-barrier access to essential services like meals, healthcare, job readiness training, cash assistance, and advocacy. Based in Denver, its cash assistance helps address critical needs such as rental support, temporary storage, and transportation. It also manages a micro-community for unsheltered transgender and non-binary individuals at heightened risk of violence.
Five Continuing, Four New Public Policy Advocacy Grantee Partners
*9to5 Colorado, a chapter of the national 9to5 National Association of Working Women, is a grassroots, member-based organization advancing economic justice for women and nonbinary people of color through organizing, policy change, and power-building. It focuses on three core issue areas: family & community sustainability, worker justice, and power-building.
*The Bell Policy Center advances economic mobility for all Coloradans through research, communications, and policy advocacy, providing reliable resources to create a practical agenda that raises the economic floor and builds a diverse, thriving middle class. It fights for reforms such as TABOR changes, improved education programs, higher wages, better human services, and stronger consumer protections.
Bread & Roses Legal Center disrupts the harms caused by the legal system through grassroots organizing, advocacy, mutual aid, transformative justice, and legal representation, using a racial, gender, economic, and disability justice lens. Services include mutual aid, gender-affirming legal services, reproductive healthcare access, and record sealing. As a grassroots organization, it uniquely serves the transgender community, particularly transgender women, addressing public health and economic justice issues.
*Colorado Center on Law and Policy advocates for removing barriers that prevent Coloradans from meeting their basic needs and achieving self-sufficiency through research, policy analysis, legislative and legal advocacy, and coalition building, with a focus on food, health, housing, and income.
*Colorado Children’s Campaign is focused on improving child well-being through data-driven public policies in areas including family economic prosperity, youth success, child and family health, and early childhood. As leaders in the Cash for Coloradans Coalition, it is instrumental in the development of flexible cash assistance policies.
*Colorado Fiscal Institute promotes widespread prosperity through high-quality research, strategic communications, statewide education, and advocacy, focusing on the fiscal and economic implications of policies affecting working families and the allocation of public resources. As leaders in the Cash for Coloradans Coalition, it is instrumental in the development of flexible cash assistance policies.
Colorado People’s Alliance is a racial justice, member-led organization focused on advancing progressive social change through power-building and working with communities directly impacted by discrimination, pollution, and economic disparities. It primarily serves low-wage, hourly, and app-based workers, as well as women, gender-expansive individuals, people of color, immigrants, and communities affected by environmental hazards.
Colorado Poverty Law Project has been working for over a decade to prevent homelessness by providing legal representation, education, and advocacy, with a network of 300 volunteer attorneys offering services such as legal advice and housing navigation. It also advocates for systemic change through policy and legislative efforts, focusing on improving access to housing for low-income Coloradans. This year, it launched the Gender Advocacy in Housing initiative, offering legal support and resources to victim-survivors of domestic violence, sexual violence, and stalking.
Colorado Statewide Parent Coalition’s mission is to empower marginalized communities by building leaders and training families and providers to advocate for their children’s success, with a focus on local and statewide policy advocacy. With deep grassroots understanding, it increases opportunities for women of color in caregiving roles and improves access to high-quality early childhood education, envisioning a future where early childhood educators of color thrive.
Researching Flexible Cash Assistance Within Colorado’s Latine Communities A New Addition
In addition to the work WINcome grantee partners will be leading, we are excited to announce a one-time grant to the Colorado Latino Leadership, Advocacy & Research Organization (CLLARO). The grant will support a study conducted by CLLARO on the impacts and barriers of cash assistance programs within diverse Latine communities in Colorado. The focus of the research includes how existing cash assistance programs impact Latine communities, barriers to accessing assistance, and strategies to reach the most marginalized Latines, including undocumented individuals, older adults, and unpaid caregivers.
Women’s Autonomy and Freedom to Make Choices Is Foundational to WINcome
Together with our partners, The Women’s Foundation of Colorado is thrilled to continue supporting women in living their lives with the freedom to make the choices that are best for themselves and their families. We look forward to working with WINcome grantee partners in leading cash assistance efforts and systems change toward a more prosperous Colorado. We anticipate opening the next WINcome grant cycle in 2027.
* Returning WINcome grantee partner
+ Also received a 2024 Women & Girls of Color Fund grant