Caring For Colorado Grant Program: Public Policy Advocacy

The Caring For Colorado Grant Program focuses on public policy advocacy to enhance the health and well-being of children, youth, and families in Colorado. This initiative supports organizations that advocate for equitable access to resources and promote justice. Funding can be used for various purposes, including capacity building and public education. The program emphasizes collaboration with young people and prioritizes efforts that address systemic inequities.

NOTE: The 2025 cycle will be a closed, invite-only funding opportunity. We anticipate an open funding opportunity in 2026.
Our Focus
Children are more likely to thrive when caregivers, families and communities experience opportunities for health and well-being.
Partnering to promote public policy advocacy and systems change can promote justice and equity and achieve the greatest good for the greatest number of people in Colorado.
What We Fund
Caring for Colorado seeks to create lasting, meaningful and broad change that improves the lives of children for generations to come. We support public policy advocacy as a central tool for advancing our mission.
Public policy advocacy funding can support general operating, capacity building, network and coalition building, research and analysis, public education, policy implementation engagement and monitoring, leadership development, polling, nonpartisan voter education, regulatory efforts, and, in some cases, limited lobbying.
Caring for Colorado funds public policy advocacy at local and state levels to support efforts that improve health, well-being and opportunity for children, youth, and families in Colorado. We prioritize work that aligns with the foundation’s Guiding Principles.
Statewide
We fund statewide public policy advocacy efforts that improve access to high quality health care for children, youth, and families experiencing barriers to care or support efforts to strengthen or expand public programs or benefits to help families prosper.
Children, youth, and their families must be a core component of an organization’s advocacy agenda, and the organization must explicitly work to create or improve policies that reduce economic, racial and gender-based inequities.
Local
We fund local policy advocacy efforts that respond to emergent or urgent issues, or capitalize on new opportunities to improve health, well-being and opportunity for children, youth, and their families.
Youth-Led
We fund policy advocacy efforts that partner with young people to identify and respond to issues that affect youth health, well-being, and opportunity.

Eligibility

Caring for Colorado will consider applications from and awards to organizations who benefit Colorado and are: Charitable nonprofit organizations with tax-exempt classification from the Internal Revenue Service; orTax-supported institutions including state and local governments and schools.Please note: New or emerging organizations are permitted to apply through a tax-exempt organization acting as fiscal agent. The most common type of fiscal agent arrangement is between a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charitable organization and a non-tax-exempt group. The fiscal agent has the ultimate authority and responsibility to see that the funds are used for the purpose intended; it cannot simply be a pass-through organization.

Ineligibility

Caring for Colorado does not fund:For-profit entities.Annual appeals or membership drives.Financial support for political candidates.Scholarships.Camps.Sports programs.Fee-based programming without a robust sliding scale.Pregnancy resource centers.Research (costs specifically associated with the research process such as design, investigation or analysis).