Community Shares of Colorado, a community giving fund that partners with corporations to maximize the social impact of workplace giving, is celebrating 37 years in operation, continuing its mission to broaden the reach of the philanthropic sector, with special focus on progressive causes.
The organization was founded in 1986 as an alliance of eight organizations – Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, Gay Lesbian Center of Denver, Colorado Food Clearing House, Peacenet, Support Systems Consolidated, Empowerment Program, ACLU of Colorado, and The Center on Colfax. Initially known as The Alternative Fund, it sought to help organizations with advocacies that were seen as “undesirable” at the time, such as abortion care or gay rights. These organizations could not receive funds from the Combined Federal Campaign, which was the Federal Government’s employee giving program.
According to Community Shares, by coming together under an umbrella organization, its members could participate in the Combined Federal Campaign and then disseminate funds equally amongst those member organizations. Today, Community Shares now has 125 member organizations and is looking to grow further by involving more progressive and social justice-oriented nonprofits in Colorado.
Robin Wood-Mason, CEO of Community Shares, says that, in the last few years, the legal cannabis industry in Colorado has taken off, and that there are challenges in navigating the money made by the cannabis industry and how it can be used philanthropically. This is due to Federal restrictions about cannabis that make it hard for some organizations to accept funding from cannabis businesses.
“However, for a small local nonprofit organization that's working on access to education in disadvantaged Black neighborhoods, it makes absolute sense for them to benefit from donations from cannabis companies, especially since those communities have been hit disproportionately by unjust drug policies,” Wood-Mason says.
In the past year, Community Shares has been stepping into the role of being a philanthropic partner for the cannabis industry, as well as assisting nonprofits who are trying to figure out how to handle the funding from another vice source.
Recently, Community Shares formed a partnership with InBank, a regional bank operating in New Mexico and Colorado, to process donations from cannabis businesses. Because cannabis remains illegal on a Federal level, the large national banks may be averse to working with businesses dealing in cannabis.
“We want to see the cannabis industry embraced in the philanthropic community. We acknowledge that the cat is out of the bag, and legalized cannabis is not going away. So we want to help them become good corporate citizens and responsible parts of our communities,” he says.
As of end-June, Community Shares has dispersed more than $45 million to new nonprofits in Colorado, and it handles around 15,000 individual donations every year. One of Community Shares' main recipients is a shelter for unaccompanied women and transgender people, which was the first shelter in Colorado and one of the first in the US to explicitly design their program to be inclusive of transgender individuals. It also has seen a growth in members from environmental conservation and arts and education causes in recent years.
“It's an honor and a privilege for Community Shares to be able to connect with as many organizations as we do. Almost all of our staff and board members come from some kind of nonprofit background, with both a calling and sense of duty to help. We work here because we care and because we're able to affect a bigger impact on more nonprofits by representing them collectively,” Wood-Mason says.
Media contact:
Name: Robin Wood-Mason
Email: [email protected]
