August 16, 2016
The Voqal Fund is pleased to announce new grants to five organizations working in the Denver area to enhance the community and strengthen social equity. The grants to Colorado Families for a Fair Wage, Center for Community Change Action, Progressive Now Colorado, New Era Colorado and NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado reflect the Voqal Fund’s commitment to supporting progressive movements for social change.
Colorado Families for a Fair Wage
Colorado Families for a Fair Wage is a coalition of small business owners, community partners, working families and faith organizations working together to help build a fair economy for all Coloradans. With support from Voqal, the coalition is working on a 2016 statewide ballot initiative to increase the minimum wage to $12 by 2020 with the idea that low-wage workers in Colorado are falling behind. Working full time at minimum wage is not enough to support the basic cost of living in most communities in Colorado. Colorado Families for a Fair Wage believes that raising the minimum wage to $12 by 2020 is an important step toward the promise of work as a pathway out of poverty and will spur economic growth in communities across the state.
Center for Community Change Action
Center for Community Change Action (CCCA) builds the power and capacity of low-income people, especially low-income people of color, to change their communities and public policies for the better. With support from Voqal, CCCA will work with local and national groups in Colorado as part of the c4 Latino Roundtable to help educate and engage Colorado Latinos and mobilize them to vote in the 2016 election.
Progress Now Colorado
As the state’s largest online multi-issue education and advocacy organization, Progress Now Colorado acts as a public relations shop promoting progressive ideals. Thanks to support from Voqal, Progress Now hopes to spotlight and correct media misinformation (omissions, misrepresentation, factual errors) in Colorado. In addition, through its Generation Latino project, Progress Now aims to empower and ignite the collective energy, imagination and creativity of Colorado’s Latino millennial community to motivate them towards higher rates of civic engagement.
The New Era Colorado Action Fund
The New Era Colorado Action fund works to reinvent politics, mobilizing and empowering young people to advance progressive change through elections and advocacy. Thanks to support from Voqal, in 2016 New Era Colorado plans on registering up to 50,000 young people to vote in Colorado, mobilizing them in support of progressive issues and equipping them with the information they need to know where candidates stand on those issues.
NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado
NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado Inc. is a statewide political organization and a key partner in the pro-choice movement. The organization works to build and expand a community of voters that engages in the political process to ensure every woman the right to access a full range of reproductive health choices, including preventing unintended pregnancies, bearing healthy children and choosing safe and legal abortion. Thanks to support from Voqal, NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado will conduct a robust GOTV campaign in 2016 aimed at engaging over 18,000 Colorado citizens in the upcoming election.