Wanted: New Trustees
The City of Colorado Springs is currently accepting applications for CSHF trustees. The Mayor will nominate three people to replace founding trustees Kathy Boe, Jon Medved and R. Thayer Tutt, Jr., who are term-limited off the board as of March 2022. Applicants must be residents of Colorado Springs.
Candidates with knowledge, expertise or significant experience in one or more of the following areas are of particular interest:
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- Behavioral health
- Investment/Finance
- Health-focused nonprofit service delivery (e.g. nonprofit leaders)
In addition to the expertise listed above, CSHF seeks candidates who provide diverse perspectives and lived experience relevant to the work of improving community health.
If you or someone you know is interested in applying, please go to the City of Colorado Springs’s Boards & Commissions web page at https://coloradosprings.gov/boards. Applications will be accepted through July 30, 2021.
New Website
Colorado Springs Health Foundation recently underwent a significant redesign of its website. The purpose of the redesign was to ensure that the site was more user-friendly for everyone, with a special eye toward improving accessibility for people with disabilities. To this end, we worked with Neon Pig Creative and The Independence Center to design a site that would achieve this goal.
The team at Neon Pig Creative, our website creator, understood the importance of accessibility and enthusiastically embraced it as a goal of the new design and functionality. The Independence Center brought their expertise in serving people with disabilities.
The new website includes larger font size, improved color contrasts, keyboard accessibility and a form for users to request accommodations. CSHF monitors the site’s accessibility through an AccessiBe compliance audit, which measures the site against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. We are pleased to report that the new site received an initial score of 100% compliance.
By rebuilding the website from scratch, we ensure that the latest technological best practices were implemented for an improved user experience for people with disabilities, which in turn, makes the user experience better for everyone.
This is an example of how CSHF is putting its equity commitment into action.
Recent Grant Awards
Colorado Springs Health Foundation recently awarded 50 grants totaling $3.9M. Some of these awards were multi-year in nature. Among the larger grants awarded were: (1) a capital grant to Safe Passage for a new building that will be home to several agencies and organizations committed to addressing child sexual abuse; (2) a program grant to The Trust for Public Land to develop an integrated plan for parks, trails and schoolyards in southeast Colorado Springs; (3) a program grant to Peak Vista Community Health Centers for a new care management approach for vulnerable populations.
Reminder: Capacity-Building Mini-Grants Are Available
CSHF now offers a capacity-building mini-grant opportunity for requests of $5,000 or less. This is designed to be highly responsive (quick decisions) and low barrier (simpler application).
Examples of capacity-building funding requests may include but are not limited to:
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- Planning, e.g. strategic planning
- Assessing impact (evaluation)
- Board or other volunteer development and training
- Staff development and training
- Communication consulting
- Equity, diversity and inclusion coaching/consulting
- Technology (hardware or software)
What it is not:
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- Support for direct services (e.g. hiring staff); organization or program expansion; or capital projects (CSHF has other funding opportunities for that)
- Support for capacity-building needs that exceed $5,000 in cost (CSHF has another capacity-building opportunity for larger initiatives)
To learn more, check out the funding opportunity here. And, if you have a capacity-building/technical assistance need that exceeds $5,000, check out our regular Building Capacity Funding Opportunity here.
If you are interested in applying for funding, you must speak with Colorado Springs Health Foundation staff about your proposal before applying. If you do not have this conversation first, your application will not be considered. Please sign up for a date/time that works for you here.
Questions? Contact Cari or Jamie at [email protected]
What We’re Reading, Listening to or Viewing Now
The documentary “Each and Every Day,” explores “youth mental health through the eyes of young people who have attempted suicide or have struggled with suicidal thoughts.”
A PBS Newshour piece on the American Medical Association’s history.
A documentary called Coded Bias, which explores bias in artificial intelligence algorithms.
The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee, which discusses how racism costs everyone, not just people of color.
“Meet the First Woman Officially Drafted by the NBA” from the New York Times. This is a 22- minute Op-Doc video. Amazing.