Building the Infrastructure Behind Community Impact: A Year with Denver INC

Over three quarters as Community Partnerships Coordinator at Denver Inter-Neighborhood Cooperation (INC), I built a grants tracker, a sponsorship pipeline, secured significant funding through a fiscal sponsorship arrangement, and participated in community events. Denver INC works to make sure neighborhood voices show up in Denver's civic decisions, by bringing together neighborhood leaders to advocate on behalf of local communities. Fall quarter, I made a critical contribution to the successful attainment of the $225,000 WEAVER Awards grant from the Aspen Institute by leading the eligibility and compliance research for the application. I reviewed all grant guidelines, policies, and requirements to determine whether Denver INC qualified to apply. During this process, I identified a major barrier: the grant required a minimum $1 million operating budget, which Denver INC did not meet independently. Through thorough and creative research, I discovered that the requirement could be satisfied by applying with a fiscal sponsor. I proposed a partnership with the University of Denver to serve as fiscal sponsor, enabling Denver INC to meet the eligibility criteria. This strategy was implemented, allowing Denver INC to apply successfully and ultimately secure the grant. This outcome led to the further creation of the Denver Civic COLab partnership betweenDenver INC and the University of Denver.

With this newly created partnership, my Winter quarter work shifted to building out fundraising systems for INC beyond the WEAVER Awards. This was spent doing lots of backend work, creating organized spreadsheets and using code to ensure flow, productivity and organization. I built a grants tracker organizing funding opportunities by deadline and eligibility, and a sponsorship tracker managing prospective partners by tier, outreach status, and follow-up timeline. By spring I had been promoted to Community Partnerships Coordinator with an official Denver INC email and a clear mandate: build out the sponsorship function for the WEAVER Awards this November and make sure whoever comes after me doesn't start from zero. That meant conducting outreach on behalf of the organization, managing external relationships, and documenting workflows that can actually be handed off. Spring quarter also involved attending events and getting out into the community. At the Denver INC Film Festival, I helped gather stories from potential WEAVERs who are the people the funding is actually for. In May I also received the Public Good Student of the Year award from DU's Center for Community Engagement and Service Learning at the DU showcase, and presented all my work to community members, students, professors, and faculty. Local institutions are where people's daily lives get shaped, and most people aren't paying nearly enough attention to them. This year made me feel like the work I was doing was actually part of that. This was an incredible experience and I'm graduating with a clearer sense of what local action requires and how I can contribute to it.