At COLOR we value organizing alongside communities and building power together to take action on issues that we care about the most. Our goal is to deepen relationships with a diverse variety of Latine-led and serving organizations, communities, and individuals in Colorado.
The grassroots base is organized, vibrant, and sustained. Communities are met where they are at; culturally, linguistically, and geographically. Trust is built, relationships deepen, and connections with communities happen in authentic ways. Year-round base building and voter contact in key locations maintain COLOR’s long-term visibility. Longevity in our relationships with individuals and community partners is cultivated.
We define grassroots organizing as working with directly impacted communities to act collectively to change conditions harming the community due to systemic oppression and state-sanctioned violence. We define base building as using strategies to build the leadership of directly impacted communities to believe and act to create a more just, safe world for themselves and communities that dismantle systems of oppression.
Through organizing people are connected across issues and invested in self-directed solutions. It includes field activities that reach individuals and families through door-knocking and phone banking campaigns, flyering in neighborhoods, online/digital and offline campaigns, social and traditional media outreach, and by hosting cafecitos and community forums where we disseminate information on reproductive justice issues impacting our communities and provide opportunities for involvement, including signing pledges, volunteering time, contributing financially, signing up for programming, and registering to vote.
- Civic Engagement
- Faith-Awareness
- Community Outreach and Education
- Youth-led Organizing
- Youth of COLOR Fellows
How We Build Power
We build power by centering the leadership and experiences of those most impacted. Co-creating solutions with our communities is absolutely critical to mobilizing our base. Having ownership and buying from impacted communities is how we move forward reproductive health and equity at the local and state levels. Ways in which we center Latine individuals and families in our work include developing the leadership capacity of community members and growing the number of youth-to-elder leaders. Accordingly, we potentiate grassroots leadership within peer and family circles, as well as within community spheres and public domains.
We support activists in taking on leadership roles in neighborhoods, college campuses, nonprofits, the private sector, and public office. We meet communities where they are at; culturally, linguistically, and geographically. We connect with communities in authentic ways in order to build trust, deepen relationships, and build community. We conduct year-round base-building and voter contact in key locations to establish long-term visibility and longevity in our relationships with individuals and institutions. We leverage relationships and networks to move people to action, including participating in events and programs, recruiting peers, contacting and/or meeting with public leaders, and voting. We bring authentic Latinx voices to the forefront as a way to build voice power and influence dominant narratives. We work with communities on storytelling, public hearing testimony, interactions with the media, spokespeople training, and public speaking. We provide opportunities for involvement to help shape priorities, including internships, board roles, contract and staff positions, and volunteering.
How we inform, engage, and mobilize COLORistes
Grassroots organizing: including all of our on- and off-line contact as well as our relationship and community power-building work, such as information sessions, workshops and programming, focus groups, community forums, policy briefings, town halls, lobby days, state capitol tours, advocacy training, panel and conference presentations, house parties, fundraising events, volunteer appreciation events, cafecitos, tabling at festivals, door knocking, phone banking, voter registration drives, voter education events, rallies, and marches.
Cohort or group leadership: including formalized programming that provides infrastructure for grassroots leaders to elevate their own organizing, such as youth-led activism and campaigns designed by Youth of COLOR Fellowship, where fellows recruit and activate peers; and the LIPS (Latinas Increasing Political Strength), where campaigns like #wheresmysexed emerge.
Digital outreach: including both social media (paid ad campaigns, updates, sharing resources, interactive stories, and live streaming via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube), and digital media tactics (updates, alerts, call-to-action requests, and content dissemination via e-newsletters, text messaging, webinars, Google Hangouts, podcasting, and website).
Traditional media: including interactions with media outlets and self-publishing efforts (letters to the editor, opinion editorials, print/radio/TVinterviews, blog/v-blog content), reporter education and influencer cultivation, press conferences, visibility campaigns (billboards, bus shelter ads), and our very own Spanish-language and award-winning radio show, Mujeres de COLOR.
Messaging: including all collateral pieces (on- and off-line values-based) that support narrative change, inform communities, and/or catalyze action; such as flyering, direct mail, leave-behind literature, pledge-to-vote postcards, petition postcards, policy position statements, press statements, endorsement statements, talking points, legislative hearing testimony, media guides, annual reports, and infographics.
Artivism: including events and activities that leverage creativity and the arts to educate and promote destigmatization, such as film screenings, gallery and pop-up displays of traveling photo exhibits, spoken word performances, arts and crafts workshops, music showcase, and theater stage readings.
Experimentation and research: including efforts that build a body of data to inform the work, such as mail experiments for testing impact of social pressure and voting rights language targeting low-propensity voters and non-voters, youth participant interviews for medication abortion research projects, and focus groups for assessing knowledge of abortion access among immigrant adults and youth.
