A grantmaking program for community-led projects
Strengthening Neighborhoods gives grants to support community-led projects, grassroots groups, and local nonprofits across Metro Denver. Built on the belief that neighbors know best what their neighborhoods need, our program invests in community-led ideas and leadership. It’s funded by generous donors through donor-advised funds and direct gifts to its own endowment.
What makes Strengthening Neighborhoods unique?
Philanthropy often outlines what it wants to fund and seeks nonprofits that can do that work. Strengthening Neighborhoods takes a different approach. Residents have the best insight into how to improve their communities and how to leverage their many strengths, including their people, institutions, and public resources. Identifying the most pressing issues and what to fund comes from the community itself, and The Denver Foundation funds those ideas through the Strengthening Neighborhoods program.
What does Strengthening Neighborhoods support?
Since its inception, the Strengthening Neighborhoods program has funded projects led by local community members, including curbside recycling campaigns, worker-owned cooperatives like Community Language Coop, and campaigns to raise awareness of affordable housing solutions like resident-owned communities, where homeowners of mobile or manufactured homes form a nonprofit cooperative that owns and manages the land.
