By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project
And a nonprofit shall lead them….
The Sky Hi article linked first below details how the State of Colorado plans to get out there ahead of the 2030 census to make sure we get all the “hard to count” residents we can.
The census is critically important to our state. So many things from political representation to federal money to state programs run off the data the census produces. It’s probably not a surprise, then, that the state wants to get out there and make sure we count as many people as possible. And as you can see by checking a nearby calendar, we’re starting early.
These counting efforts are not new. I wrote a newsletter back in 2025 (see the second link below if you want the context), covering how nonprofit titan Rose Community Foundation got state money from a 2019 law to reach those same hard-to-count folks.
The state of Colorado, via the Demographer’s Office, laid out their plans for 2030 in addition to looking back at 2020. Their conclusions going forward make an interesting contrast with the Sky Hi article as well as my previous work.
First, let’s look at what the state defines as hard to count. Screenshot 1 is from the state demographer’s report and lists the categories of Coloradans they are concerned about not being counted.
The state’s report goes on in detail on how various states put time and money into helping get people counted in the 2020 census, as well as an assessment of programs Colorado undertook. This is in the report and I’ll leave it to you to read up there. See, in particular, the discussion starting on p 16.
In summary, Colorado’s program was a combination of outreach from the state level (via advertising an social media), to local governments, to a combination of nonprofits funded via grants (such as the grant going to Rose as detailed in my newsletter), to philanthropic foundations doing their own work via grants given to … nonprofits.
Let’s turn now to the state demographer’s recommendation on what to do for the 2030 census. If you want more detail, see the report starting on p 26. In broad strokes, the state recommends just about exactly what happened in 2020.
There were a couple of things that stood out to me, however. The first is a repeated mention of getting the word out as broadly as possible, to get groups (governmental and otherwise) that were missed in 2020. I pick up a strong whiff the need for more local (and perhaps geographically diverse?) groups to be in the mix.
The other, and this should probably shock no one, was getting more state funding involved. Screenshot 2 from the report has recommendations on how to use state money.
This brings me to the final point. When you read the Sky Hi article linked first below you quickly come to understand that the piece leans heavily on one particular nonprofit for a discussion about getting hard to count populations.
Again, not surprising. Many nonprofits make their living (esp in Blue Colorado) off the government; they are the government’s camp followers. Put that next to one of the things I wrote about in my 2025 newsletter, that many nonprofits felt like they didn’t get enough of a voice/role in the 2020 census, and the picture seems to come clear.
Nonprofits want to be more in the mix for 2030 than they were before. Quoting from that article:
“The core of Communities Lead Communities Thrive’s [see the fourth link below for their site] work ahead of the 2030 census is to strengthen the partnership between the state and the nonprofit sector by elevating the voices of community-based organizations that serve historically marginalized and excluded communities, Dorado [manager of the nonprofit collective, Marco Dorado] said. Nonprofits, he added, have become critical to reaching and providing resources for those communities to participate in the census.”
Here’s the issue as I see it. I’m not calling for skipping over any particular group, but my concern is that if the state is not careful, if they give in to the push from nonprofits or do as they mention in screenshot 2, if they allocate “… funds to philanthropic organizations and/or large, regional nonprofits to act as fiscal intermediaries to distribute these funds to small nonprofits and grassroots organizations” such as Rose, they will end up skipping right over top of many of the hard to count populations they mention in screenshot 1.
If they go big on nonprofits, the money will almost certainly go to counting the kinds of people Front Range nonprofits have sympathy for, not the whole of the state. One needs merely to look at the groups involved in the umbrella group Communities Lead Communities Thrive (via their coalition partners page linked fifth below) to see what I mean.
To get some more background on this issue, I reached out to the Department of Local Affairs (the dept housing the state demography office) with a couple of questions. The first was to see if they were working in any formal or informal way with Communities. The second was to see what plans they have to make sure that any grant money received would be spread out geographically as well as ideologically.
I got the following from a spokesperson from the Department of Local Affairs:
“The State Demography Office is involved with community outreach on the importance of a complete and accurate Census count but mostly does not deal with grant distribution. Grant money was provided for outreach programs through HB19-1239 with the administration led by DOLA’s Division of Local Government. No such grant money has been earmarked for spending for the 2030 census to date and thus no grants have been dispensed from DLG to any group, CLCT or otherwise.”
A “no” for the first question, a non-answer for the second.
In the meantime, if this is something you’re concerned about or want to follow, the best thing to do is to keep your eyes and ears open for future laws that would dole out grant money similar to the 2019 bill that helped Rose cash in.
I will watch and update if I see or hear something. If you catch wind of something before I do, please give me a heads up.
https://www.skyhinews.com/news/2030-census-colorado-investing-accuracy-federal-funding/
https://coloradoaccountabilityproject.substack.com/p/wrapping-up-rose-community-foundation
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1z56RKLpp8dGBqEkLiOTV3ri9aFolQj4a/view
https://coclct.org/coalition-partners/
Related:
Care to see who all got grants from the 2019 bill to reach “hard to count” people for the census, along with what they did?
Excerpted here for convenience from an email quoted above, you’ll find the complete list in the link below.
READ THE FULL COMMENTARY AT COLORADO ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT
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