Millions to defeat Props 134, 135: Who funds the funders?

By Kelly Notarfrancesco | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice

Over two decades ago, in a nondescript conference room at the Colorado Education Association’s building across the street from Colorado’s Capitol, a highly effective and influential political network was born.   

Today, the secret network has expanded and is still influencing Colorado’s political landscape. The fingerprints of Colorado’s Democracy Alliance (CoDA) can be traced today through Families Not Politics, the issue committee working to defeat Propositions 134 and 135, which would require school sports by biological sex, and ban sex-characteristic-altering surgeries on minors, respectively.

CoDA, founded in 2004 by the multimillionaires nicknamed the “Gang of Four”— Rutt Bridges, Tim Gill, Jared Polis, and Pat Stryker — created an infrastructure designed to coordinate the financial resources of wealthy multimillionaires with the boots-on-the-ground capabilities of activist and union organizations to direct donor funding into a network of progressive nonprofits and 527s. CoDA directed the network at actualizing the members’ desired progressive political policy and electoral outcomes.  

The infrastructure developed proved so successful that the strategy was expanded countrywide at the direction of the national Democracy Alliance.

“In order to get progressive control of government, and sustain it, you need an infrastructure; you need organizations to support them. Political organizations and movement organizations,” said national Democracy Alliance founder Rob Stein during a panel discussion at the Democratic Party National Convention in 2008. “The reason it is so important to control government is because government is the source of enormous power.”

The infrastructure is currently focused on defeating Props 134 and 135.

RMV’s initial investigation of Families Not Politics in May showed the issue committee was kicked off primarily through support from LGBTQ+ advocacy organization One Colorado.  

Now, five months later, Families Not Politics supporters have grown to include a powerful network of billionaire-funded organizations, dark money groups, and groups connected with the broader web of the Democratic Socialists of America.

Families Not Politics has raised $2,860,198.42 and received non-monetary contributions valued at $346,261.38, for a total value of $3,206,460, according to the October 19^th campaign finance report on the Colorado Secretary of State’s TRACER database. Eighty-eight percent of that financial support, or $2,816,897, has come from 11 high-dollar funders. Eight-three percent comes from 8 of those eleven. 

Five of the 11 donor organizations financially supporting Families Not Politics are connected with the Democracy Alliance network. 

Most of the organizational donors to Families Not Politics have themselves been funded by institutional Democracy Alliance progressive powerhouse foundations, including Open Society Foundations (Soros Family), the Tides nexus, and the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation.  

Organizations funding Families Not Politics include: One Colorado/One Colorado Education Fund, the American Civil Liberties Union (various entities, including ACLU Oregon, ACLU Foundation, ACLU of Colorado), Cobalt Advocates and Foundation, Planned Parenthood (various entities including the Action Fund, Rocky Mountain, Federation of America, Votes Colorado, etc.), the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, Advocates for Trans Equality, Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights (COLOR), Brighter Future for Colorado, Caring for Colorado, Rose Community Foundation, and Oregon Equal Rights for All.

Many of these organizations are funded by multimillion dollar foundations such as Open Society Foundations and the Tides nexus, while Brighter Future for Colorado is an opaque group which the Colorado Sun defined as “dark money.”

Long history of Democracy Alliance association

Most of the donor organizations financially supporting Families Not Politics are connected with the Democracy Alliance network. 

Due to the purposefully disaggregated design of the Democracy Alliance’s influence, explicit connections usually do not exist by careful design, but the scaffold of the network’s infrastructure can clearly be observed.

Three of the nonprofits supporting the defeat of Props 134 and 135 — the Gill Foundation, Cobalt (formerly NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado), and Planned Parenthood — were among the Colorado advocacy groups the Colorado Democracy Alliance worked with or through by 2006.

Source: https://www.denverpost.com/2008/10/05/progressive-gang-uses-nonprofits-to-push-politics/ 

Cobalt Advocates and the associated Cobalt Foundation have donated both cash and in-kind contributions totaling $449,000, while Planned Parenthood’s various affiliates have provided $836,119 to defeat the initiatives.

One Colorado, the LGBTQ+ advocacy organization which kicked off the campaign opposing Propositions 134 and 135, was launched in 2010 with funding from Colorado Democracy Alliance founder Tim Gill and the Gill Foundation. “The foundation’s money was crucial to the creation of One Colorado,” One Colorado’s 2019 Executive Director Daniel Ramos told the Denver Post. “The success of One Colorado is really because of the vision that Tim had…”  

Ramos later ran the Colorado Democracy Alliance itself, serving as its executive director through 2025 at a salary of roughly $100,000 a year. He now leads the Committee on States, the Democracy Alliance project Stein described in 2008 as helping 18 other states reach Colorado’s level of organizational development, and he sits on the board of the New Venture Fund and as a trustee of the Rose Community Foundation.

CoDA’s own tax filings show it funding the organizations now behind Families Not Politics. 

In 2023 the alliance made five grants totaling $100,000, four of them to Cobalt, the COLOR Action Fund, Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains and One Colorado. 

In 2024 it made five more totaling $170,000, three of them to the COLOR Action Fund, One Colorado and Cobalt. Across the two years, $175,000 of CoDA’s $270,000 in grants went to organizations that would go on to fund the campaign against Propositions 134 and 135.

The Gill Foundation’s 990s show consistent support for the One Colorado Education Fund. Gill’s 2024 return shows $50,075 paid to the One Colorado Education Fund in general operating support, with another $125,000 approved for future payment for LGBTQ issues. The same return shows $81,000 paid to the Rose Community Foundation, which contributed $100,000 of its own to Families Not Politics.

One Colorado and its associated One Colorado Education Fund have contributed $364,501 to Families Not Politics in both in-kind and cash support.

Together, the ACLU, Planned Parenthood and their affiliates have contributed nearly $1.6 million to defeat Propositions 134 and 135; both organizations are long-time partners of the Democracy Alliance network and were featured as key organizations the alliance recommended for donations from Democracy Alliance members on the alliance’s leaked 2017 “Resistance Map” published by the New York Times.  

Oregon Equal Rights for All, a Portland PAC which distributed $33,000 leftover from its failed ballot measure initiative to Families Not Politics, was funded in part by both the ACLU and Planned Parenthood according to the State of Oregon’s records.

While donating significantly less ($17,251) to Families Not Politics than its other Democracy Alliance partners, the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center is another mainstay of the Democracy Alliance network.  

BISC is included on the 2017 “Resistance Map” and is consistently listed on national Democracy Alliance recommended portfolios. It was also highlighted in Democracy Alliance’s 2020 Vision Investment Portfolio as an Aligned Partner Organization directory recommended for funding. 

In the same report, Democracy Alliance credited BISC with providing critical guidance and technical assistance to the state organizations behind minimum wage campaigns that passed in Colorado, Arizona, Maine and Washington.

Multimillion-dollar foundations fund Families Not Politics

The Democracy Alliance counts some of the nation’s wealthiest foundations as key funding partners.  

The funding of eight of the 11 organizational funders of Families Not Politics can be traced to Democracy Alliance megadonors Open Society Foundations, Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, and the Tides Foundation.  

These three massive foundations have documented ties to Democracy Alliance.  

Soros was an original member of the national organization. Drummond Pike, the founder of the Tides network has served on the Democracy Alliance’s board, and Buffett’s foundation has been reported as an alliance member, along with the Buffett-funded NoVo Foundation.

The strategy of the Democracy Alliance is to direct high-value donors to the boots-on-the-ground activist organizations advocating for political changes.  

These donations are either made from the donor to the nonprofits directly, or the donations are routed through progressive foundations such as the New Venture Fund, NEO Philanthropy, or the Sixteen Thirty Fund. 

Both funding styles are evident for COLOR, the Colorado-based nonprofit focused on advancing community power which donated $100,000 to Families Not Politics.  

COLOR is funded directly by Democracy Alliance members the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation and the Tides Foundation, but also through known Democracy Alliance passthroughs the New Venture Fund and the Way to Win Action Fund.

George Soros’ Open Society network’s IRS form 990s reveal Soros donated to two of the largest funders working to defeat Props 134 and 135 — the ACLU and Planned Parenthood. 

The Open Society Action Fund gifted over $5.5 million to the ACLU in 2024 and $2 million to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. 

Additionally, Soros’ foundation directed funds to BISC, and to Way to Win Action Fund. Way to Win has funded COLOR, according to its past IRS 990s.

The Tides Foundation’s 2024 990 shows donations to four Families Not Politics donors: $20,000 to the One Colorado Education Fund, $75,000 to the COLOR Action Fund, $507,411 split between two Planned Parenthood entities, and $57,125 to the National Center for Transgender Equality.

That last grant is filed under a former name. The organization now operates as Advocates for Trans Equality, which gave Families Not Politics $41,013. Both names share IRS employer identification number 41-2090291.

Democracy Alliance member the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation provided significant funding in 2025 to the nexus of nonprofits which donated to Families Not Politics, including nearly $1 million to the Cobalt Foundation, approximately $760,000 to COLOR, and over $400,000 to Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains.  

Buffett’s foundation also sent millions to Democracy Alliance pass-through New Venture Fund.  

In turn, New Venture Fund tax returns show the fund directing nearly a quarter of a million dollars to COLOR. New Venture Fund also sent $20,000 directly to the Colorado Democracy Alliance.

Families Not Politics describes itself as “…a grassroots group of parents, coaches, teachers, doctors, nurses, and mental health providers, veterans, faith leaders and community members from across Colorado,” but its financial support from an infrastructure of wealthy donors and activist nonprofits indicates otherwise.  

November’s election results for Props 134 and 135 will indicate just how effective the decades-long network remains.