Support Golden United in Strengthening Our Community
Updated: Nov 16
Please consider donating to Golden United as part of your end-of-year giving. Our ongoing programs focus on improving the quality of life for all Golden residents by encouraging cooperative action between city leaders, community members and groups, businesses, and the Colorado School of Mines (CSM).
What We Do
In 2024, we plan to continue to build on our 2023 impactful work in four main areas:
1) Preserving existing affordable housing for families, workers, seniors, and other members of the community and promoting awareness about housing solutions for Golden; 2) Deepening partnerships with CSM student and faculty organizations that provide mentoring to Golden area youth and encouraging new collaborative activities between community and CSM organizations; 3) Continuing community conversations and events that bring together all voices and people in the community to create unity and understanding and combat intolerance; and 4) Supporting the work of other organizations, including Hunger Free Golden, the Golden Anti-Racism Collective, and others in improving the quality of life for all Golden residents. Thanks to your support, engagement, and grant funding, we had many accomplishments in 2023 including the following key highlights:
Affordable Housing
Provided advice and support for the Golden Hills Community Cooperative to become a resident owned community;
Completed a grant from The Denver Foundation to engage with Hispanic residents of the Golden Terrace Manufactured Home Community to learn about their resource needs;
Co-organized the Golden Terrace Resource Fair with Hunger Free Golden that featured over 20 organizations providing food, health, safety, and homeowner resources. Over 100 residents attended this event, funded by the city of Golden and Jeffco Public Health;
Assisted with arrangements for GoFarm’s Mobile Market to visit the Golden Terrace Manufactured Home Community to provide fresh, locally grown produce at affordable prices.
CSM Collaborative Activities
With funding from the Community First Foundation we partnered with the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) at CSM to provide mentoring to six underrepresented high school juniors to share educational attainment skills, help with college applications, foster leadership, and increase individual and ultimately community empowerment;
Tabled at the annual Celebration of Mines, an interactive way for students to learn more about what CSM and the Golden community have to offer!
Teamed with CSM Multicultural Engineering Program (MEP) Challenge course on designing Outdoor Equity Programs;
Applied for State of Colorado Outdoor Equity Grant (OEGP) for each of the six societies in CSM MEP;
Teamed with Sunshine Home Share on a Thriving Community Grant Application for pairing CSM MEP students with senior homeowners who could use extra income to help pay the bills.
Community Conversations
In order to bring in varying perspectives to conversations about affordable housing, four members of the Golden community were recruited to be part of a volunteer planning team, in addition to two Golden United board members. The planning team had five meetings and successfully hosted three community conversations where a total of 74 participants, and 20 others (facilitators, note takers, City of Golden staff ) engaged in meaningful dialog.
Participants included Golden residents with a variety of perspectives and life experiences, and varying ages and ethnicities. The participants engaged in small group conversations of four to six people for a two hour gathering.
The goal of these conversations was to encourage participants to understand and listen to those with different ideas, as a way to promote civility. A final report, compiled by the Center for Public Deliberation, will be shared with the community on January 10, 2024. It will include a compilation of the notes from the small group conversation, results of the post surveys completed by each participant, and sociodemographic data on the participants.
Broader Activities
Assisted the city to promote participation in the Racial Equity, Diversity, and Inclusivity Survey;
Partnered with the city on communications of critical events to our members;
Attended the Golden Leadership Roundtable to engage with other non-profit leaders;
Leveraged our non-profit status to assist other organizations who need assistance;
Provided information and resources for local elections.
We encourage you to support the continuation and expansion of these and other similar activities in 2024 through your donations.
Thank you!
The Golden United Board of Directors