Facilitating Collaboration Across Colorado Communities
At the Civic Canopy, we work alongside neighbors, coalitions, and organizations to strengthen the well-being of Colorado’s communities. We ultimately aim to build a Colorado where all people can participate, prosper, and thrive.
To achieve this vision, we create the conditions where the many work as one for the good of all. As facilitators and coaches, we support people to work better together through dialogue and deliberation. Whether that’s at a public forum, coalition gathering, or board meeting, we help people navigate conflict, build trust, and collaborate toward shared goals.
The Power of Civic Health
Governments make rules and businesses make money, but neither can solve problems without people helping each other. That’s where we come in.
We work in the civic space, helping people harness their love for community to generate solutions to our most pressing challenges. What makes our civic health strong is more than just voting—it’s about people talking, listening, and solving problems together. It happens when we take care of our streets and parks, our neighbors, and our community. But it doesn’t happen by accident, and it often requires us to work with other people to create the places we call home.
The Civic Canopy strengthens Coloradoans’ ability to collaborate by providing tools for engaging your community, collective decision-making, and dialogue across differences.
Growing the Civic Canopy
If we think of our communities like a forest, we play the role of the canopy. Just like a forest canopy acts as a protective infrastructure that benefits the whole ecosystem, strong community ties help people thrive together. Formed by the connection among the many trees, the canopy offers protection from the sun and elements that allows the life below it to grow. Similarly, strong connections amongst partners–whether they’re working to end homelessness, provide easy access to food, or build cities where people can move and play–creates a climate of trust and good will. The research is clear: communities that are more engaged civically have better health outcomes. Rather than working on one issue, we work on civic life, which allows all these elements to work together, creating something bigger than anyone could do alone.
Our Core Services
We provide a variety of services that strengthen Colorado’s civic fabric by making good on the American promise of E Pluribus Unum, or out of the many, one. Through collaboration, community engagement, and collective decision-making, we embrace both our diversity and differences, while weaving a larger “we.” These services build the skills and capacities needed for the many to work as one for the good of all.
Group Facilitation
We facilitate dialogue, deliberation, public meetings, retreats, and team-building processes that help groups envision their future, navigate conflict, and build consensus.
Partner With Us
Build Relationships
Foster connections among people and across a broad network of partners
Develop Capacity
Create the culture, conditions, and capacity for transformational change
Catalyze Collective Action
Mobilize communities to create the systems they need to thrive
