Junior League of Colorado Springs

The Junior League of Colorado Springs' goals are two-fold: to train and educate our membership, and to create measurable community impact through Fostering Change. Our Fostering Change initiative offers grant opportunities to foster youth and former foster youth with the intention of supporting their advancement as young adults. Our ultimate goals, while ongoing, are to produce trained, successful young women volunteers who will share their abilities with the community at large, and to support foster youth who are aging out of the foster care system. As we are a volunteer organization, we have the ability to frequently assess and redirect our efforts, and each league year, our goals change slightly. For this league year, we are especially focused on revising our endowment management so as to generate a larger output for our Fostering Change Fund.

Our membership volunteers with a number of partnering organizations to directly impact the foster youth population. In addition, we sponsor several community fundraisers whose profits directly benefit Fostering Change. We've developed our impact strategies over several means: fundraisers, volunteering events, and trainings. Our fundraisers generate dollars that are either put to work at the organizational level or grow our Fostering Change Fund. Further, we volunteer with a number of partnering organizations, including CASA, Fostering Hope, and the El Paso County Family Visitation Center, as a means to both train our membership on community need and support like-minded non-profits.

We are privileged to be part of a generous community, and our membership has supported both our focus and mission for more than 95 years. Our membership is comprised of women with diverse skill sets who are consistently willing to share their talents with our organization. We have two main fundraisers: Touch-A-Truck and Kentucky Derby Party. Touch-A-Truck attracts thousands of residents of the Pikes Peak region for a weekend of family fun and learning. In partnership with many community sponsors, we fill the Norris Penrose Event Center with all manner of trucks, from earthmovers to emergency response vehicles. Touch-A-Truck, celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2020, generates the most fundraising dollars of all our events. The Kentucky Derby Party celebrates the classic race with a silent auction and bites and drinks day party. New to the 2019-2020 year is a fundraising portion of our Little Black Dress Initiative, an awareness campaign aimed at helping Pikes Peak residents understand the impact and reach of Fostering Change. All of these fundraising capabilities have been curated over several years, and our ability to generate these dollars and put them to work at an organizational level further develop the JLCS's community impact.

Our first Fostering Change grant was issued to the Fostering Hope Foundation in the amount of $1700, which will be used to directly impact the young adults participating in Fostering Hope's programs. We have further identified a percentage of our Endowment Fund in order to establish a consistent source of grant funds in perpetuity. Our Finance Committee is also developing a protocol for combining account in order to grow grant funds through investment accounts. Our fundraisers have seen consistent growth over the past 4 years, and all profits from those fundraisers are being directed toward the Fund. We are conscientiously maintaining and developing new community relationships which allow us to not only avoid duplicating services but also permit an increase in our impact scope.