Emerge Colorado Update

Hello Everyone,

Why I am Writing

Emerge America’s success in electing Democratic women candidates is rooted in our candidate recruitment and curriculum and our high standards of excellence – we all take our work and our reputation seriously.

This includes our affiliates, whose work is critical to advancing our shared mission and values. We value their expertise, insights, and contributions to our collective goals. That is why today, I am writing to share that we have made the decision to immediately end our relationship with the current Emerge Colorado organization. I wanted to make sure you heard directly from me about the facts behind why we made this decision, which speak for themselves.

The Facts Behind Our Decision

After receiving multiple complaints about the management of Emerge Colorado, we followed our internal processes and conducted an extensive investigation.

The final report to the Emerge America board identified several areas that not only were inconsistent with our values and creating a supportive environment for all, but unquestionably violated our affiliate agreements and principles. After presenting the findings to the board, we informed Emerge Colorado’s leadership on June 20th that we were ending our relationship, effective August 19th.

As I stated, we regularly work with affiliates to address internal and external challenges – and as we attempted to do with Emerge Colorado over the last year. Ultimately and unfortunately, their leadership team made an amicable resolution impossible.

What Comes Next

Colorado is crucial to Emerge America and we are proud that our alums here have served at the highest levels of state government, including three state senators, eighteen state representatives, and in county and local office throughout the state, and we are excited to continue training Democratic women to run for office – and win – in the Centennial State.

At the end of August, Emerge America will continue our operations in Colorado under the Emerge umbrella. Please be on the lookout for information from us then about our next steps.

I hope you can understand that we made this decision in the best interest of continuing to serve our program participants and alums both now and in the future, and we are confident that this is the right decision for our organization and network moving forward. While I am limited in what I can say, please don’t hesitate to reach out to our Affiliate Director, Jill Barkley Roy directly at jill@emergeamerica.org if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

A’shanti