By Taylor Pendergrass, Director of Advocacy and Strategic Alliances
ACLU of Colorado is thrilled to announce the publication of The Road Ahead, our strategic framework that will guide our work for the next three years. The Road Ahead is a product of an intensive, year-long strategic planning process that included multiple rounds of input from stakeholders all over the state, ACLU of Colorado Board of Directors, and ACLU staff.
The Road Ahead will guide our work to ensure Colorado becomes the country’s most just and equitable state. With the plan’s guidance, we are prepared to overcome unprecedented threats to our democracy. The Road Ahead identifies three strategies to help us achieve these audacious goals.
First, the ACLU of Colorado is making a multi-year commitment to focus resources on three areas that will attack the root causes of inequity and inequality: Systemic Equality, Smart Justice, and Privacy and Liberty. In addition, we will ensure that every campaign or project we pursue will further one or more of our strategic imperatives: Racial Justice, Immigrant Justice, and Indigenous Justice.
Second, ACLU of Colorado is embracing an integrated advocacy approach through which the ACLU and our partners will strategically weave together litigation, policy and legislative expertise, community organizing, communications strategies, electoral engagement, public education, coalition building, and ACLU supporter and donor advocacy as one coordinated and evidence-based effort.
Third, the ACLU is making major internal investments to expand the organization’s resources, infrastructure and staffing. These efforts include creating a brand new, multi-disciplinary Department of Advocacy and Strategic Alliances; investing in next-generation internal systems and processes to execute evidence-based campaigns and to equitably support and grow our staff; and dramatically expanding our philanthropic capacities.
As The Road Ahead notes, the most important component of this new plan is you — our members, supporters, activists, partners, allies, and donors. We hope everyone will read The Road Ahead, share it widely, and join us in the fight for advancing democracy, racial justice, civil rights, and civil liberties for all Coloradans.
