Could we source high-quality local deal flow? Could we identify, educate, and activate aligned investors? Could we increase the flow of capital in one state by $100 million?
At the time, we didn’t know. So we launched an experiment to find out.
In just three and a half years, Colorado sourced more than 600 investment opportunities, activated more than 155 investors, and helped drive more than $300 million into Colorado communities.
Colorado didn’t just answer the question. It became the proof point.
It showed that when local opportunities, trusted education, aligned investors, and community-centered capital come together, capital can move in meaningful ways. It also showed that this work could become more than a single event or state initiative. It could become a scalable model for helping communities organize private wealth around local priorities.
Since then, Impact Days has grown from a Colorado experiment into a broader platform for community-centered capital activation, discovering, educating, and activating more than 500 investors and catalyzing over $1 billion in values-aligned capital.
CO Impact Days was never just a Colorado event. It was an early proof point for a larger vision: that communities could build the infrastructure, relationships, and investment pathways needed to make it easier for private wealth to move into the places and people investors care about.
Colorado showed that the marketplace does not build itself. Investors need confidence, language, trusted peers, and visible opportunities. Entrepreneurs, nonprofits, funds, and community-rooted projects need pathways to become investment-ready. Communities need structures that can turn local priorities into investable opportunities.
That is what CO Impact Days helped create.
What began in Colorado became a replicable framework for the Impact Days model: discover opportunities, educate investors, activate capital, and build the trusted relationships needed for long-term community investment.
As Impact Days expands from Colorado to Alaska, Massachusetts, and likely Pennsylvania and New Mexico, the model is becoming the bridge to 1% for Communities: a national effort to help communities mobilize one percent of private wealth into communities of place, interest, and identity by creating shared infrastructure around investor accelerators, capital aggregators, and safety nets.
Colorado did not just prove that one state could move capital. It helped prove that community investment can become scalable, investable, and eventually institutionalized, creating a path for people to align more of the wealth they already hold, including donor-advised funds, foundation assets, retirement accounts, and other investment capital, with the communities they care about most.
Investors saw that they could pursue strong financial returns while also supporting local businesses, strengthening communities, and advancing the solutions they care about.
Social ventures including projects, nonprofits, small businesses, startups, funds, and intermediaries saw that aligned capital exists and that, with the right relationships, structures, and terms, it can meet real community needs.
CO Impact Days became the blueprint for a broader impact investing marketplace. Relationships deepened, the ecosystem grew stronger, and capital continued to flow.
Colorado set out to answer three questions: Could we source high-quality local deal flow? Could we discover, educate, and activate aligned investors? Could we increase the flow of capital in one state by $100 million? The proof of concept began in Colorado.
The first Impact Days cohort convened in Colorado in September 2012.
The $100 million goal was reached ahead of schedule. More than 155 investors were engaged, and the framework was refined through the 2013 and 2015 CO Impact Days events.
More than $300 million in capital was deployed into Colorado communities. CO Impact Days became the foundation for the national Impact Days model, inspiring expansion into Alaska, Massachusetts, and beyond.
“Just a quick note to congratulate you on CO Impact Days. You have started a movement here and I was absolutely blown away by the quality of social ventures that I saw. You certainly know what the impact investing scene needs and I hope that what you’ve started in Colorado can replicate quickly in other states and beyond!”
“It’s super rare to get world-class portfolio advice from someone who doesn’t have their hand in your pocket. It’s rarer to get a whole new framework for thinking about donations and philanthropic work. Rarest is all is a combination of clear next steps and challenge to take action. Impact Finance Center delivers a trifecta.”
“Throughout our lives, our days are peppered with experiences that shape our minds, hearts, and paths. It is often hard to tell how long we will feel the effects of those events. Sometimes, however, we feel to our core that we had the good fortune to be part of an experience that will definitely affect how we proceed tomorrow if not for the rest of our lives.”
Colorado became the first chapter in a larger story: a national impact investing marketplace rooted in local opportunity, trusted relationships, and values-aligned capital.
Alaska launched and completed AK Impact Days. Massachusetts is next.
