The Colorado Media Project brings together funders, business and civic leaders, journalists, and community advocates who are concerned about the status and future of local news and information in our state. Jump to:
Who we are
Meet our local and national networks of funders, advisors and partner organizations
executive committee
CMP is governed by an Executive Committee representing foundations that have provided significant multi-year financial and/or in-kind support to advance CMP’s mission, vision, and activities.
Sarah Kurz is Chief Impact Officer at Rose Community Foundation, where she oversees discretionary grantmaking and policy and advocacy work for the Denver-based institution. Previously, Kurz has served as vice president of operations and strategy for LiveWell Colorado, director of strategic marketing for the City and County of Denver, and as a principal at SE2, providing communications consulting and public policy guidance to a diverse group of nonprofit, foundation, government and private-sector clients. She was a member of the Denver Metro Chamber’s Leadership Denver class of 2020 and the 2008 Impact Denver class. She served as a board member for the New America School for six years and was a mayoral-appointed member of the Denver Commission on Cultural Affairs for nine years. She is a Denver native and holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Duke University.
Johanna Ulloa Girón is the Building and Bridging Power Program Manager at The Colorado Trust. She is a psychologist and social worker from Bogota, Colombia. She has more than 20 years of experience working with communities in Central, South and North America in a range of roles, including as former director of community initiatives at the Tennyson Center for Children in Denver, and as a social worker with the Larimer County Department of Human Services in the Child Protection Department. Mrs. Ulloa Girón serves as an adjunct professor at Colorado State University, where she is a subject expert on social and racial justice through culturally competent clinical practice, diversity and equity. In 2019 she was awarded the Human Relations Award for her outstanding contributions to marginalized and disadvantaged citizens in Fort Collins. Mrs. Ulloa Girón holds a master’s degree in social work from Colorado State University.
Teresa Gorman is Associate Director for the Public Square program at Democracy Fund, an independent and nonpartisan, private foundation that envision an open and just democracy that is resilient in the face of change and worthy of the American people’s trust. The Public Square Program works to ensure that all people have access to the news and information they need to engage in civic life and use their voices without fear of being harassed, silenced or ignored. This includes the foundation’s efforts to support resilient and sustainable local news ecosystems, more equitable newsrooms, press freedom, and digital spaces that advance democracy, not hate. Teresa manages press freedom and local ecosystem news funding portfolios, which support local news ecosystems in North Carolina, New Jersey, Chicago, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Colorado. She serves on the advisory boards of the NC Local News Lab Fund, Colorado Media Project, and NJ Local News Lab Fund, and on the board of the American Journalism Project.
Jaclyn Lensen is senior communications officer for The Colorado Health Foundation. Over the past 15 years, she has worked in many areas of communications, from publicity to media relations to corporate communications. At the Foundation since 2011, Jaclyn has worked with staff in various departments and with partners across the state to lead communication efforts that highlight and discuss important issues that the Foundation and its partners are striving to address. She enjoys traveling internationally and across Colorado, from the Western Slope to the Eastern Plains. She holds a BA Communications and Marketing from the University of Colorado at Denver and an MA in Communications and Conflict Resolution from Regis University.
COLORADO MEDIA project TEAM
CMP’s mission is to support people, projects, and organizations working to build a healthier and more equitable local news and information ecosystem for all Coloradans. Day-to-day, these community leaders and their organizations carry the torch — catalyzing projects and leading working groups to build a healthier local news ecosystem.
Melissa Milios Davis (Gates Family Foundation) has served as Director of the Colorado Media Project since January 2020 and as an Executive Committee member since its inception in 2018. She provides day-to-day leadership for CMP’s strategy and funding portfolio. She is a former print, online, and public radio journalist and now Vice President for Informed Communities at the Denver-based Gates Family Foundation. Her decade as a journalist included award-winning education beat coverage for the Daily Breeze newspaper in Los Angeles, breaking news and digital content production for the Austin American-Statesman and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, and public radio news production for the Voice of America in London and KCRW and KPCC in Los Angeles. She also has over 15 years of experience in nonprofit and government communications, public policy, fundraising, and nonprofit management. She serves on the membership committee for the national Media Impact Funders, on the public policy committee for Philanthropy Colorado, on the leadership team for ComNetDENVER, and was a founding board member for the Colorado News Collaborative. See more on LinkedIn and Medium.
Sam Moody (Colorado Media Project, Associate Director) brings over a decade of social impact experience in strategic planning, organizational learning, local government policy, and philanthropy to the role. He has worked with global foundations, local governments, social enterprises, and community nonprofits across North and South America as a program and project leader, fundraiser, and strategic partner. Sam embodies the power of teamwork, and is passionate about building the capacity of communities to make audacious plans, assemble the resources necessary for success, and engage stakeholders in continuous learning. He is a native New Englander and holds both Bachelors and Masters degrees in International Development and Social Change from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. His love of photography, gardens and bikes feeds back into his work, as opportunities to practice awareness of how others see, grow, and move through the world.
Corey Hutchins (Colorado College) is a journalism instructor and a contributor to Columbia Journalism Review, The Washington Post, and other news outlets. He writes case studies for CMP and receives underwriting support from CMP for his popular industry newsletter, Inside the News in Colorado. He is a former alt-weekly reporter, was twice named South Carolina's journalist of the year by the S.C. Press Association, was a stringer for CBS news covering the GOP presidential primary, and was South Carolina's lead researcher and reporter on the State Integrity Investigation, a risk analysis for corruption in all 50 state governments published by the Center for Public Integrity, Global Integrity and Public Radio International. His graphic novel about Alvin Greene, The Accidental Candidate, was published by McFarland.
Tim Regan-Porter (Colorado Press Association) leads the state’s largest professional membership association for journalists, which is a co-investor with CMP in the Colorado News Collaborative. Tim is founding executive director of the Center for Collaborative Journalism at Mercer University in Georgia, a 2018 graduate of Stanford University's John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship, and was most recently a regional editor overseeing product development and innovation for McClatchy. Tim is a board member of COLab, and his experience leading multiple startups, creating coalitions, and launching revenue-generating local news products will ensure CPA remains at the forefront of statewide efforts with COLab, CMP, and many other allies who are working together to find innovative solutions to the challenges and opportunities facing journalism in Colorado. On Medium @timreganporter.
Laura Frank (Colorado News Collaborative) leads COLab, an independent, nonprofit resource hub and ideas lab connecting journalists from more than 150 news outlets across Colorado. CMP is a core funder and programmatic partner of COLab. Laura pioneered collaborative journalism in Colorado as the founder of I-News, the nonprofit investigative news organization that merged with Rocky Mountain Public Media in 2013, the first such merger in the nation. She led the journalism team there for seven years, and now leads 20+ newsrooms in collaborative reporting through the Colorado News Collaborative. She is a Denver native who spent 20 years reporting for newspapers, radio and public television around the country, specializing in investigative reporting and data analysis. She was a founding member of the Institute for Nonprofit News and now serves as its board chair. Her work has won awards in both broadcast and print, and led to changes in laws and lives.
COMMUNITY Advisors
A diverse group of Colorado community leaders provides strategic guidance for the Colorado Media Project. The leaders below served on our Local Advisory Committee from 2019 through 2021. Our Executive Committee is now working to select Community Advisors for our next phase of work, who will help ensure that CMP funding and activities are grounded in community information needs and support a sustainable, collaborative, nonpartisan news and information ecosystem.
Please email us if you’d like to learn more.
Chris Barge (Executive Director, Boulder Public Library Foundation) is a community advocate that served in senior leadership positions for the last 13 years at Community Foundation Boulder County, where he helped launch a Latino parent engagement program into an independent nonprofit, as well as directing the foundation’s biennial TRENDS Report on the social and economic health of Boulder County. He joined in 2008 after a 10-year career in newspapers, including with the Rocky Mountain News and the Boulder Daily Camera.
Curtis Esquibel (Director of Communications and Community Engagement for the Boettcher Foundation) is a connector who believes profoundly in the power of philanthropy and education to alter lives, impact communities and enhance leadership practice. Before joining the foundation, Curtis served as the Associate Director of the Latino Leadership Institute at DU. Prior to the LLI, Curtis spent 15 years working in college access and secondary education as a program director, outreach lead, college advisor and teacher. Curtis also wrote professionally for several newspapers in Colorado and California early in his career.
Mario Carrera (former Chief Revenue Officer at Entravision, the largest affiliate of Univision) is a community leader with a long history of journalism excellence. Under his tenure as Senior VP of Spanish Language Television and as Vice President and General Manager overseeing television, radio and interactive assets in Colorado, Entravision's Noticias Univision Colorado won 14 Emmy's, and KCEC-TV won the Best 2010 Public Service Award Campaign from the Colorado Broadcasters Association.
Nicole Glaros (Chief Investment Strategy Officer at Techstars) was a catalyst in growing the organization from two people to a global powerhouse with 47 programs worldwide, events in over 500+ cities, and a market cap of over $7B with nearly $500M under management. With 15-years’ experience mentoring, supporting, and investing in entrepreneurs, Nicole is an expert in growing global organizations, building startup ecosystems, working with early stage startups, venture capital, and more.
Jerrold “Jerry” Glick (Managing Partner, Columbia Group LLLP) is a lifelong community leader with experience in a broad range of civic projects. He is a member of the Colorado Forum, and has previously served as Vice President of the Denver Union Station Project Authority, Chairman of the Rose Community Foundation’s Board of Trustees, Chairman of the Downtown Denver Partnership Management Committee, Chairman of Denver Civic Ventures, and Chairman of the Denver Urban Renewal Authority.
Joanne Kelley (CEO, Philanthropy Colorado) leads the organization in its efforts to provide education and advocacy for Colorado’s philanthropic sector. Previously, Joanne spent much of her career in journalism with news agencies, magazines and daily newspapers in Denver, Washington, DC, New York City and Chicago. She serves on the board of the Washington-based United Philanthropy Forum, a national network of philanthropy-serving organizations. She also is the Board Chair of Food and Environment Reporting Network, an investigative news organization.
Gail Klapper (Member/ President, Colorado Forum) is a fourth-generation Colorado native who has led the Colorado Forum, a diverse membership of business and civic leaders who work to achieve good public policy results for Colorado, since 1989. Her civic leadership experience spans from the White House to the Governor’s Cabinet, and she currently serves on the Boards of Gold, Inc. and Great-West Funds, Inc.
Gregory Moore (Editor-in-Chief of Deke Digital and former Editor, Denver Post) leads Deke’s efforts to position business executives and entrepreneurs as experts through published content in national and trade publications. Previously, he spent 14 years as editor of the Denver Post. During that time, the newspaper rose in prominence, winning four consecutive Pulitzer Prizes. He is a member of the board of the Boettcher Foundation, the University of Denver, America Succeeds, the Emily Griffith Foundation and Polaris, the anti-human trafficking organization based in Washington, D.C.
Judy Muller (former network TV news correspondent and USC Annenberg journalism professor) is an Emmy, duPont-Columbia, and Peabody Award-winning journalist and regular NPR commentator who currently resides most of the year in Norwood, Colorado. She worked as a national correspondent for ABC News starting in 1990, and previously worked for CBS News. She taught at University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Journalism from 2003 until retiring in 2017 as Professor Emeritus. She is the author of two books: Emus Loose in Egnar: Big Stories from Small Towns (2011) and Now This: Radio, Television—and the Real World (2000).
Lynn Schofield Clark (Professor, Chair and Director of the Estlow International Center for Journalism and New Media at DU) is co-author (with Regina Marchi) of the award-winning book, “Young People and the Future of News”. Known for her work in advancing diverse youth voices through digital media in university-community partnerships, Clark’s efforts have been supported with grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Mellon Foundation, and the MacArthur foundation. On Twitter: @LynnSchofClark
Scott Stemberger (Senior Partner, Boston Consulting Group - Denver) has 20 years of experience in software, IT and telecom. Since joining BCG in 2004, he has worked predominantly in the Technology, Media and Telecommunications practice across a range of topics including growth strategy, operational improvement, M&A / corporate development, private equity due diligence, turnarounds, go-to-market, organizational design, transformation.
Gary Steuer (President and CEO, Bonfils-Stanton Foundation) leverages the voice and legacy of the Foundation to sustain and strengthen the arts and nonprofit leadership in our community. Prior to joining BSF, Gary served as the Chief Cultural Officer and Director of the Office of Arts, Culture & the Creative Economy for the City of Philadelphia. He also served as Vice President and Executive Director for Americans for the Arts in New York.
John Temple (Director, Investigative Reporting Program, University of California - Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism) is an award-winning newspaper editor and journalism innovator. He has served as managing editor of the Washington Post and editor and general manager of Honolulu Civil Beat. Under his watch as editor, president and publisher of the Rocky Mountain News from 1998 until it ceased publication in 2009, the newspaper won four Pulitzer prizes.
Nancy Watzman (First Draft News and former CMP Director) is an award-winning investigative journalist, researcher, strategist, and 20-year Denver resident who works on the cusp of technology and journalism. She served as founding director for the Colorado Media Project throughout 2019, and her career spans work with the Internet Archive, the Sunlight Foundation, the Center for Public Integrity, the Center for Responsive Politics, and the Democracy Fund. She worked as editor for the Knight Commission on Trust, Media and Democracy, which in 2018 explored how to improve trust in democracy and concluded that a key lever is strengthening local journalism nationwide. She is co-author of Is That a Politician in Your Pocket? Washington on $2 Million a Day (2004) and a contributor to The Buying of the Congress: by the Center for Public Integrity (1998).
Supporters
Through funding, in-kind, and technical support, our partners are actively working with and within the community to execute on the goals of the Colorado Media Project. Drop us a line if you are interested in becoming a supporter.
Democracy Fund is a bipartisan foundation established by Pierre Omidyar to help ensure that our political system can withstand new challenges and deliver on its promise to the American people. Democracy Fund’s Public Square Program invests in people and organizations who are working to create a stronger public square that is trusted, connected and reflective of the full diversity of our nation. The program does this by rebuilding the infrastructure for local news, fostering community engagement and diverse, inclusive and equitable newsrooms, and expanding press freedom.
Since 1946, the Denver-based Gates Family Foundation has been a community resource for advancing long-term quality of life in Colorado. The Foundation has supported public and independent media for decades, especially as vital issues such as public education, rural issues, and natural resources have faced declining media coverage from traditional outlets. The Colorado Media Project is the primary focus for the foundation’s Informed Communities and Local News portfolio of strategic grantmaking.
Project X-ITE is Denver University’s cross-discipline innovation hub for technology and entrepreneurship. In addition to providing a nonprofit home for the Colorado Media Project, DU contributes multi-faceted in-kind faculty support coordinated by JB Holston and Lynn Schofield Clark, Chair of Media, Film and Journalism, as well as administrative and back-office support.
Bonfils-Stanton Foundation strategically provides grants and fellowships to advance the arts and inspire creative leadership in Denver. The foundation is richly steeped in Denver’s cultural history, but is also a contemporary leader in fueling innovation and exploration in our creative economy. Each year it gives more than $3 million to arts organizations and nonprofit leaders, because it believes these entities and individuals are critical to building and sustaining a vibrant community.
The Colorado Health Foundation is committed to helping Coloradans live their healthiest lives, by advancing opportunities to pursue good health and achieve health equity. The Foundation partners with nonprofits, health care leaders, policymakers, educators and the private sector to support impactful work critical to improving health in Colorado.
Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation’s mission is to invest in the future of journalism by building the ethics, skills and opportunities needed to advance principled, probing news and information now and for the future. EEJF does so through contributions to media institutions and journalism schools, primarily in areas of investigative reporting, professional development, Oklahoma journalism, and special opportunities.
Membership Puzzle Project is a research project funded by the Knight Foundation, Luminate, and Democracy Fund, and collaboratively run by NYU and the Dutch journalism platform De Correspondent. It is delving into research on ways that journalism organizations are diversifying revenue with a particular focus on membership programs and optimizing news for trust.
The Colorado Trust is dedicated to ensuring all Coloradans have the opportunity to thrive. The Trust partners with people and organizations across Colorado that are working to make positive changes in their communities; providing funding and other resources so that all people have the power to make decisions that improve their lives and the lives of their neighbors.
The Rose Community Foundation’s mission is to advance inclusive, engaged and equitable Greater Denver communities through values-driven philanthropy. Created in 1995 and anchored in its Jewish roots and legacy, the Foundation’s vision is a thriving region strengthened by diversity and generosity.
Bohemian Foundation is a private family foundation established in 2001. Based in Fort Collins, Colorado, Bohemian Foundation works to empower citizens and impact communities through grantmaking, programs, and events in its Community, Music, Global, and Civic Programs.
Delta Dental of Colorado Foundation is dedicated to helping more people be healthy. Founded in 1955, they elevate the well-being of all Coloradans by advancing oral health equity and supporting innovative programs that improve oral health and overall well-being.
NATIONAL ADVISORS
Penelope (Penny) Muse Abernathy is a visiting professor at Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications. She is a former executive at The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, and previously served as the Knight Chair in Journalism and Digital Media Economics at the University of North Carolina specializing in research into business models for community newspapers and the spread of “news deserts.”
Jason Alcorn is Vice President of Learning and Impact for the American Journalism Project. Previously he was the project manager for NewsMatch, an annual matching gifts and capacity building program for nonprofit newsrooms that in 2017 raised $4.8 million in partnership with Democracy Fund, Knight Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. Jason is also an award-winning journalist. He served as associate director of Seattle-based nonprofit news organization InvestigateWest from 2011 to 2016.
Sue Cross is executive director of the Institute for Nonprofit News, a network of more than 200 public service news media across the U.S. that are strengthening the sources of news for thousands of diverse communities. Cross is a former senior vice president for the global news agency Associated Press. She brings more than 30 years’ experience as a journalist, digital media business executive and nonprofit consultant. She is based in LA.
Molly de Aguiar is President of the Independence Public Media Foundation. Previously she served as managing director of the News Integrity Initiative at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, and as program director for Informed Communities at the New Jersey-based Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, which she helped establish as a nationally known innovator in funding local journalism.
Kathy Kiely the Lee Hills Chair for Free Press Studies at the Missouri School of Journalism, where she is teaching and working to advance the cause of free speech nationally and internationally. She has worked as a reporter and editor for numerous regional and national news organizations, covering Congress and national politics and has advocated on First Amendment issues as a Free Press Fellow for the National Press Club.
Stefanie Murray is the Director of the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University in New Jersey. She previously worked in Michigan and Tennessee as a reporter, editor, digital media manager and news executive. Before joining Montclair State, she worked for Gannett Co. as vice president and executive editor of The Tennessean in Nashville, and was with the Detroit Free Press before that. Her professional passions are collaborative journalism, local journalism, community engagement, and audience analysis.
Erika Owens is a journalist and organizer based in Philadelphia. As Director of OpenNews, Erika convenes people and projects in journalism and open source technology. Erika and the OpenNews team seek ways to build enduring connections by creating inclusive, caring spaces for the journalism-tech community. Previously, Erika was web editor at the Philadelphia Public School Notebook. She loves nonprofit journalism, people watching, and laughing heartily.
Mike Rispoli directs Free Press’ News Voices project, which connects local communities and the newsrooms that serve them via public engagement, advocacy campaigns and collaborative projects. He also teaches journalism as a part-time lecturer at Rutgers University. Before joining Free Press, Mike reported for Gannett New Jersey and The Star-Ledger, and worked for the human-rights organizations Privacy International and Access. Mike also served as the technical editor on the 2015 book You: For Sale, a look at protecting user data and privacy online.
Dan Schultz is a technologist who helps people make things for the public good. He has earned degrees from MIT and Carnegie Mellon, and became professionally involved in the civic media space through the Knight News Challenge as well as an Open News fellowship at Mozilla and the Boston Globe, as consulting director of technology at Civic Hall, and as a senior engineer at the Internet Archive. Dan has helped dozens of startups design and build out their products as a partner at the Silicon Valley Software Group. In addition to his work as a consulting engineer with civic and media efforts, Dan is creating open source media analysis projects as Overmind of Bad Idea Factory.