About Building a Better Colorado

Learn more about the organization and our mission.

Building a Better Colorado wants to address our common challenges in a way that brings people together.

A diverse, nonpartisan coalition of Coloradans has come together with the shared belief that Colorado can do better than the divisive arguments that have come to dominate our political discourse.

Who We Are – BBCO Executive Committee

As a non-partisan project, BBCO tries to maintain a diverse and politically-balanced Executive Committee made up of thought leaders from both the business and non-profit communities across the state.

It’s Not About Politics,
It’s About Shared Solutions!

Colorado Voters:

Colorado is one of the most politically-balanced states in the nation, with an almost equal number of voters registering as “Republican” and “Democrat”. In recent years, “Unaffiliated” voters have grown to become the largest block of voters in Colorado, now making up 35% of the Colorado electorate!

BBCO Executive Committee:

As a demonstration of BBCO’s commitment to non-partisan dialogue, BBCO is very intentional about similarly maintaining political balance on its Executive Committee. This isn’t about whose side wins or loses. It’s about working together to make the state that we all love a better place for ourselves and our children. We hope you’ll join us!”

Reeves Brown
Dave Younggren
Al Yates
Lee White
Dan Ritchie
Joelle Martinez
Gail Klapper
Ted Harms
John Ikard
Steve Halstedt
Tom Gougeon
Tim Foster
Stanton Dodge
Don Childears
Mario Carrera
Denise Burgess

What We Do

BBCO does not advocate for any specific policy solutions for any of the policy areas which we’re exploring. Rather, BBCO convenes politically-balanced panels of subject-matter experts to discern the facts about a given policy challenge, defines a range of potential policy options to address that challenge, and then engages citizens in a constructive conversation to evaluate the merits of those different policy options. By giving control of the outcome to those whom we engage in the conversation, BBCO gives ownership of the policy challenge – and responsibility for identifying an appropriate solution to that challenge – to the people.

What We’ve Done

In 2015, BBCO engaged over 10,000 Coloradans in a non-partisan conversation to consider potential options about how we might improve our state’s fiscal policy, ballot initiative process, and election systems.

30 community meetings statewide
an interactive online survey
3 statewide phone surveys
6 focus groups across the state

Out of BBCO’s statewide conversation in 2015 grew consensus around five policy ideas.

Three of BBCO’s policy options were later carried forward to the 2016 ballot by campaigns which were separate and independent of BBCO and all three were ultimately adopted by voters:

Initiative Process: In order to protect our constitution and ensure more statewide participation in proposed amendments to it, require that petition signatures for future citizen-initiated amendments come from different geographic areas of the state, and require that future amendments which propose to add language to the constitution pass by more than just a simple-majority.
Election System: Reinstate a Presidential Primary in Colorado to encourage more participation in the Primary election.
Election System: Create a “semi-open” Primary election in order to make it easier for unaffiliated voters (the largest and fastest-growing block of voters in Colorado) to participate.
an interactive online survey

A fourth BBCO recommendation was later adopted by the Colorado legislature in 2017.

Fiscal Policy: Remove from the TABOR revenue limit the Hospital Provider Fee revenue which provides additional state funding for Colorado’s expanded Medicaid population, thus avoiding reductions in key state investments like higher education.

The fifth BBCO recommendation was explored by an independent campaign committee in 2016 but not pursued:

Fiscal Policy: Allow the state to retain and invest in education, transportation, senior services and mental health care any tax revenues that TABOR would otherwise require to be refunded to the taxpayers.

BBCO’s 2015 statewide conversation proved that regardless of how diverse Colorado may be, Coloradans CAN find consensus solutions when they view a policy challenge through the shared lens of improving the state we all love, they’re armed with the facts, and they’re empowered to engage in constructive conversation.