Colorado Youth at Risk

Dear Colorado Youth at Risk family,

We are excited to share some very exciting news with you. We've started a new chapter as an organization and formally joined forces with another highly-respected organization in the youth development space: Denver Urban Scholars.

Denver Urban Scholars and Colorado Youth at Risk have long shared a common mission: creating a brighter future for the youth of Denver. We are excited to announce the coming together of these two organizations, which will operate as a newly forged joint entity under the Denver Urban Scholars name.

With a combined 46 years of mentoring and youth development experience, the newly forged agency will benefit from the unique programmatic elements and outcomes of each organization; and will begin a new chapter with the intent of delivering improved programming and outcomes to every young person we serve.

Why did we do this? For two simple and completely mission-based reasons:
We can serve our youth better, together. By combining the expertise, unique programmatic elements and distinct strengths of each organization, we will forge an even stronger agency to serve our youth better than either of us could have done alone.

We have greater financial sustainability and programmatic efficiency as a joint entity. By coming together as a board of directors, a staff of dedicated professionals, and a family of devoted volunteers and donors, we can ultimately serve more students over time. This long-term vision means we can ultimately serve more students, better. That's the bottom line: improving more lives, together.

Over the last twenty years, Denver Urban Scholars and Colorado Youth at Risk have often shared resources, best practices, and worked together in the mentoring space. Past points of alignment have included collaboration through Mentor Colorado; shared training tools through common facilitators (Bold Leaders); explored joint funding opportunities and shared fundraising events such as Mustache4Cash/Color4Kids; and more.

We're currently undertaking a deep, strategic evaluation process to consider how the strengths of each program can be brought to the table in the new joint entity. While much detail is yet to be determined, we are laser focused on retaining the spirit, community and outcomes achieved over many years by both entities.

Through this process, we'll be engaging the many people who care deeply about each organization - from youth, to mentors, to educators, to donors and supporters - to hear from the people who matter most about how this new chapter can better serve our mission and our youth.

And it will be heard! We cannot and do not wish to launch this new joint endeavor without the invaluable insight, spirit and dedication of all those who have collectively brought us so far in our combined 46 years serving Denver's youth.

In the meantime, programming will remain unchanged for the rest of the 2017-18 school year. It is our intent to continue serving all students and mentors enrolled in both Denver Urban Scholars and Colorado Youth at Risk through the 2018 school year. We serve over 350 students through Denver Urban Scholars, and 119 through Colorado Youth at Risk. Our joint organization still plans to serve all 496 students in the 2017-18 school year. No youth will be left behind in this transition, unless they choose to disengage.

We want to thank you - our dedicated supporters - for helping us arrive at this exciting new chapter. The tireless passion, dedication and commitment of Colorado Youth at Risk's champions helped create an organization that, over 25 years, generated such outstanding outcomes for the youth served, it was impossible to ignore the opportunity to scale those results even further with a partner organization offering complementary strengths.

With our gratitude for your support, and in solidarity and excitement about this new chapter,

CYAR Staff and Board