ProgressNow Colorado

ProgressNow Colorado does not publicly disclose the identities of its financial donors. Historical reporting has nonetheless identified several major funders of ProgressNow Colorado and the broader ProgressNow network, including Colorado software entrepreneur Tim Gill’s Gill Foundation, medical-device heiress Pat Stryker’s Bohemian Foundation, the Tides Foundation, and the Foundation to Promote Open Society, a grantmaking vehicle of left-of-center billionaire George Soros. ^{3 4 5}

History

ProgressNow Colorado was founded in September 2003 as the Rocky Mountain Progressive Network by attorney and political consultant Michael Huttner, who launched the organization from his law office with a personal list of roughly 700 email addresses. Huttner had previously managed the campaign for the Colorado State Board of Education of left-of-center technology executive Jared Polis and had worked as a policy adviser to former Colorado Governor Roy Romer (D). The organization was created explicitly as a left-of-center counterweight to the free-market Independence Institute, a Colorado-based think tank that Huttner and his allies viewed as an effective model for ideological messaging infrastructure. ^{6 4}

ProgressNow Colorado’s early growth was financed by a group of wealthy Colorado Democratic donors who came to be known informally as the “Gang of Four”: Polis, medical-device heiress Pat Stryker, technology executive Tim Gill, and businessman Rutt Bridges. According to The Blueprint: How the Democrats Won Colorado, a 2010 book chronicling the effort, Stryker and Gill alone spent approximately $3 million on the 2006 Colorado elections, representing nearly 30 percent of all Democratic spending in the state that cycle, funneled in part through nonprofit groups including ProgressNow-affiliated entities that were not required to disclose their donors. The donor network was formalized through the Colorado Democracy Alliance, a state-level analog to the national Democracy Alliance, a donor consortium of wealthy left-of-center philanthropists. ^{7 8}

In January 2005, the organization was relaunched under the name ProgressNow, with founding board members including MoveOn.org founder Wes Boyd, Democracy Alliance co-founder Ted Trimpa, and Polis. Beginning in 2006, ProgressNow expanded its model into other states, developing ProgressNow Partner Networks, which eventually grew to nearly 30 state-based affiliates, including the Alliance for a Better Minnesota, Progress Florida, One Wisconsin Now, Fuse Washington, and Battle Born Progress in Nevada. By 2015, the national ProgressNow network reported having an email list exceeding 4 million names, and by the mid-2020s, the network’s state partners reported a combined membership exceeding 3.4 million individuals. ^{1 6 4}

One of ProgressNow’s signature early tactics was a coordinated national campaign against the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a nonpartisan membership association of state legislators and business representatives that develops model legislation, much of which reflects free-market policy positions. ProgressNow and allied groups pressured ALEC’s corporate sponsors to withdraw their membership, contributing to the departure of companies including Johnson & Johnson from the organization in the early 2010s. ⁹

Michael Huttner eventually transitioned away from day-to-day leadership of ProgressNow Colorado, and in later years focused on separate advocacy efforts, including a successful push for Colorado to become the first U.S. state to decriminalize cannabis and a subsequent 2022 initiative that legalized psychedelic substances statewide. Ian Silverii, who is married to Democratic U.S. Representative Brittany Pettersen (D-CO), held the position of executive director of ProgressNow Colorado from 2016 until his departure in 2021, after which he moved into political consulting, including work with other ProgressNow state affiliates. Sara Loflin has held the position of executive director since August 2021. Loflin previously held the position of executive director of the League of Oil and Gas Impacted Coloradans (LOGIC), an environmentalist advocacy organization she founded and led for six years, and had also worked as the Colorado state director for Clean Water Action and as a field director for America Votes. ^{1 7 10 11 12}

Activities

ProgressNow Colorado describes its work as combining rapid-response media, opposition research, and grassroots organizing to advance a left-of-center policy agenda in Colorado, including on abortion access, criminal justice liberalization, and health equity. The organization characterizes its role as countering what it calls “conservative propaganda” and “disinformation” from the political right, and states that it works to mobilize left-of-center voters. ¹

ProgressNow Colorado operates several ongoing communications projects, including the Colorado Progressive Voters Guide, an election recommendation guide for left-of-center candidates and ballot measures; Colorado Week in Review, a recurring video series on state politics; and GabeWatch, a project tracking U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans (R-CO). The organization also operated Republicans Against Boebert, a project critical of U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO). ¹³

ProgressNow Colorado publishes regular legislative commentary during the Colorado General Assembly’s sessions, including a recurring “This Week in Colorado Legislation” series and an annual “Winners and Losers” assessment of the legislative session from a left-of-center perspective. The organization has also published opposition research profiles targeting Colorado right-leaning figures, such as a 2026 profile characterizing activist and gubernatorial candidate Victor Marx (R) as “Colorado’s most dangerous conservative.” ^{14 15}

ProgressNow Colorado Education, the organization’s charitable affiliate, has supported ballot initiative campaigns in Colorado, including the successful 2016 Proposition 106 that legalized self-administered euthanasia in Colorado, and has worked in coalition with organizations such as Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains on abortion advocacy. A representative of the Gill Foundation’s Colorado Strategies program has credited ProgressNow Colorado’s digital communications work as “integral” to the success of the Proposition 106 campaign. ¹⁶

Since the start of the second Trump administration, ProgressNow Colorado has framed its advocacy explicitly in opposition to the administration’s policies, characterizing state budget shortfalls and other issues as consequences of decisions made by the Trump administration and Republican members of the U.S. Congress from Colorado. In November 2025, the organization’s executive director publicly credited former Colorado State Senator Faith Winter (D-Broomfield) with championing “an immense list of historic legislation” on issues including equal pay, climate policy, and transportation funding, following Winter’s death. ^{17 18}

Funding

As a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization, ProgressNow Colorado is not required to publicly disclose the identities of its individual or institutional donors, a practice that has led some journalists and watchdog organizations to categorize the group as a “dark money” organization. Historical reporting nonetheless has identified specific grants to ProgressNow Colorado and its national network from several major left-of-center funders. The Gill Foundation, created by Colorado software entrepreneur Tim Gill, one of the nation’s largest funders of LGBT-focused causes, was reported to have given ProgressNow $443,125 in 2011. The Bohemian Foundation, funded by medical-device heiress Pat Stryker, was reported to have given ProgressNow $580,000 between 2006 and 2010. The Tides Foundation, a left-of-center donor-advised fund manager, was reported to have given the organization $460,000 over a similar period, with an additional $285,000 reported in 2012. The Foundation to Promote Open Society, a grantmaking vehicle created by left-of-center billionaire George Soros, was reported to have given ProgressNow $250,000. ^{19 20}

According to reporting by the Colorado Sun, ProgressNow Colorado’s annual spending grew substantially over the organization’s history, from modest sums in its earliest years to nearly $3.6 million in 2020, the most recent election year for which the outlet reported the organization’s tax filings were publicly available at the time of the Sun’s reporting. ²¹

Affiliated Organizations

ProgressNow Colorado is closely affiliated with ProgressNow Colorado Education, a charitable organization that engages in public education and communications activities related to ProgressNow Colorado’s policy priorities. The two organizations share overlapping staff, messaging, and strategic focus, with the 501(c)(3) affiliate handling nonpartisan educational content and the 501(c)(4) parent organization conducting direct advocacy and lobbying. ¹⁶

ProgressNow Colorado is also the founding organization of the national ProgressNow network, which, as of the mid-2020s, included nearly 30 state-based partner organizations across the country operating under different names, including the Alliance for a Better Utah, Better Georgia, Granite State Progress in New Hampshire, Keystone Progress in Pennsylvania, and Progress Michigan. While these state affiliates operate independently, they share a common origin, communications model, and general left-of-center policy orientation with ProgressNow Colorado. ^{4 1}