Fall into Impact: How CCW’s Small Businesses & Denver Anchor Network Are Driving Community Wealth this Season

Fall is community wealth season at CCW! On August 27th we hosted the first annual “Plated Prosperity” dinner, showcasing local caterers and the power of procurement to build community wealth. The sold out event featured keynote remarks from Phil Washington (Denver Airport CEO, retired) and tastings from seven local chefs. Get to know the featured caterers clicking here to see the event video and click here to watch or listen to the speeches! Photos from the event are here.

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Congratulations to our Award winners for building an economy that works for all:‍

Phillip A. Washington, Retired CEO Denver International Airport, for being a Co-Founder and Co-Chair of the Equity in Infrastructure Project, a Coalition of 104+ public and private organizations, and building the Procurement for Prosperity Playbook.‍

Murugan Palani, Director Office of Business Diversity at Denver Public Schools, for connecting our BEST small businesses to prime contractors, for the direct support for our BEST classes and graduation, and for the financial sponsorship.‍

Metropolitan State University of Denver and Kaycee Gerhart, Vice President University Strategy & External Affairs, for “Encourage Local Procurement Engagement”, educating and resourcing purchasing managers, and measuring spend impact.

And Chuck Ault, Community Health Program Manager at Intermountain Health, for their Back Office Boost sponsorship, direct revenue impact, and the constant community support.

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Please hold August 26, 2027 for next year’s Plated Prosperity!

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Cohort 2 of the Building with Entrepreneurs in Skilled Trades (BEST) program launched on September 10th, with 17 local businesses participating. The opening session featured three prime contractors helping our cohort participants understand how to get approved and start serving large contracts on upcoming projects like the soccer and football stadiums, public transportation, and education construction. The second session focused on those opportunities: procurement leaders from the University of Colorado, Denver Public Schools (DPS), and the Colorado Department of Transportation spoke about how to work on their projects. Future sessions include information on bonding, insurance, financing, estimating, marketing, hiring, and more. BEST is a free program supported by the Denver Economic Development and Opportunity (DEDO) office, DPS, and the Denver Urban Renewal Authority (DURA).

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Finally, The Denver Anchor Network (DAN) will hold a meeting on purposeful purchasing in early November, and current projects include:

• Anchor Spend and Market Analysis ($35,502). This initiative will study anchor spending and identify opportunities to replace current national vendors with local businesses that help our neighborhoods and city thrive. The program is in collaboration with the D.C. Community Anchor Partnership where they used this starting point to increase local spending by over 50x in less than 10 years and have added over $1.5 billion to local businesses.
• DAN Steering Committee. For DAN to continue being impactful, we need anchors to chart the course.  CCW will keep providing great programming and matchmaking with local businesses, and we need anchors to lead on how they want to collaborate to maximize their investment and impact in their communities.
• Contract Based Financing Program ($248,000). CCW is working with Merriwether and Williams to bring their successful lending program to Denver skilled trades businesses.  This project is typically sponsored by public agencies and entities to fund the technical assistance and support to provide access to essential bonding and lines of credit that open the opportunity for winning large contracts

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For more information on these programs and everything else related to the anchor program, please contact Jervis DiCicco at jervis@communitywealth.org.

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