Introducing the 2024 Colorado Signature Cohort Participants!
Save the Date!
You’re invited on November 19 to network with these entrepreneurs, learn about their social enterprises and hear them pitch!
RSVP link coming soon!
Out of 65 applications, these 16 social enterprises were selected for the first state-wide Signature Cohort in Colorado! Please join us in congratulating these social entrepreneurs as they move forward further, faster over the next 16 weeks!
Below is a short bio on each (in alphabetical order):
Arrival App
Caliber Coaching Collective
Campster
Cocina Libre
Darzee Scrubs
Fireworks Chefs Butters
Green Goddess
i.d.lumination
No Trash
Pikaboop
REworks Creative
Rootable
The Teponatzli Sound Foundation
Thinking out Loud
User Cooperative
We Hate Exercise
Arrival App
Immigrants and newcomers often face challenges finding resources and understanding life in the US, leading to mistakes in finances and education. Our web app consolidates essential information and resources for immigrants from their first day in the country. Unlike anything currently available, our platform saves newcomers countless hours of searching online by providing comprehensive guidance and support in one place.
Founder: Alejandro Castillo
arrival-app.com
Caliber Coaching Collective
Caliber Coaching Collective provides education, consulting and community support to individuals and organizations seeking skills and individualized problem solving around areas of mental health. We specialize in education and support around the assessment and response to suicidal ideation in a manner that is honoring of autonomy and has a trauma informed lens. We provide courses, customized trainings and large event presentations on responses to suicidality that center somatic experiences and vulnerability. We also offer courses and presentations on queering trauma treatment and dissociation/plurality.
Founder: Jess Tyergin
linkedin.com/in/jesstiergyn
Campster
Campster is an online marketplace that serves Denver-area families who are planning for school break camps. Campster's online market and planning tools saves parents' time and relieves stress so they can create treasured childhood memories during school breaks. Campster serves both paying customers and under-resourced families by donating profits to a local scholarship program. By making school break camps accessible to all, Campster aims to reduce summer learning loss and close the education achievement gap while solving a painful need for working parents.
Founder: Monica VanBuskirk
campsterkids.com
Cocina Libre
Cocina Libre addresses the social issue of marginalization and trauma faced by immigrant communities by providing a platform for sharing their stories and cultural heritage through cooking. This initiative helps restore immigrants' sense of identity and pride while also raising awareness about their challenges. By creating a supportive community environment through cooking and communal meals, Cocina Libre fosters connection, reduces isolation, and supports mental health. Additionally, it preserves cultural heritage and promotes understanding by documenting and sharing traditional recipes and immigrant stories.
Founder: Julia Roncoroni
linkedin.com/in/julia-roncoroni
Darzee Scrubs
Home of the innovative and locally produced Aspen Exfoliator. This 100% plant-based, all-natural wellness body scrubber for bathing/massaging renews the mind, body, and the environment.
Founder: Evana Henri
darzeescrubs.com | facebook.com/plantbasedscrubbers
Fireworks Chefs Butters
Fireworks Chefs Butters are individually wrapped compound butters to be used in the cooking and entertaining process. They make excellent gifts for home chefs and are great staples to have on hand for those that want delicious flavor additions to their snacks and meals. Our products are special because they are made by trainees who are experiencing joblessness and homelessness. The on the job training they receive from making our butter gives them valuable experience to take out in the world for other endeavors in the hospitality or restaurant fields.
Founder: Jessica Jacobson
fireworksbutters.com
Green Goddess
Green Goddess is an intergenerational social justice organization centered on environmentalism and public health as a vehicle of change to create a space for girls, women, and gender-expansive folks of color to be their authentic selves. Our mission is to drive transformative change through the six pillars, which drive education, empowerment, and meaningful experiences. We provide emotional and social support, helping participants develop a strong sense of identity, purpose, and community. Our vision is to create equitable and inclusive environments that foster connection, culture, and community for young girls, women, and non-binary individuals of color. Green Goddess addresses lifelong inequalities and barriers through comprehensive modalities.
Founder: Miarri Phillips
green1goddess.com
i.d.lumination
i.d.lumination and The Flashlight Foundation exist to help shine a light on the power of our humanness and break the silence around how trauma is impacting the places we learn and earn to create psychologically safe spaces. Our work helps students, young adults, and others who are trauma-impacted build self-esteem, self-acceptance, and self-efficacy through knowledge of their story, their strengths and their skills to help them find health, love and purpose in their lives and careers. We also provide consulting services, resources, tools, and support to help organizations move from trauma-affected to trauma-sensitive in their policies, practices, and procedures to create workplace well-being to benefit employees and the bottom line.
Founder: Anita Roach
idlumination.com
No Trash
Rather than forcing consumers to give up the benefits of fast fashion for sustainability, our customizable clothing system allows customers more outfit options without the waste. All no trash clothing has velcro panels sewn in various locations and are sold with multiple patches for multiple looks. For even more utility, our system allows customers to apply patches across products. Our high quality, customizable clothing not only reduces the amount of clothing consumers have to purchase (and inevitably throw away), it allows us to produce more accurately with less waste.
Founders: Nicholas Mantel & Austin Korth
notrash.com
Pikaboop
Pikaboop creates multifunctional products for frustrated parents who want to have a fun and adventurous family-forward lifestyle. We will use sustainable materials, climate-friendly manufacturing, and creative solutions to keep our products safe, in circulation, and out of landfills. Though our product is just a product, our core focus is creating a socially and environmentally responsible company that contributes to a better future.
Founder: Lauren Czajka
linkedin.com/in/lauren-czajka-49967039/
REworks Creative
We will provide end-to-end guidance and support for individuals, families, and local government entities wishing to employ stabilized insulated rammed earth (SIRE) as a durable and sustainable main component in the construction of affordable housing for themselves and their community. Our primary focus will be to support a do-it-yourself model of home building. Services available to select from range from site selection to pre-designed home plans to construction tutorials to equipment rental, and many others. Our name is intended to convey the use of Rammed Earth works to change the current paradigm of home construction in imaginative ways.
Founder: Kenneth Davis
youtube.com/@kennethdavis7200/videos
Rootable
Provide volunteer logistics software that supports organizations in local resource re/distribution while building collective power to leverage data, influence policy, and invest profits back into our communities’ wellbeing.
Founder: Becks Boone
facebook.com/boulderfoodrescue
The Teponatzli Sound Foundation
The Teponatzli Sound Foundation is a for-profit social enterprise dedicated to making music technology education accessible to all. We bridge the gap through scholarships funded by sponsorships and grants, ensuring that those who can't afford it can also benefit from our programs. We differentiate ourselves by offering in-depth technical education, such as building the tools and controllers used in music production, preparing youth for careers in the music and technology industries.
Founder: Magdiel Castillo
linkedin.com/in/magdiel-esai-a75373177/
Thinking Out Loud
Thinking Out Loud is a veteran-owned t-shirt company in Denver, CO committed to delivering exceptional products and top-notch customer service.
Founder: Walter Blunt
thinkingoutloud.store
User Cooperative
User Cooperative is a pre-product web browser startup that is uniquely structured as a consumer cooperative – a 100% member-owned and -governed company – to make “equity for clicks” possible for consumers on a free, members-only web browser, which we refer to as the “Surge Browser.”“Equity for clicks” is conveyed to consumers through User Cooperative membership, which is free, perpetual, with no liabilities or commitments, and open to any natural person.We are currently using our website to build our membership and raise donations from our members so that we can build them our Surge Browser, which will generate income from search engine royalties and targeted ads that we can use to ensure that our browser is the best, pay member dividends, and offer our members other services.
Founder: Matt Martensen
usercooperative.com
We Hate Exercise
We Hate Exercise (WHE) was founded by Dr. Samantha "Sam" Monson to address low physical activity and social isolation, especially among the 155M adults with chronic illnesses who need exercise for disease management but struggle due to symptoms. The WHE App offers a 12-week program tailored to individual needs, allowing users to set their own exercise goals and complete the program with a small supportive group. Whether it's water aerobics or jogging, WHE provides evidence-based interventions like health coaching and financial incentives to help users stay committed. Inspired by her experience with cystic fibrosis and 15 years as a clinical psychologist, Sam created WHE to acknowledge the "love/hate" relationship many have with exercise, highlighting its health benefits despite the challenges.
Founder: Sam Monson
wehateexercise.com
You’re invited to the finale!!!
November 19, 2024
Network with these Colorado entrepreneurs and listen to them pitch!
You’re invited to the SEA Change Colorado Showcase Event this November! This is the finale of the 14-module Signature Cohort program! During this event, you will be able to network with the graduating cohort participants, and selected finalists will present their sustainable financial model & measurable social impact to a crowd of supporters.
Experience a night filled with inspiration, innovation, and networking as we celebrate and champion social entrepreneurs in Colorado!
RSVP link coming soon