Below is a list of projects in Colorado for the 2025-2026 service year.
Each project section includes the project name, agency name, city, the number of Fellows that will be serving in the project (“Openings”), the focus areas, and desired skills for the project. To view a full description of the project, click on the “Project Description” drop down.
Organization: Colorado Energy Office
Location: Denver, CO
Openings: 1
Desired Skills: Workforce Development, Stakeholder Engagement, Community Engagement, Facilitation
ABOUT THE PROJECT
This project will serve the Colorado Energy Office Weatherization Assistance Program (CEO WAP) and it’s 6 local weatherization service providers to increase program awareness and support workforce development.
Identified needs:
– Capacity to manage the Weatherization Registered Apprenticeship (WAP RAP)
– Support engagement efforts to raise awareness of the weatherization program and foster a two-way communication stream between CEO WAP and Colorado communities.
– Capacity to leveraging information from the workforce and engagement work when analyzing the WAP Client Satisfaction Survey to identify trends for training opportunities. This allows for a seamless blend of community/client input and increased workforce retention from robust training.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Communication & Engagement:
– Monitor and analyze weekly survey responses, ensuring prompt flagging of client concerns to weatherization subgrantees and collaboration with the WAP Training Manager to create responsive training recommendations based on client feedback.
– Assist with engagement projects to foster an open communication stream between the Colorado Energy Office, industry stakeholders, and Colorado communities. This includes supporting external presentations, event coordination, and efforts to implement or respond to external feedback.
-Support the creation of clear, accessible, and culturally relevant multimedia materials, including client testimonials, public education, promotional materials, and social media content, for weatherization communications and engagement projects to reach diverse audiences.
Workforce Development:
-Manage WAP Registered Apprenticeship Program (RAP) reporting for CEO’s internal metrics and reporting through the State Apprenticeship Agency’s RAPIDS portal;
-Manage subgrantee RAP needs including support for external funding, recruitment, evaluations, monitoring, revising as needed the curriculum
-Lead Weatherization Workforce Advisory Group, including creating the agenda, finding external/internal speakers, note taking and managing any related meeting needs.
-Responsible for WAP workforce metrics data collection and reporting
-Develop content for and send out monthly workforce development newsletter
-Support the CEO workforce team’s mapping efforts
-Support CEO workforce team’s funding research and sourcing
ABOUT THE COMMUNITY
The Colorado Energy Office (CEO) mission is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and consumer energy costs by advancing clean energy, energy efficiency, and zero-emission vehicles, which will benefit all Coloradans. CEO works to reduce pollution from some of the state’s leading sources of emissions: transportation, electric and gas utilities, buildings, and industry.
This fellowship will support the Weatherization Assistance Program through the Communications and Engagement Team (C&E).
The C&E Team is composed of staff representing a wide span of energy programs. This is a great opportunity to learn more about other energy initiatives, contribute to collaboration across sectors, and become a thought partner on industry-leading work.
All 80+ CEO staff are dedicated, passionate, and unanimously enjoy a good meme.
Organization: City of Grand Junction
Location: Grand Junction, CO
Openings: 1
Desired Skills: Project Management, Stakeholder Engagement, Community Engagement, Project Planning [/vc_column_text]
ABOUT THE PROJECT
The Housing Engagement & Outreach Specialist would be serving within the Housing Division at the City of Grand Junction. One of the City Council’s key priority areas (2023-2025) is “Welcoming, Livable, and Engaging” designed to foster a sense of belonging, where people are accepted as themselves and have access to the amenities and services they need to thrive, and actively seeks participation from our community which includes key affordable housing and houseless initiatives.
More specifically, the City of Grand Junction’s Housing Division is committed to enacting housing policies and partnering with outside organizations that seek to increase affordable housing options, diversity housing choice, decrease the gap between need and housing inventory, and assist those without homes to access supportive services. In 2019, the City conducted a Housing Needs Assessment that indicated nearly 50 percent of its residents rented and of those more than 50 percent were cost burdened paying more than 30 percent of their income to housing. Data shows that the greatest need for housing at or below $25,000 per year income and the largest concentration of need for aging, disabled, and female head-of-household persons/families. The City subsequently drafted and approved a Housing Strategy and most recently a 2024 Housing Strategy refresh designed to update and enhance current strategies to align with current trends and housing needs. Moreover, in the last two years, the City of Grand Junction’s houseless population has increased approximately 60 percent and additional resources, staff, and programming is being built to address houseless concerns and increase partnerships between service and housing providers.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
The Housing Engagement and Outreach Specialist (HEOS) will support the development and implementation of the Housing Strategies designed to increase housing production in the community – which may include work on the following projects:
ABOUT THE COMMUNITY
Grand Junction is the largest city between Salt Lake & Denver along the I-70 corridor. It has great access to the outdoors and also provides many urban amenities such as arts, music, and dining. It is home to Colorado Mesa University that hosts approximately 10,000 students during the school year.
Organization: City of Grand Junction
Location: Grand Junction, CO
Openings: 1
Desired Skills: Stakeholder Engagement, Volunteer Management, Facilitation, Relationship Management
ABOUT THE PROJECT
The City of Grand Junction established its Mobility Division in 2023 to support and enhance the safety and viability of active transportation options in the city. This same year, City Council adopted its first Pedestrian Bicycle Plan, which identified 39 objectives to approach its vision of “a city where people of all ages and abilities can safely and conveniently walk, roll, and bike on a connected network of well-maintained facilities for transportation or recreation.” Roughly 20% of these objectives relate to outreach, education, and building partnerships. This may be with youth, with drivers, with employers, with law enforcement, or with developers.
In 2024, City Council adopted the Sustainability and Adaptation Plan, which includes a goal related to working towards a built environment which enables the community to live and travel more sustainably. For implementing actions related to these two plans, the Mobility Division is looking for additional capacity to focus on the relationship development, networking and building energy from the community.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
The overarching goals for this project relate back to the city vision established in the Pedestrian Bicycle Plan, helping to foster “a city where people of all ages and abilities can safely and conveniently walk, roll, and bike on a connected network of well-maintained facilities for transportation or recreation.” The focus areas for the fellowship will primarily be in the realms of safety and multimodality. There will also be an opportunity to advise on policy that supports equitable development of high-quality and connected active transportation networks.
The Fellow will partner with youth and adult bicycling organizations in the community to disseminate Safe Cycling curriculum and other training materials, grow participation in Bike to Work Day and other community events, and facilitate volunteer opportunities related to active transportation. Ideally, the Fellow can help build this community energy to the point that it can be somewhat self-sustaining, growing the capacity of the Mobility Division to continue its focus on infrastructure development.
ABOUT THE COMMUNITY
The City of Grand Junction is the largest city on Colorado’s Western Slope and serves as a major commercial, employment, and recreational hub for the region. With many National Parks and Monuments within a short drive, lots of mountain biking, skiing, rafting, and climbing opportunities, there is no shortage of beautiful outdoors areas. The Mobility Division acknowledges the value of spending time outdoors, especially being active, and is working to enhance the ability to do so safely in our own backyards and while getting from A to B.
Organization: City of Grand Junction Sustainability Dept.
Location: Grand Junction, CO
Openings: 1
Desired Skills: Emergency Management, Research, Community Engagement, Project Planning [/vc_column_text]
ABOUT THE PROJECT
The City of Grand Junction established its Sustainability Division in 2022 to promote the livability of the community and the stewardship of resources. City Council adopted the Sustainability and Adaptation Plan in July 2024 to address six focus areas informed by community input: the built environment, climate resilience, energy stewardship, waste management, water conservation, and city leadership. The fellow would support work in all six of these areas, especially when outreach and program development or research is needed to bolster the work.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Sustainability Outreach
Each of the six focus areas from the Sustainability and Adaptation Plan have community outreach needs. The fellow would create resources and presentation materials to support outreach campaigns and support community engagement events. Project outcomes will supplement a resource library for future engagement opportunities.
Sustainability Program and Policy Development
The fellow would support program development, especially for internal programs to build a sustainability culture throughout departments within the City. Additionally, the fellow would research like programs from other municipalities to inform similar initiatives.
ABOUT THE COMMUNITY
Grand Junction is the largest city between Salt Lake & Denver along the I-70 corridor. It has great access to the outdoors and also provides many urban amenities such as arts, music, and dining. It is home to Colorado Mesa University that hosts approximately 10,000 students during the school year.