Our Organizing

At Center for Health Progress, we are committed to building power to win recognition, rights, and resources for our communities, firmly rooted in our ongoing fight for health equity.

Our vision is clear: we strive for health care systems that prioritize humanity and wellness over profit, ensuring that the power rests with historically and systematically oppressed communities. This commitment is not just about transforming health care; it’s about dismantling the structures of corporate greed that have long dictated access and quality of care, worsening inequalities that we can no longer accept.

Mission and Vision

Our Vision

We envision healthcare systems that value humanity and wellness over profit and center the power of historically and systematically oppressed communities.

Our Mission

We build power to win recognition, rights, and resources for our communities in our ongoing fight for health equity.

Political Strategy

At Center for Health Progress, our approach to political strategy is deeply influenced by a realization that the traditional paths to policy change, even in spaces marked as “progressive,” are often rooted in practices that undermine values of people of color, poor and working people, and immigrants. The current political system, with its confusing policy language and inaccessible decision-making processes, creates barriers that limit community involvement.

The outcome is that many of us don’t feel like we belong in these spaces. Decisions that impact our lives continue to be made by a small, elite group protecting their own interests and political gains. Through our political strategy work, we’re working to transform the political system into one where everyone has a sense of belonging and ownership.

Our approach combines strategic political engagement with grassroots organizing, emphasizing that real change comes from collaboration, inclusivity, and a deep respect for the cultural practices and beliefs that define our communities.

We’re not just fighting for a seat at the table; we’re working together to redesign the table, making the political process a genuine reflection of the communities it’s supposed to serve.

Three Faces of Power

Power to Win Demands

Our first face of power focuses on immediate wins: organizing people to win specific, issue-based campaigns. Winning demands is about strategic actions that lead to tangible outcomes that bring us one step closer to our vision of an equitable healthcare system.

Power to Drive the Agenda

We build a sustainable movement by establishing a solid organizational foundation through leadership development, organizing team creation, and by building a powerful base of leaders. By investing in leaders within our communities, we ensure that the movement is not reliant on a single individual but is instead a collective force capable of driving our health care agenda forward.

Power to Shape the Story

The third face of power is our ability to shape people’s conscious and unconscious understandings of the world around them and what they see as possible. This involves crafting and spreading narratives that challenge the current state of things and offer a vision of what the future can hold. Shaping the story is about creating a cultural shift that makes our vision of health care equity not just imaginable but achievable.

Our Campaigns: Community-Led, Community-Driven

Center for Health Progress leaders confront our health care system’s failings and inequities on a daily basis. They identify the most significant problems facing their communities, and launch and develop campaigns.

Care Not Courts

UCHealth, one of the most influential nonprofit health care systems in Colorado, is suing people for medical bills they can’t afford. We’re fighting back–health care workers and patients, united to demand that UCHealth put people over their their massive profits.

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Pueblo’s Health, Pueblo’s Wealth

Non-profit hospitals don’t have to pay taxes. But they’re required by law to put those savings back into our communities. Without community accountability, they are doing what’s best for them, not what’s best for us. People in Pueblo are fighting for community control over community dollars.

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Protect Immigrant Health

Our leaders in Fort Morgan are fighting to protect health insurance coverage for immigrants in Colorado because whether we are a native or newcomer, we all deserve health care.

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Care Over Cost

Health insurance corporations deny our claims or use prior authorization denials so they can avoid paying for our care. We’re fighting back with other organizations across the country to expose their scheme, win justice for people now, and demand reform.

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Commitment to Anti-Racism

The fight for health equity is inseparable from the fight against systemic racism. Historically and systematically oppressed communities bear the brunt of health care costs and disparities, a direct result of policies and practices rooted in racism and discrimination. With anti-racism at the heart of our work, we confront and address these inequities head-on, ensuring that our vision for health care systems extends to all, regardless of race, ethnicity, or background.