Governor-convened working groups. Legislatively created task forces. Intergovernmental negotiations. Fiscal policy working groups. Statewide engagement at scale. The common thread is a standard process that has already run out, and a problem too consequential to leave unresolved.
Colorado AI Governance Framework · Senate vote after three failed sessions
RTD governance recommendations codified in legislation
Federal ARPA funds whose prioritization was shaped by facilitated statewide engagement
Colorado spent two years trying to fix its AI consumer protection law. The legislature failed to reach agreement during the regular session. A special session called specifically to address the law produced one outcome: a delayed effective date. Three attempts, no resolution.
In fall 2025, Governor Polis convened a multi-stakeholder working group with a different mandate: build a new framework from the ground up, not as a revision of the existing law. Confluence designed and facilitated the nine-session process, bringing together approximately 14 members representing consumer advocates, civil rights organizations, technology developers, business associations, healthcare, and higher education sectors, and the Colorado Technology Association. These parties had been in direct conflict for two years.
The process moved the group from competing demands to shared understanding before any drafting or voting began, and negotiated the actual language of a framework once that foundation was established. The working group voted unanimously to support the result.
SB26-189 passed the Senate 34–1 and the House 57–6 and was signed into law thirteen days after introduction. The presidents of the Colorado Technology Association and Colorado Chamber of Commerce credited the facilitation process in a published op-ed. Other states and federal policymakers are examining the Colorado approach as a model.
Senate vote · SB26-189
House vote · thirteen days from introduction to
law
Nine sessions · 14 members · Unanimous vote
ACLU · Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition ·
Colorado Technology Association · Colorado
Chamber of Commerce · Google · Healthcare and
higher education sectors
Process architect and neutral facilitator · Testified as neutral witness at Governor’s request
Transit governance reform in Colorado had been discussed for years without resolution. RTD’s fully elected board structure, one of only three in the country, had produced chronic accountability gaps and a pattern of decisions that prioritized board members’ political interests over system performance. Legislation alone had not moved it.
In 2025, SB25-161 created the RTD Accountability Committee, a 15-member body charged with examining RTD governance, paratransit, workforce, and local government collaboration. Confluence was selected to design and facilitate the process. Over five months, the committee worked through a structured sequence: grounding members in shared understanding before generating ideas, surfacing evidence before weighing proposals, and building toward consensus before voting.
A governance recommendation that initially failed to reach the required supermajority was later adopted 11–2 after additional deliberation, demonstrating what the process was designed to produce.
The committee’s 31 recommendations, including a restructured nine-member hybrid board, were codified in SB26-150, which passed both chambers and was signed by the Governor. The legislative declaration cited the committee’s process and the role of a neutral facilitator verbatim.
Recommendations codified in SB26-150
Governance vote · Super-majority to advance major restructure
Five months · 15 members · Multiple public sessions
Governance · Paratransit · Workforce · Local government collaboration
Process architect and neutral facilitator · Deliberative record produced for Governor’s Office
The Colorado Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice had guided state criminal justice policy for nearly twenty years. In 2023, a bill to reauthorize it was postponed indefinitely, sunsetting the body without a replacement. Governor Polis issued an executive order creating the Working Group on Transforming Criminal and Juvenile Justice and directed it to recommend the structure, purpose, and composition of a new permanent entity.
Confluence was selected to facilitate the 17-member group, which included prosecutors, defense attorneys, law enforcement, reform advocates, and stakeholders with diverse professional and lived experience perspectives. The process brought more than 50 outside voices into the deliberations before the group turned to its own recommendations.
After extensive deliberation, the TCJJ reached consensus on the mission, vision, structure, and membership for two new permanent commissions to address adult and juvenile justice. The final report was published in March 2024.
Outside voices brought into deliberations before internal recommendations
17 members · Consensus reached · Final report
March 2024
Prosecutors · Defense attorneys · Law enforcement · Reform advocates · Community stakeholders
When federal American Rescue Plan Act funds became available in 2021, Colorado faced a challenge that was less about the money than about how to use it. With $3.8 billion to allocate, state leaders needed to understand what Coloradans across diverse communities, industries, and regions actually needed, before priorities were set and decisions were made.
At the request of Governor Polis, Treasurer Young, and legislative leadership from both parties, Abramson designed and led a statewide listening tour across seven geographic regions and ten additional audience-specific sessions. The input gathered directly shaped the state’s prioritization of the ARPA funds.
Following the public engagement phase, Abramson facilitated legislative discussions of findings and member priorities, supported discussions between the legislature and the executive branch, and contributed to drafting the first report to the U.S. Treasury.
Federal funds whose prioritization was directly
shaped by the engagement
7 geographic regions · 10 additional audience-
specific sessions · Statewide reach
Governor Polis · Treasurer Young · Legislative
leadership from both parties
At the invitation of Governor-Elect Polis and his Chief of Staff, Abramson managed all aspects of Boldly Forward, the official transition committee. The engagement covered the full scope of pre- administration work: transition operations, the hiring process for 20 state agency directors, development of reforms and opportunities reports for each executive agency, and a statewide engagement effort on behalf of the Governor-Elect.
The transition was designed to be unusually open: committee membership combined appointed civic leaders with members selected through a public application process, and town halls and an online portal gave Coloradans across the state a direct channel into the process.
State agency director hiring processes
managed
Full transition operations · Agency reports ·
Statewide public engagement
A town manager facing a growing housing crisis sought to bring regional leaders together to identify short and long-term strategies for addressing workforce and broader housing needs. Confluence President Berrick Abramson developed and facilitated a regional summit of city, county, private sector, nonprofit, and community leaders.
The summit produced specific, actionable strategies addressing permitting, accessory dwelling units, cross-agency coordination, public-private partnerships, and both short and long-term housing development opportunities.
City and county leaders · Private sector · Nonprofit · Community organizations
Actionable strategies on permitting, ADUs, cross- agency coordination, and PPPs
The City of Manitou Springs faced a budget shortfall in the range of $1.3 to $1.6 million and a decision that no city manager wants to make without first understanding what the community values and what trade-offs it is willing to accept. City Manager Denise Simpson retained Confluence to design and facilitate a community engagement process that would give residents and business owners a genuine opportunity to weigh in on expenditure priorities and potential revenue options before the City Council made decisions.
The process began with a community survey that generated more than 500 responses — a substantial return for a city of Manitou Springs’ size. Confluence then designed and facilitated two in-person community engagement sessions, held on June 11 and June 13, 2026. Each session was structured to move participants from shared context — City staff presenting the budget situation and the constraints the City actually faces — through small-group deliberation on specific expenditure categories and potential revenue options, and finally to written worksheet responses that captured individual priorities in participants’ own words.
The process was designed around a principle that emerged clearly from the data staff presented: the City could not cut its way out of the shortfall. That conclusion came from the numbers, not from Confluence. Participants across both sessions arrived at it independently once they engaged with what the budget actually contained — and that shared understanding changed the quality of the conversation about revenue options that followed.
Across both sessions and the written worksheets, participants were consistent: public safety — fire, EMS, and police — should be protected, with EMS outsourcing specifically and repeatedly rejected once response-time data was presented. Citizen services including parks, recreation, and the pool were identified as central to community quality of life. City Administration was seen as already lean. On revenue, participants were more open than the City expected, with sales tax, tourism-related fees, and parking revenue all surfacing as preferred options over property tax increases. Confluence produced a complete public report on the engagement findings, submitted to the City Council and City staff.
The same process discipline Confluence applies to Governor-convened working groups applies equally to a city manager with a $1.3 million shortfall and a community that needed to be heard before hard decisions got made.
City and county leaders · Private sector · Nonprofit · Community organizations
Actionable strategies on permitting, ADUs, cross- agency coordination, and PPPs
I’ve done one to two task forces a year for the last 18 years. Hands down, this is the best run one. State agencies should just be required to hire you all.
Working group member · Colorado state government
State agency leaders, Governor’s offices, county governments, and organizations navigating problems that have resisted every standard approach reach out directly. The engagement starts with a conversation.
CO · NC · FL · National
