MANAUS, formerly the Manaus Fund, was a social justice nonprofit that worked in partnership with others to help create sustainable solutions to issues that further equity within our communities using the principles of community organizing and co-design. With two decades of investments in solutions designed with and by community members, dozens of projects were piloted and five nonprofits founded.
MANAUS was founded to disrupt philanthropy and impact the donor-nonprofit dynamic, to cultivate community and to address social injustice in the Roaring Fork Valley of Colorado. Through years of feedback, evolving needs and thoughtful iteration, it developed into the nonprofit of today: representative, innovative, collaborative and supportive.
MANAUS worked at the intersection of human-centered design and community organizing. By partnering throughout the region and bringing together diverse perspectives, we co-created solutions to social justice issues rooted in lived experience.
Everything we piloted at MANAUS is owned and operated by the co-creators. Here and into the future, this allows the community to advance under its own power, for its own sake.
MANAUS’s legacy is in community organizing, power-building and co-design.