The spend-down has begun. If you live in one of Colorado’s hotly contested school districts, you have probably noticed by now. The banner ads attached to web pages like this one. The commercials inserted into your Facebook feed. The glossy 8x11s filling your mailbox with virtue and venom, some brightly colored and peppy, others black and gray with yellow text. After months of raising money, school board races are now in the few short weeks of spending it.
For the most part, though, the money paying for mailers, digital ads, and television spots in contested school districts around the state is not coming from candidate’s coffers, the money their supporters have contributed to their races. Instead, the vast majority of it is coming from outside groups.
I have kept a close eye on school board spending this year, and I want to tell you what we know about the outside groups currently spending thousands to fill your mailbox and trash can with glossy paper. They come in two major categories: teacher’s unions, and faceless front organizations for billionaires with unclear motives.
Spending by teachers’ unions is understandable and predictable: why wouldn’t they participate in races which will determine the kind of working environment their members will have to deal with for at least two years? Their spending, however, looks different than the right-wing dark money raining down on districts around the state.
For starters, we know where the money spent by teachers’ unions comes from: it comes from teachers’ unions, and from dues paid by the teachers who are members of those unions. Mystery solved. The ultimate source of right-wing dark money, though – often originating from one billionaire or private family foundation or another before being washed through various 501(c)3s and (c)(4)s – is usually much harder to discern, and that’s by design.
The other major difference is motivation. There is no uncertainty as to what interest teachers’ unions have in school board races: they want board members who will respect their contracts, let them do their jobs, and otherwise leave them to the task of education. When that dark money comes from an anonymous billionaire, though, there’s a great deal of uncertainty as to their interests – not to mention, what they expect in return for their investment.
All of that to say, not all “dark money” is equally dark. This year, for instance, the teachers’ union independent expenditure committee running ads in districts around the state is named Students Deserve Better. It is funded by the Colorado Education Association – information which can be gleaned from a quick Google search.
The other organizations spending money on Colorado school board races this year, however, are not nearly as illuminated by a quick Google search. Organizations with generic, throwaway names, with money received in a lump sum from other organizations with equally generic, throwaway names, the funds shuffled around until the original source has been fully obscured. These are the true dark money groups.
Here’s what we know about some of them.
Springs Opportunity Fund
In El Paso County, the Springs Opportunity Fund has already spent tens of thousands of dollars this month supporting conservative candidates in Academy School District 20. Unlike most of the other groups on this list, which were incorporated months ago and will be dissolved shortly after the election, 2025 is actually Springs Opportunity Fund’s second cycle in action. The group made waves in 2023 as well, for the $280,000 it spent supporting conservative candidates Thomas Carey, Parth Melpakam, Jill Haffley, and Jason Jorgenson.
That year, the group sent ominous, overwrought mailers claiming that the union-backed candidates would bring “critical race theory” to the classrooms and put pornography in the libraries and other similar fever dreams.
This year, the three candidates receiving support from the group are board incumbent Susan Payne and newcomers Holly Tripp and Eddie Waldrep.
While it’s interesting to note where Springs Opportunity Fund is spending its money, it’s even more interesting to note where they received that money from in the first place. According to TRACER, the state’s campaign finance database, no organizations have contributed to Springs Opportunity Fund since 2023, meaning the group is likely spending funds leftover from that year. As I reported earlier this year, most of the organization’s 2023 fundraising haul came from organizations run by, funded by, or otherwise associated with Advance Colorado.
D11 Parents and Teachers
The Springs Opportunity Fund is not the only Advance Colorado subsidiary currently shedding cash all over Colorado Springs, though. Next door to D20, District 11 is also enduring an onslaught of cash from the state’s most prominent conservative organization. In D11’s case, Advance Colorado’s money is dressed up under the name “D11 Parents and Teachers” – a somewhat misleading name for an organization opposing the teachers’ union.
The group is supporting a trio of conservative candidates running for seats on the board: Bruce Cole, Jeremiah Johnson, and Michelle Ruehl. Earlier this month, the group sent out text message blasts portraying union-supported candidate Charles Johnson as some sort of hardened criminal for his arrest during the 2020 protests – the same circumstances which led to my former Congressman, John Lewis, being arrested 40 times. The texts attracted accusations of racism.
As for where D11 Parents and Teachers’ money is coming from, that’s easy enough: it’s coming from Advance Colorado. Unlike with Springs Opportunity Fund in 2023, the conservative mega-org did not bother with subsidiaries and intermediaries this time, choosing instead to move funds directly from its own independent expenditure committee into the local group’s warchest. On October 8, Advance Colorado Action transferred $125,000 to D11 Parents and Teachers – the group’s entire budget. So far, the local group has spent just over $94,000 dollars, with another $30,000 or so left to spend (all figures in this article are current as of the October 14, 2025 campaign finance reports).
Neighbors for a Better Colorado
Voters in Douglas County and Durango may have noticed ads paid for by Neighbors for a Better Colorado. So far this month, the group has spent more than $77,000 supporting conservative candidates in those two districts.
In Douglas County, the four candidates receiving flyover support from the dark money group are Keaton Gambill, Deborah Kramer, Matthew Smith, and Stephen Vail, who were all endorsed by the county GOP via a secretive selection process. In Durango, the group is supporting Tamra Fenberg, Ellen Pearl Stegner, and Jody Trampp.
Interestingly, Neighbors for a Better Colorado still reports having received $0.00 in contributions, despite having spent nearly $80,000. While this convenient clerical error prevents us from saying with certainty where the money is coming from, it’s worth noting that the group is administered by Katie Kennedy – Advance Colorado’s go-to financial compliance expert.
Coloradans for Accountable Government
In Montrose County, another Kennedy-administered group is showering money on voters in support of four candidates, including incumbent Neisha Balleck, and challengers Shane Daly, Scott Sacrborough, and Tiffany Vincent.
Though far off the path beaten by Colorado’s major interstates, the Montrose school district has played host to some drama in recent years, as a would-be local charter school has had its application to the board rejected twice. The reasons for the rejections involved low proposed teacher pay, disagreements over performance standards, and the school’s relationship with a highly non-transparent management organization named Minga Education, which I wrote about earlier this year.
Instead of receiving all of its money from Advance Colorado, Coloradans for Accountable Government has a more motley cast of contributors, including oil companies Civitas and Chevron. Its largest contributions, however, come from the Colorado League of Charter Schools. So far this year, the group has spent about $56,000, and has another $43,000 in the bank.
Of note, the group has made payments to Ringside Consulting and Timor Strategies, which are run by Republican consultants Tiffany Coolidge and Tyler Sandberg respectively. Sandberg is a co-founder of conservative education organization Ready Colorado (which receives primary funding from Advance Colorado), and Coolidge sits on the organization’s board.
Dark money comes in many shades, it turns out: from teachers’ unions spending money on teacher-related issues, to anonymous benefactors pushing special interests. From Students Deserve Better, who we know is funded by the Colorado Education Association, to Neighbors for a Better Colorado, which has spent $77,000 while claiming to have raised $0.00. It’s a spectrum running from light gray to pitch black.
Our democracy would be healthier if we excised big money from politics altogether. Until we do, though, the distinctions matter.
For those of a particularly different political persuasion than me, I understand that the participation of teachers’ unions in school board races feels nefarious, while the anonymous contributions of brave patriots funding groups like Neighbors for a Better Colorado receives little thought at all. To them, I ask one question: who benefits?
Even someone who opposes the very concept of unions can surely understand what benefit teachers’ unions see from participating in school board races. Teachers work in schools. Their contracts and livelihood and quality of life can all be impacted by the results of these races. Even if anti-union voters are unwilling to extrapolate from the fact that teachers have chosen to work in an underfunded, underappreciated system because they genuinely love their students and believe in the importance of the job, surely the teachers’ motives are not a mystery. Who benefits from teachers’ union spending? Teachers, ideally.
As to the other side of the equation, though: who benefits there? Who benefits from drumming up wedge issues like “critical race theory” or “diversity, equity, and inclusion?” Who benefits from the election of school board members who fundamentally disbelieve in public education? And who benefits from remaining anonymous through all of it?
We can make educated guesses – but, by design, we will never know, and that should give us pause.
So far this month, more than $2 million in dark money has been spent on races around the state. Some of it came from teachers with a well-established and understandable reason for being involved. The rest of it? That came from people whose names and motives we will never know, but who expect us to trust them anyway.
Now it’s up to voters to choose wisely between them.
