Though it’s a sad reality Colorado even needs a fund to help the victims and families of mass casualties, the Colorado Healing Fund’s existence meant they recently suffered just a little less.

The CHF board, comprised of a who’s who of trauma victim advocates and state leaders, activated the fund within hours of the Boulder supermarket shooting that left 10 dead March 22, according to Executive Director Jordan Finegan.

“There’s a moment of real sadness and grief that it’s happening again,” Finegan said. “We live in Colorado and it’s heartbreaking and awful. But we’re also thankful there’s a group of really smart people with the life experience to pull us together and be ready.”

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“Our hearts are heavy it’s even necessary to exist,” said Cynthia Coffman, board member and former Colorado Attorney General.

Since that deadly day in Boulder, the fund has collected about $3.7 million in individual donations, corporate donations, pledges and grants from foundations, Finegan said. 

The non-profit organization was formed in 2018, with the help of a $1 million grant from the Attorney General’s office. Its roots lie with a group of victim assistance advocates who had been involved with many mass casualty events like the Aurora theater shooting.

“We’d been concerned for some time that Colorado seemed to be the epicenter for these type of events,” Coffman said. “We thought ‘If that’s to be the case, we need to be better prepared to help the victims’.”

It didn’t take long for the need to materialize. Within months after the organization was formed, the May 2019 shooting at the STEM School in Highlands Ranch occurred, which left student Kendrick Castillo, 18, dead.

“Even if only one person was killed, there was a broad impact on those kids in the room,” Coffman said.

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Board members include: Frank DeAngelis, former Columbine High School principal; Donna Lynne, former Colorado lieutenant governor and COO; Dr. Tony Frank, Chancellor of the Colorado State University system; Steven Siegel from the Denver District Attorney’s Office and five others. CHS also has an Advisory Committee comprised of “experts in victim assistance as a result of mass tragedies.”

CHF doesn’t give money directly to victims or their families. Instead, it gives money to first-responding organizations like the Colorado Organization for Victim Assistance (COVA).

COVA’s Executive Director Nancy Lewis said they got a call from 20th Judicial District Attorney Michael Dougherty on March 22 to go to Boulder, and they did with “a checkbook and credit card in hand.”

“The healing fund has made it absolutely incredibly easy for COVA to respond, help the agencies on the scene and just immediately help with things without having to worry about collecting donations,” Lewis said.

“We initially infused COVA with $415,000,” Finegan said.

There are three phases of victim assistance: acute, immediately after the traumatic event; intermediate – which the victims of the Boulder shooting are in now – and the long term.

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“Columbine was 22 years ago this month, and some of those victims are still struggling,” said Finegan.

In the acute phase, the assistance goes to help victims immediately. For Columbine, many students fled without backpacks, purses, keys to their home. For the Boulder shooting, many victims’ cars were stuck in the parking lot for days while police investigated. In this intermediate phase, many victim family members got help with out-of-town family travels here, rental cars, hotels, etc.

“Many of the supermaket victims might only make $12 or $13 an hour and they might not know where the rent will come from,” Lewis said. “They may be behind on bills and sometimes so traumatized in the moment they can”t remember their own name. And then to have to deal with the pressure of money?”

CHF helps provide a single source for donations that will go directly to assist victims and their families. Many saw problems crop up after the Aurora theater shooting when several Go Fund Me accounts were created – one of them was even fraudulent and that money never made it to victims, Lewis said.

“There’s never enough money to fill the hole in one’s heart,” she said, adding sometimes just being there is more valuable to victims.

“We’re coming into this crisis situation where people are in the worst day of their life and beginning the healing process,” Lewis said. “We don’t do that by fixing anything or making anything different, but we can be with them emotionally and help them understand what they’re experiencing.”

Lewis said COVA, which has been around since 1982, never uses any donation money for administrative costs. Likewise, Finegan said CHF only uses 5% to administer the fund – low among the normal level for not-for-profit organizations.

“We’re not trying to get rid of Go Fund Me campaigns, just give people a safe space to donate,” Finegan said. “We’re working with the Go Fund Me team now … they’ve been great working on this, and they reached out to us and asked for guidance.”

Coffman said when they were forming the fund, they could find no other model like it in other states or nationally. Many have come since 2018 to ask about the CHF model.

“That other states can replicate this is my fondest wish,” Coffman said. “I hate that we have to have these, but it’s a benefit to the state and people who live there if there’s a fund ready when its needed.”