Perhaps The Center Can Hold: A Discussion With Kim Salvaggio from The Center on Colfax

Since its opening in August of 1977, born out of the efforts of the Gay Coalition of Denver (GCD), The Center on Colfax has stood as the primary community center in Denver for the LGBTQ+ community. Queer Denver residents may know of The Center as the organization that organizes Denver Pridefest every year, but there’s so much more to it than that. Programs such as their youth-focused Rainbow Alley or their West of 50 program for queer senior citizens provide community for the LGBTQ+ residents in the area.

But, for all the good that The Center has achieved in its 48 years of existence, it has faced its fair share of criticisms over the years. Anyone who has attended Denver Pride, particularly this year, has seen the protests that have been staged by community activists who remain unsatisfied with The Center’s relationship with the queer community. Their list of grievances range from the sensible, such as The Center’s tendency to accept money from organizations that support the genocide in Gaza, to the more preposterous, such as their claims that enjoying drag shows in the shade at Pride is an unnecessary indulgence.

Back in May, Kim Salvaggio took over as the new CEO of The Center, having spent over two decades in media and nonprofit sectors—Her most recent position was serving as Chief Community Equity and Access Officer at Rocky Mountain Public Media. Salvaggio has shown a willingness to engage with those who feel that The Center isn’t meeting their needs or is actively harming the community. In July, our writer, Jesse Proia facilitated a conversation between Salvaggio and dissatisfied community organizers, interviewing Z Williams, who helped organize the protest against this year’s Pridefest, and interviewing Salvaggio to get her responses.

Salvaggio has now been in her position at The Center for about five months, and she still seems intent on listening to everyone in the community, including those like Williams who have expressed grievances against the organization. “How are we designing what we do in a way that has got the person’s experience and feeling belonging centered? That is always my goal,” says Salvaggio about her mission in taking over as CEO of The Center. “In addition, how are we reaching out to folks who maybe didn’t feel that before? How are we engaging folks who have felt real harm from The Center? “

As Salvaggio sees it, a big part of her job is to listen to the community, and that includes taking criticism to heart and seeing how The Center can do things better. “The biggest strategic goals that we have (are) listening to our community and understanding where we’re doing well, where we can do better, what people want their experience with The Center to be,” she says. “And then how do we create something that matches that?”

One of the changes Salvaggio is working on is making sure that The Center can remain funded whilst addressing some of the concerns people have about where their funding comes from. “How do we repair that financially, understanding that there’s probably different financial models that will diversify our funding a bit and be more in line with where our community would like us to be?” 

Salvaggio says that she’s working on a five-year plan of growth to support the local queer population and its growing needs, but there are also a lot of immediate needs that The Center has to address as well. “It’s rare that a week has gone by that I haven’t come in to work at The Center and found someone on our doorstep that is just relocated from another state,” she says. “It’s pretty common that on a weekly basis, I meet someone that’s like, ‘I got off a bus, I looked for an LGBTQ Support Center, and now I’m here.’” Much of that comes from Colorado’s reputation as one of the safer places for queer and especially trans people, but that means that someone has to be there to catch people when they land here.

In addition to trying to listen to community grievances and supporting the most vulnerable, The Center does, of course, have to plan the biggest LGBTQ+ event of the year every year, Denver PrideFest, and 2026 holds a new challenge, as the festival’s normal home, Civic Center Park, is being dug up. 

“So it provides a really great opportunity for us to redesign what Denver Pride looks like,” explains Salvaggio. “And so that’s been a lot of work, intentionally doing the research to understand how this can work, to be beneficial as a fundraiser for Denver, but more than anything else, representative of what people want to do and experience with Pride.”

While there’s still a lot of changes that need to happen at The Center, Salvaggio asks for those who are still dissatisfied to let her and the rest of the organization know so they can work towards improving themselves. “We want people to see themselves here,” Salvaggio says. “And if, for some reason, they look and they’re like, ‘I don’t see the place that I fit yet,’ reach out and let us know what that could look like.”