Celebrating Four Years of the Colorado Neurodiversity Chamber of Commerce

10 minute read

Four years ago today, an idea officially became an organization. On August 29, 2022, the Colorado Neurodiversity Chamber of Commerce was officially incorporated.

It began with three co-founders, Dr. Amanda Kelly, Tiffany Feingold, and Danny Combs, who saw something missing in Colorado's business and workforce communities.

They knew there was incredible neurodivergent talent ready to contribute, people with valuable skills, perspectives, creativity, and potential, but too often, that talent wasn't being represented, recognized, or given the opportunity to get through the door.

One of their primary reasons for creating the Chamber was simple but important: they wanted neurodivergent people to have greater access to employment and to make sure neurodivergent talent had a voice and a place within the business community.

They wanted employers to recognize the talent they were overlooking. They wanted neurodivergent job seekers to have greater opportunities to connect with businesses that valued what they could bring to the workplace. And they wanted to help create pathways that could lead to meaningful employment.

But their vision didn't stop with Colorado. From the beginning, they imagined something much bigger: a future where one day there could be a Neurodiversity Chamber in every state.

There was just one challenge.

There wasn't a roadmap.

There wasn't another Neurodiversity Chamber to look to for guidance or a model to replicate. They were stepping into new territory and creating something from the ground up. So, they started building.

2022: Creating a Seat at the Table

The CNDCC began with a belief that continues to guide our work today: Neurodivergent talent belongs in our workforce, in our businesses, in leadership, and at the tables where decisions are being made.

At the time, much of the conversation around neurodiversity and employment centered on helping individuals become "job ready." Our founders recognized that there was another side to that equation. Employers needed to be ready, too. Businesses needed education and resources to recognize neurodivergent talent, rethink traditional hiring practices, and understand how their workplaces could unintentionally create barriers for highly capable people.

Neurodivergent job seekers needed connections to employers and opportunities to demonstrate what they could contribute.

And the business community needed an organization capable of bringing those worlds together.

That became an important part of the role CNDCC was created to fill: connecting neurodivergent talent with opportunity while helping employers recognize the value of a neurodiverse workforce.

That vision officially became the Colorado Neurodiversity Chamber of Commerce. And an entirely new kind of Chamber began its journey.

2023: Building the Foundation

The next step was turning a bold idea into something sustainable. CNDCC continued developing its membership, relationships, programs, and presence across Colorado while introducing more employers and community leaders to the role they could play in advancing neuroinclusion.

In 2023, another important piece of the Chamber's future began taking shape: the creation of what would become the CNDCC Legacy Fund through The Denver Foundation.

With early investment from organizations that believed in the mission, including a $20,000 commitment from Kiewit, the Chamber began building a philanthropic foundation alongside its business membership model.

It was an important evolution. Because creating lasting change would require more than conversations. It would require investment.

2024: Investing in Growth

As the Chamber continued to establish itself, more people across Colorado began hearing about CNDCC and the work we hoped to accomplish.

Large employers began engaging with us and participating in our trainings. Awareness was growing. Relationships were forming. And the foundation laid during the Chamber's first two years was beginning to create new possibilities.

Then, in September 2024, CNDCC reached an important organizational milestone.

For the first time, the Chamber was able to hire a part-time Executive Director, giving the organization a dedicated staff person focused on growing the Chamber, strengthening membership, expanding relationships, and turning more of its vision into action.

For a young organization, this represented an important transition.

The Chamber had been built through the vision, dedication, and volunteer leadership of its founders and board. Now, it had reached a point where investing in dedicated staff leadership could help accelerate the work.

It was the beginning of CNDCC's next stage of growth.

2025: A New Era of Growth

By 2025, CNDCC was ready for its next chapter.

In May 2025, Executive Director Leslie Espinoza transitioned into the role full time. At that moment, the Chamber had 106 members. With dedicated full-time leadership in place, the organization began building the infrastructure necessary to expand its reach, strengthen membership, develop new programming, and bring the Chamber into more communities across Colorado.

But growth wasn't going to happen by accident.

The Board of Directors and Executive Director came together to look beyond the immediate needs of the organization and establish a five-year plan for the future of CNDCC.

That meant asking bigger questions.

• What could this Chamber become?
• How could we reach more neurodivergent professionals?
• How could we create stronger connections to employment and economic opportunity?
• How could we better engage employers?
• How could we take what was being built in Denver and bring it into communities throughout Colorado?

And ultimately, how could we continue moving toward the enormous vision imagined from the beginning?

That planning helped create a roadmap for CNDCC's next phase.

Our regional chapter model began taking shape.

Our employer education expanded.

New events and opportunities for neurodivergent professionals were developed.

Our relationships with businesses, workforce organizations, community partners, and leaders across Colorado continued to grow.

And the Chamber began moving from an organization primarily serving one geographic community toward something much closer to what its founders had originally imagined: A movement capable of reaching people wherever they live and work.

2026: Taking Neuroinclusion Across Colorado

This year has been one of extraordinary growth. Today, the Colorado Neurodiversity Chamber has grown to 230 members, and we're still growing.

Our community now reaches across Colorado through regional chapters serving Denver Area, Boulder & Broomfield Counties, Northern Colorado, and Colorado Springs.

We have expanded opportunities for neurodivergent professionals and entrepreneurs to build relationships, develop professionally, find community, and navigate the workplace.

We've created spaces specifically designed around connection—including professional and career-focused programming, educational events, and opportunities that bring neurodivergent professionals directly into the broader business community.

And something else is beginning to happen. Employers are increasingly finding us.

Organizations are beginning to ask how they can do better. They are participating in our programs, engaging in conversations, and looking for practical ways to create workplaces where neurodivergent employees can succeed.

Through programs such as NeuroForward, we are helping organizations move beyond awareness and toward practical neuroinclusive workplace practices, from communication and leadership to employee retention, performance, accommodations, and belonging.

Building the Neurodiversity Ecosystem

Perhaps one of the most important ways our work has evolved over four years is our understanding that no single program, employer, nonprofit, workforce organization, or Chamber can create systemic change alone.

We have to build the ecosystem.

That means connecting the people looking for opportunities with the employers who can provide them.

It means connecting employers with education, resources, experts, and organizations that can help them become more neuroinclusive.

It means bringing workforce organizations, service providers, educators, government agencies, nonprofits, community advocates, entrepreneurs, and business leaders into the same conversation.

And it means supporting neurodivergent people throughout the journey, not only while they are searching for employment, but as professionals navigating the workplace, entrepreneurs building businesses, leaders advancing in their careers, and community members looking for a place where they belong.

CNDCC is working to become a connector within that ecosystem.

We don't have to provide every resource ourselves.

We can help make sure people know where those resources exist, help organizations find one another, identify gaps that still need to be filled, and create spaces where collaboration can happen.

Because neuroinclusion doesn't happen when one person or organization changes. It happens when an ecosystem changes together.

How the Vision Has Grown

Four years later, employment remains central to our mission, but our understanding of what meaningful workforce inclusion requires has continued to grow.

Because getting someone hired is only the beginning.

A job offer doesn't automatically create inclusion.

Today, our work extends across the employment journey, from helping neurodivergent job seekers access opportunities to supporting neurodivergent professionals already navigating the workplace and helping employers build environments where employees have the opportunity to succeed, grow, advance, and stay.

That evolution has shaped much of what CNDCC has become.

We work with employers because hiring neurodivergent talent matters.

We provide education and training because retaining that talent matters, too.

We create professional communities because belonging matters.

We connect neurodivergent entrepreneurs to the business community because entrepreneurship is also an important pathway to economic opportunity.

And we bring employers, professionals, workforce organizations, service providers, educators, government agencies, and community leaders together because lasting workforce change can't happen in isolation.

The original vision hasn't changed. It has expanded.

What began with a commitment to making sure neurodivergent talent was represented and had greater access to employment has grown into a broader movement to make sure neurodivergent people don't just get through the workplace door, they have the opportunity to thrive once they're inside.

More Than Membership

One of the greatest lessons of the past four years is that people are looking for more than a professional organization. They are looking for a place where they belong.

For some, CNDCC is where they find resources for navigating their career.

For others, it's where they find their next business connection.

For an employer, it may be where a manager learns a simple change that helps an employee succeed.

For an entrepreneur, it may be where someone finally sees the value of the way they think and work.

And for a young neurodivergent adult who has aged out of many of the systems that supported them growing up, it can be a reminder that support, community, and opportunity don't have to disappear at 18. There is still a place for them.

That is the community we are working to build.

It Has Taken a Community to Build This Chamber

None of this growth belongs to one person.

The Colorado Neurodiversity Chamber exists today because people have continued to believe that this work matters—and have been willing to give their time, talent, resources, voices, and support to help move it forward.

To our Board of Directors, thank you for your leadership, governance, ideas, and willingness to help guide an organization that is still writing its own roadmap.

To our committee chairs , committee members, and volunteers, thank you for giving your time and expertise to help turn ideas into action.

To our chapter leaders and ambassadors, thank you for carrying this mission into your own communities, welcoming new people into the Chamber, and helping us build relationships across Colorado.

To our members, thank you for believing in this organization, investing in this movement, showing up, participating, connecting with one another, and helping us demonstrate what a neuroinclusive business community can look like.

To our community advocates, partners, sponsors, employers, service providers, workforce professionals, and supporters, thank you for opening doors, sharing resources, investing in our work, and helping more people learn why neuroinclusion matters.

And to the neurodivergent professionals, entrepreneurs, job seekers, and community members who trust us enough to share your experiences, challenges, ideas, and hopes with us: You continue to shape where we go next.

This Chamber has grown because a community decided it was worth building.

Four Years Down. A Much Bigger Future Ahead.

It would be easy to look at everything that has happened since August 29, 2022, and focus on how much we've grown.

From 106 members in May 2025 to 230 members today.

Four regional chapters.

New programs.

New trainings.

New events.

New relationships.

A growing Legacy Fund.

A larger voice for neurodiversity within Colorado's business community.

But perhaps the most exciting part of our fourth anniversary isn't how far we've come. It's how much further we believe this can go.

There is still so much work ahead.

There are communities we haven't reached yet.

Employers we haven't met yet.

Professionals and entrepreneurs who haven't found us yet.

And ideas we haven't even imagined yet.

That's what makes turning four so exciting. We're not celebrating the completion of the vision. We're celebrating how much closer we've come to making it real.



Happy 4th birthday to the Colorado Neurodiversity Chamber of Commerce.