The Colorado Resiliency Framework (CRF) is a 5-year, multi-agency plan that helps the State of Colorado 1) proactively respond to future changes, 2) coordinate actions across agencies, and 3) advance economic, social, and environmental resilience for all Coloradans. The CRF is updated every five years to ensure that the State is staying proactive, keeping the actions relevant, and maintaining a long-term view. The 2025 CRF update is now in progress with collaboration from several State agencies that form the Colorado Resiliency Working Group (CRWG), local governments, and community organizations across Colorado.
Engagement so far: Who is shaping the CRF Update?
CRO has organized numerous engagement opportunities throughout the CRF update process that have helped us ensure the strategies and actions in the update are responsive to community needs and will generate meaningful impact across the state.
This included:
- Three Resiliency Summits engaging over 200 people across the state
- Six Resiliency Roundtables engaging over 140 people
- Two in-depth surveys to:
- Better understand the needs and priorities of local governments for resilience planning (engaging 70 local governments). Review the Executive Summary or Full Report.
- Surface strategy ideas and resiliency stories (from over 160 individual Coloradans and Colorado-based organizations)
This engagement has helped refine the priorities for the 2025 update to the Colorado Resiliency Framework, identify impactful strategies for building resilience, and develop actions to implement these strategies over the next five years.
What have we been hearing?
Synthesizing all of this engagement has helped us identify key themes and opportunities we’ve incorporated into the CRF as part of the update.
Our engagement has affirmed the importance of the CRF resiliency priorities - five, broad areas where focused action is needed in order to move resilience forward. These priorities inform the direction of the CRF over the next five years:
- Mitigating Risk from Hazards: Reduce risk from all hazards by integrating science, equity, and local capacity into proactive mitigation, planning, and disaster recovery.
- Resilient Critical Infrastructure: Advance resilient, interconnected, and modernized infrastructure systems that strengthen essential services, safeguard communities from hazards, and embrace nature-based solutions for all communities and regions.
- Strategic Growth and Land Use: Develop tools, guidance, and resources that empower local governments to make coordinated land use and infrastructure decisions that encourage growth within existing centers and walkable and transit-accessible areas while reducing risk to development and preserving natural landscapes and agricultural lands.
- Resilient and Affordable Housing: Increase and preserve resilient and affordable housing by enhancing codes and standards, increasing production and diversity of housing types, supporting innovative ownership and rental models, and advancing funding and resources for retrofits and preservation.
- Economic Resilience: Build a future-ready, inclusive economy that diversifies industries, supports workers and small businesses in urban and rural communities, and adapts to climate, natural hazard, and technological changes.
Our engagement has identified a number of recurring key ideas that are being integrated into the CRF update. These ideas include:
- Regional, cross sector collaboration: Regional collaboration to facilitate thoughtful economic development, infrastructure decisions, and strategic growth is critical to help maximize resources and share benefits across multiple communities.
- Improve and streamline technical assistance: The State offers numerous resources to local governments to help them build resilience, but navigating all of the technical assistance offerings can be challenging. Expanding and improving the navigation of existing technical assistance can help local governments, organizations, and tribes to use existing data, tools, and best practices effectively while identifying any gaps.
- Develop resources for communication: It’s important to develop resources that clearly communicate the value of resilience projects (e.g., return on investment, co-benefits). These resources can help the public understand what resilience is and the ways these projects can benefit their community.
- Funding is desired: Many organizations and agencies need funding to accomplish resiliency projects and funding is scarce at all levels of government (federal, state, and local). Given this need and this challenge, it is important to find creative ways to extend the impact of existing funds and continue to advance resilience.
If you’re curious to learn more, you can review this primer on the draft strategies in the updated CRF.
What comes next?
The Colorado Resiliency Working Group is continuing to fine-tune the actions and strategies within the draft CRF update. They are focusing on identifying ways to make them more impactful and on prioritizing the ones that have the most potential. In addition to this, they are integrating the feedback and insights from public engagement.
The public will have another opportunity to provide feedback on the updated Framework in early 2026 when it is available for public comment. Join the CRF Update email list and follow the Department of Local Affairs on LinkedIn to stay up to date on when it is available for comment.
The Colorado Resiliency Office
Learn more about the Colorado Resiliency Office, including additional opportunities for technical assistance and resources.