County Collaboration and Partnerships

Brown: County governments are often on the front lines of challenges facing their communities. Things like food insecurity or public health. But solving those challenges usually takes more than government alone. And that means bringing together local government, nonprofits, businesses, and residents to turn shared priorities into real results.

Hello and welcome to "Getting Connected." I'm Dara Brown. We're on location in New Orleans, the Crescent City at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center for the 2026 National Association of Counties Annual Conference. Here, officials discuss policy and strategies to help local governments better serve their communities.

In Arapahoe County, Colorado, local leaders are showing what's possible when people work together. Joining me is Carrie Warren-Gully, who serves as commissioner there. Commissioner Warren-Gully, thanks so much for joining us.

Warren-Gully: Thank you for having me.

Brown: Why are partnerships such an important part of how Arapahoe County serves its residents?

Warren-Gully: Arapahoe County is a very large county in Colorado. We serve around 655,000 residents. We're 70 miles from one end of the county to the other, and we have urban, suburban, and very small rural communities as well. So we have a large diversity of people and experiences. We also have 13 different cities and towns, nine different school districts, and hundreds of special districts, nonprofits, and faith-based organizations. So to solve those big problems that you're talking about, we actually have to recognize that the only way we're going to do that is by bringing all of these partners to the table. And although it can take a lot of time, it's very rewarding in the end.

Brown: In October of 2025, the federal government shutdown put about 60,000 residents of Arapahoe County at risk for losing their SNAP benefits. How did your county handle that?

Warren-Gully: This was one of my proudest moments of serving as a county commissioner, because we were able to move very quickly, I would say in about a 48-hour, 72-hour time period. We got on the phone, we started talking to our foundations and nonprofit organizations as well as partnerships that they might have to help us supplement what we found families potentially losing. And we came together and had many different individuals in the community, foundations, organizations that came together, and we chose who were our most impactful nonprofit and faith-based organizations that provide services to our community. We wrapped our services and -- and funding around those organizations, and they were then able to come in and supplement what was being lost for families. That caught the attention of one of our local media organizations, and they too, started a campaign for us and raised about $70,000 to contribute to that. So in total, the county gave money, foundations gave money, individuals gave money, and we were able to support families during that very tenuous time.

Brown: Housing is a priority for many communities, especially in Arapahoe County. How has your county been able to get partnerships to actually bring more affordable housing in?

Warren-Gully: We really decided that we needed to take a strategic look at housing and figure out, what were our gaps? Where were we missing housing? We saw that apartments were being built and single-family homes. And that was pretty much it. So we really needed to study what's that continuum of housing look like, and how do we serve residents all across that continuum, from seniors all the way down to young professionals that are just getting started? And so we worked with our partners, again, our cities, to figure out what were they planning for in their communities, and what did we have on our docket in Arapahoe County, unincorporated. And we found that there were some gap areas that were mostly in the affordable housing range. So we put together a study and shared that with our legislators, with our city partners, and with our developers. We found out that we were able to invest in about a thousand new affordable housing units, all in partnership with our cities, with the state, and with private funders and developers as well. So as a county, we found great success with that, and we decided to make some more intentional investments in that. So that overall, we found that those thousand units equaled about $20 million in partner money and then about $41 million in public investment.

Brown: Arapahoe is one of the places where you really are working with partners, and you're making it work. Are there any other areas where partnerships have really made a difference with Arapahoe County and the residents?

Warren-Gully: There are many different partnerships that we've found that are very helpful. We have a program called, um, our Healthy Families within the Human Services Department at Arapahoe County. So we do some fun, additional things like, Thanksgiving meal deliveries to our families that we serve. And we have a Christmas time gift exchange that families can come in and use. And we do that through partnership with some funders and donors that are willing to give us money in order to do that. And some of our faith-based organizations that open up their homes to us to serve those programs out of. We also have a lot of partnerships with our Food and Security network, and those partnerships provide stability for people in order to make sure that if what we're providing as a county isn't enough, they still have a little bit of extra help along the way.

Brown: What can counties across the country learn from what Arapahoe County is doing with its partnerships?

Warren-Gully: We have a really fun saying in Arapahoe County, and it's called, "Go Slow to Go Fast." And it recognizes that these partnerships cannot be successful without, first of all, fostering and nurturing those partnerships, not just coming to someone for a first time and saying, "Oh, can you help us?" Or, "Can you give us money?" But really fostering those relationships and building those relationships. Then it's bringing people to the table to solve a problem. So what needs to be solved? What's the issue? How can we do that? And those people bring their expertise and their knowledge to the table. And again, that takes a lot of time and effort to make that happen. But boy, once we make that strategic plan to move forward, we're ready to hit the ground running. And it works excellently.

Brown: Commissioner Carrie Warren-Gully of Arapahoe County, Colorado, thank you so much for being here.

Warren-Gully: Thank you.

Brown: Until next time, I'm Dara Brown.