Nancy Olson, Project Safeguard’s current Grants and Finance Director and former Executive Director, will celebrate her retirement November 18, 2022. We are fortunate to have benefited from Nancy’s leadership, vision, and sense of humor since 2013.
Nancy has been a fixture in the Colorado nonprofit community for more than 25 years and spent nearly two decades working in domestic violence services at the local, state, and national level. This year, she was honored with a Purple Ribbon Award for Lifetime Achievement from DomesticShelters.org.
At Project Safeguard, Nancy grew a small organization into a force for civil legal services for survivors, expanding and strengthening our legal advocacy services and bringing to life our Attorney Services Program. This program started in 2015 with our Lawyers for Victims Program in which contract attorneys are paid a flat fee to represent victims in permanent Civil Protection Order hearings. In 2016, Project Safeguard received a special project VOCA grant to oversee an expansion of the Lawyers for Victims program model throughout the state. Thanks to Nancy’s vision and hard work, she leaves the organization with a much larger budget, leadership staff, and impact on the community than when she was first hired.
Nancy will be greatly missed, but her countless contributions to Project Safeguard and this field will remain. We are deeply grateful for all the ways that Nancy contributed to the organization’s success and for the time and thought she put into this transition, ensuring that, even in her absence, we are ready to take on whatever challenges lie ahead. Our Board President, Laura Johnson-Morris, said it best: “Nancy has been the backbone of [Project Safeguard’s] crucial work to empower survivors to seek justice and find safety for themselves, and we are so thankful for her service.”