About CAD

The Colorado Association of the Deaf (CAD) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to protect the rights of the deaf individuals and their families to accessible services; to empower deaf individuals to exercise self-determination and independence; to advocate for equal opportunities in social, educational, and employment opportunities in the State of Colorado. 

CAD’s goal is to create a better world for the Deaf individuals and their families through community outreach, advocacy, education, legislative efforts, and collaboration.

Throughout the years, CAD continued to provide advocacy and developed partnerships to ensure deaf individuals gain equal access and services.

Mission Statement

The Colorado Association of the Deaf (CAD) is a membership organization and a partnership among individuals who are deaf, members of the deaf community, including parents of deaf children, and professionals working in various deaf-related fields and endeavors, organizations of, for, and by the deaf, and businesses at large.

Our mission is to promote the welfare of deaf Coloradans in all areas of life, to advance our educational, vocational, and economic status, and to enhance our intellectual, recreational, spiritual, and social standards.  We accomplish this mission by ensuring that only deaf individuals hold leadership positions within the CAD, that parents of deaf children become aware of, and involved in, all facets of deaf life, that professionals, deaf or not, working in our field are of the highest caliber and competency, that employers at large are made aware of the abilities and capabilities of deaf employees, and that a comprehensive, coordinated system of services, public and private, is accessible to parents of deaf children and to us.

History Highlights

1904: the Colorado Association of the Deaf founded by the alumni of the Colorado School for the Deaf (and the Blind) in Colorado Springs “to promote the advancement of [the] social, intellectual, and moral status of the Deaf. George W. Veditz was the first president while he was serving as the 7th president of the National Association of the Deaf (NAD).
1949:  CAD received its first 501c3 classification from the I.R.S
1970:   CAD instrumental in establishing the Colorado Advisory Council serving the Deaf (CACSD) comprised of 21 organizations of, for, and by the deaf in Colorado. CACSD established the Charles B Avery Memorial Scholarship Fund. (It later became the Center on Deafness in 1980)
1992: The CAD hosted the National Association of the Deaf conference in Denver.
1996: CAD implemented a core committee, the Magnet School of the Deaf, now called the Rocky Mountain Deaf School, which has spin off to a nonprofit charter school serving deaf children in ASL/English education. 

Highlights of CAD’s past legislative involvements:
Telephone Disabled Users Fund (1989)
Colorado Deaf Child’s Bill of Right (1996)
Colorado Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (2000)
Telephone Equipment Distribution Program (2002)
Recognition of ASL for College/HS credits (2003)
Legal Interpreting/Auxiliary Services Act (2006)