Amber Minogue is a founder and principal with Allied Agenda who is dedicated to advancing social justice, education, and community development through allied engagement. She is a skilled researcher on public policy issues ranging from early childhood social-emotional and mental health, infrastructure development and systems building, to program implementation, partner collaboration, and collective impact.  She has a diverse background working in both public policy and nonprofit settings, with a focus on community development and coalition building. Her experience has given her a critical understanding of successful strategies within public policy and government that address the intersections of race, gender, social class and culture in order to effect change within the broader community context.

Building on a background working in community development and then running a start-up non-profit, her consulting practice seeks to help build capacity for organizations to achieve their missions and grow their organization. She achieves this goal by partnering with her clients to perform strategic project management, conducting research and evaluation, and providing targeted technical assistance that supports system development and expansion.  Her systems development and project management expertise has led to a series of accomplishments, including serving as the project manager to develop the Early Childhood Social Emotional and Mental Health Navigation Guide, a virtual community assessment tool designed to support collaborative decision making. She also directed the Kid Connects Training and Technical Assistance Initiative on early childhood mental health consultation (ECMHC) in Colorado, where she designed survey instruments and performed community assessments that provided a localized context for community infrastructure and system need in delivering ECMHC and other social-emotional initiatives in early childhood.  More recently she has provided consultation to the Colorado Association for Jewish Education, conducting an environmental scan of all social-emotional and mental health programming in its 11 early child care settings around Colorado. This effort is leading to a new initiative in which she will support the design and implementation of a systems evaluation assessing social-emotional and inclusive programming for all birth – 12th grade initiatives within Denver’s Jewish Community Center.

Her leadership on these and other projects in the early childhood arena have included serving on the State Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation Infrastructure Committee, the Denver Early Childhood Council Social Emotional Early Development Leadership Team, the mental health committee and the Executive Policy Team of the state NICU Consortium, and as a parent advocate on the Perinatal Maternal Health Learning Collaborative. She has also volunteered her expertise serving on the Early Childhood Committee for the New Legacy Charter School, a start-up school located in Aurora that serves pregnant and parenting teens and their young children.

Andrea began her career serving as a legal advocate for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault and  later spent five years in private practice representing clients in domestic relations and child custody cases throughout the Denver metro area.  Through this work she often witnessed first-hand the importance of family support programs and public policy that promotes healthy families and self-sufficiency, as many of her client strived to leave unhealthy relationships and build new lives for themselves and their children.

As part of her current portfolio of work she provides lobbying services to the League of Women Voters of Colorado (LWVCO), where she supports the LWVCO advocacy training workshop and annual legislative conference.  She also promotes coalition building by engaging stakeholders and coalition partners, performs direct lobbying activities, and provides guidance and support to LWVCO’s volunteer lobbyists to maximize impact and further LWVCO’s organizational mission.

In partnership with her Allied Agenda colleagues, Andrea provides capacity-building and coalition support to the Colorado Teen Parent Collaborative, has recently supported the management of the Colorado Strategic Action Planning Group on Aging and coordinated a good governance initiative through the Kettering Foundation and the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) aimed at increasing civility, engagement and deliberative dialogue in our policy development process.

Prior to founding Allied Agenda, Andrea spent nine years with NCSL managing a project focused on intergovernmental collaboration and cooperative policy development, staffed a 15-member legislative advisory board, and provided staff support to the National Caucus of Native American State Legislators.  She has authored over 20 policy publications, issue briefs, and newsletters during her time at NCSL and is the author of Fostering State-Tribal Collaboration: An Indian Law Primer, published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.   Andrea holds a JD and MA (International Relations/Public Policy) from the University of Denver and a BA (Political Science & Women’s Studies) from the University of New Mexico.

Julie joined as a principal in 2020 and has more than 20 years of experience in early childhood policy. She is an expert in navigating the structures of state legislatures and government, working with nonprofit organizations, conducting legislative and policy analysis, and providing technical assistance, as well as possessing skills in conducting project coordination and development, fundraising and grant management. She holds a Master of Public Administration degree with a focus on public policy from the University of Colorado at Denver, a Bachelor of Social Work degree from the University of Wyoming, and she completed a tour of duty as a US Peace Corps volunteer in Kyrgyzstan.

In a prior role, Ms. Poppe was a program manager and provided leadership and management of the Early Care and Education project at the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). She provided direction for NCSL’s national legislative Early Learning Fellows program for eight years. She led the efforts of NCSL’s 11-member prenatal-to-three legislative advisory group, which examined infant and toddler issues and policy options, created a framework and legislative guidebook intended to provide a national context and helped state legislators identify entry points for enacting infant and toddler policy in their state. She provided a range of informational services to state legislators and legislative staff through technical assistance, publications, legislative educational presentations and research on early care and education issues, including prenatal through kindergarten entry. Most recently, she authored a guide designed to help infant-toddler professionals understand how state legislatures work and how state legislators gather information and develop policies related to early childhood.