Priscilla Montoya
Priscilla Montoya leads DAVA with a vision centered on equity, youth voice, and community-driven arts education. With a background in nonprofit leadership, philanthropy, and strategic partnerships, she is focused on expanding access to high-quality arts programming while strengthening workforce pathways in creative industries. Her leadership emphasizes collaboration with community stakeholders, higher education institutions, and industry partners to ensure young people gain transferable skills that prepare them for an increasingly competitive job market and set them up for a successful future.
Executive Director
Priscilla is a nonprofit leader with extensive experience in strategic planning, community engagement, fundraising, and communications. As Executive Director of DAVA, she oversees organizational strategy, partnerships, and fundraising efforts while advancing opportunities for youth to engage in high-quality arts education.
Before joining DAVA, Priscilla served as Vice President of Development and Communications at the Latino Community Foundation of Colorado, where she led major fundraising initiatives and strengthened partnerships with more than 150 community organizations. She helped launch a five-year, $20 million endowment campaign and played a key role in expanding community engagement and organizational sustainability.
Her background also includes leadership roles in strategy, evaluation, and communications, as well as experience in social work and community-based programming. As a bilingual and bicultural professional, Priscilla brings a deep commitment to equity, inclusion, and culturally responsive leadership. She is passionate about creating spaces where young people can express themselves, develop skills, and build confidence through the arts.
At DAVA, Priscilla focuses on strengthening partnerships, expanding program visibility, and supporting staff and teaching artists in delivering meaningful creative experiences. She is dedicated to ensuring that youth in Aurora have access to opportunities that foster creativity, leadership, and career exploration.
Priscilla studied at Texas State University for her undergraduate years and earned her Master of Social Work degree from the University of Denver.
Artist Statement
Being at DAVA is important to me because the neighborhood reminds me of where I grew up in San Marcos, Texas. It feels familiar in the best ways: small business owners holding the community together, families walking to the public library, neighbors buying bread from the Mexican bakery on the corner, and people getting their hair cut at the barber down the street. It is a neighborhood alive with culture, resilience, possibility, and imagination.
That sense of place matters to me. I know what it feels like to grow up in a community that is rich in culture, relationships, and creativity, even when it may not always be recognized for its full potential. At DAVA, I see young people, families, artists, educators, and community members who carry stories, talents, and dreams that deserve to be seen, supported, and celebrated.
DAVA is more than an arts organization. It is a space where young people can build confidence, discover their voice, develop creative and professional skills, and imagine futures that may not have been visible to them before. In a time when many families are navigating uncertainty, DAVA offers stability, mentorship, belonging, and opportunity.
For me, this work is deeply personal because I get to work alongside people who are dream builders, encouragers of imagination without borders, and innovators. We are designers and engineers of things that do not yet exist. We help young people take an idea, a story, a question, or a spark of creativity and turn it into something real.
My role at DAVA allows me to bring together my experience in fundraising, communications, social work, community engagement, and leadership in service of a place and a community I believe in deeply. I am committed to strengthening DAVA’s partnerships, visibility, and sustainability so that youth in Aurora continue to have access to opportunities that foster creativity, leadership, career exploration, and joy.
Being at DAVA is not just a professional role for me. It is a responsibility and a privilege. I am proud to help steward a space where young people are seen as artists, storytellers, problem-solvers, and leaders, and where a neighborhood full of culture and possibility can continue to shape what comes next.
Photography
My preferred art medium over time has been capturing moments with a camera. Mostly still moments but videos as well.
The photos below were taken by me over the past 20 years. I have always loved taking photos. My father was a photographer and perhaps this is what inspired me. I would stare at the details of the black and white square pictures and imagine the scenarios that took place in that moment.
I grew up loving both film and digital cameras and enjoyed seeing them evolve over time. I still do. I was an early adopter of digital photography but I respect and value the slow process of developing film. My favorite thing to photograph are the candid moments of people that I care about, beautiful things in nature that make me gasp, surprising shapes, shadows or colors that make me smile and reminders that beauty exists everywhere.
“I may not be a professionally trained artist like many of my colleagues, but I have always been brave enough to try new things. I believe creativity begins in the act of trying, in discovering what we enjoy, what we are good at, and how we see the world differently.
I love photography, collage, graphic arts, filmmaking, music and poetry. I love how art can tell stories, share important messages, and transport the heart and mind. I believe we are all artists in some way. We all have an eye for beauty, a creative spark, and an imagination that can surprise us when we give it time and space to grow.” - Priscilla Montoya