The Room She Built: Rayna Kingston didn't set out to start a movement. She posted on Instagram and asked if anyone wanted to show up. 4,000 women said yes.

By Ali Taylor, Founder — ouyi Creative

The second I saw Rayna Kingston, the energy was matched.

That's the only way I can describe it — there was no warmup, no getting-to-know-you awkwardness, no professional distance to close. We were just immediately in it. Giggling. Swapping stories. Talking about life and love and what it actually means to serve your community. Her shirt said "I cried today" and we both laughed about how neither of us really cries — but how we probably should do it more.

We bonded over something I didn't expect to name out loud in an interview setting: the particular intimacy of being perceived with your own business. How personal it all is. How easy it is to get so close to the work that you forget to clap for yourself. The little girl in me saw the one in her — and I had the feeling that if we'd grown up in the same neighborhood, we would have been inseparable.

Rayna is sunshine. Not in a soft, passive way. In the way that sunshine is also warmth and energy and the thing that makes things grow. She radiates it. And sitting across from her, I was reminded… in the way you sometimes need to be reminded, that women are genuinely the sunshine in our world.

Her shirt was right, by the way. We should cry more. It would probably help.

In January 2025, Rayna Kingston posted on Instagram. No manifesto. No nonprofit behind her. No budget, no board, no blueprint. Just a question: did other women in Denver want to connect?

She thought maybe thirty would say yes.

Five hundred did.

What happened next — the events, the members, the organizations, the movement that has quietly become one of Denver's most active grassroots forces — started exactly the way the best things do. With one woman deciding to ask out loud what a lot of people were already thinking quietly.

Rayna Kingston is the founder of Denver Activist Women's Group. DAWG, for short. And she is very much the kind of person who names her organization DAWG and means it completely.

The Post That Started Everything

"I thought that maybe I would get a group of 30 committed women and start changing the world with them," she tells me. "Instead I got 500 committed women who wanted to change the world with me. Or at least our local worlds."

The DMs came fast. Too fast to pretend this was going to stay small.

"Once I realized how many DM responses I was getting, I knew that I had something worth investing in," she says. "The reaction made me realize how much more connected we all are, and how we feel things as a collective. We were all riled up and ready to go, and I could feel that."

Was she afraid?

"I don't remember fear," she says. "But I remember being nervous thinking — I've never done something like this and I hope I'm good at it."

She was good at it. In less than two years, DAWG has hosted 20-plus events, grown to over 4,000 members, and collaborated with more than 20 organizations across the Denver area. All of it volunteer-run. All of it built from a single Instagram post.

What DAWG Actually Is

The word "activist" carries weight. It carries assumptions — front lines, protest signs, the kind of visible, confrontational politics that can feel like it requires a specific kind of person to do it. Rayna knows this because she used to feel it herself.

"I love this question," she says, "because until I started this group, I was actually quite scared of the word activist. It felt like a harsh word — more so a word that has to be given to you rather than you claiming yourself."

What changed was understanding how many different shapes activism actually takes.

"I had initially thought activists meant on the front lines shouting and yelling and protesting. And yes, those people are activists. But there are also the behind-the-scenes admin team, the idea generators, the news digesters, the community organizer. They are all activists." She pauses. "Activism is using the skills you have to make a positive impact on the life of another person. Everyone has the capability to be an activist."

DAWG makes space for all of it. The woman who wants to knock on doors and the woman who wants to bring snacks. The person who has been organizing for years and the person who just saw something on the news and finally couldn't stay home anymore — though Rayna is honest that DAWG was built for the second type. "DAWG is mostly attracting people who have never been to a political meeting in their life," she says. "And DAWG is the easy entry point."

On the question of who DAWG is for: Rayna recently learned that using "womxn" to signal inclusivity is no longer the right approach — "it denotes that trans women have to be distinguished from cis women," she explains — so DAWG has moved to simply using "women." The welcome hasn't changed. Anyone who identifies as a woman belongs here.

And on what an everyday changemaker actually looks like? Rayna credits her mother.

"My mother once told me to try to give at least one person a compliment every day, because one compliment can go so far. Change doesn't have to be grand and impact hundreds of people at once. Sometimes it's about that one person — who you smiled at, helped with their groceries, exchanged a conversation with — that makes the difference."

Grassroots, For Real

There is a version of "grassroots" that sounds romantic in press releases and exhausting in practice. Rayna doesn't romanticize it.

"Grassroots to me means that you're always learning, you're always growing. You sit with your arms wide open and say, I'm here to learn — and then you let people tell you how you want to show up." She adds: "Grassroots means that sometimes you're going to get it wrong or have something go wrong. But that you trust in your mission enough to keep going."

Their first large-scale event — focused on women's rights, held in April 2025, with no funding and no formal plan — worked because of something that can't be budgeted for.

"Raw passion," she says, "and the power of women to get shit done."

Keeping 4,000 members engaged without burning out a team of volunteers requires a specific kind of leadership philosophy. Rayna's is simple: treat adults like adults.

"Unless you tell me you can't do it, I'm going to assume you can." She smiles. "Plus there really isn't quite like the feeling of seeing someone attend their first protest. Or seeing their eyes light up when they hear about a volunteer position that would be perfect for them. Or my personal favorite — when someone tells us they voted because we helped them understand what they were voting on."

As for what nobody warned her about? "Oh my god, everything. Finances, organizational structure, managing volunteers — all the above. I'm still looking for an accountant, tbh."

The Three Things DAWG Is Fighting For

Community health. Immigration and immigrants' rights. Women's rights.

These three focus areas didn't come from Rayna. They came from the 500 women who showed up in those first meetings and were asked what they actually cared about most. "I don't think it will always be those three topics," she says. "I think they will ebb and flow as DAWG grows."

In Denver right now, the most urgent issues in each area look like this, according to Rayna: safety from ICE for the immigration community; segregation and data centers on the community health front; the pay gap and reproductive access for women's rights.

On immigration specifically — the most charged of the three nationally right now — she is clear about what grassroots support actually requires. "It means making the barrier to entry as low as possible and remembering who you're welcoming into the space. It means telling the stories without having to require a name attached to it. And it means intentionally finding the spaces where people feel the most safe."

For the woman who has never been in a political room before, DAWG isn't asking her to become an expert. It's asking her to show up.

The Fall

This fall, DAWG is going outside.

"We are building to be out of the house," Rayna says. "Volunteering, knocking on doors, helping people register to vote, hosting ballot reviews, meeting with candidates. DAWG is gonna be outside."

It's a full movement season — and Rayna knows exactly what she wants women to walk away from it feeling.

"That no matter the results, there will always be a group of people that will continue fighting for better and for more."

For someone who has never come to a DAWG event and doesn't know where to start: the large-format monthly meetings are the right entry point. They happen on Tuesday or Wednesday evenings and rotate through the three focus areas — immigration, community health, women's rights. "They're created to have you leaving having made a friend and more knowledgeable about what is going on in your city," she says.

Education and community in the same room. That's the model.

The Community She Built

Eighty percent of the women at any given DAWG meeting are first-timers.

Think about that for a moment. A movement with 4,000 members where the majority of people walking through the door on any given night have never been to a DAWG event before. It means the pipeline keeps moving. It means the welcome has to be real every single time.

"The smartest, most thoughtful, educated, kind-hearted baddies are the DAWG women," Rayna says, with the particular warmth of someone who has been surprised, over and over, by who shows up. "We have such a wide array of skill sets at DAWG and they all work together to keep this org running."

What does it feel like to be in a room full of women who all came because they want to do something?

"Electric," she says. "And that women should have been in charge long ago."

What DAWG gives them that they couldn't find somewhere else is harder to name, but Rayna tries. "A judgment-free, fun, safe environment with likeminded women. A collection of resources spanning a wide range that you can pull from. The ability to plug in when and how you choose. No set expectations for how you show up — just a general ask that you will show up to the best of your abilities."

What She Leaves Us With

At the end of our conversation, I ask Rayna what she'd say to the woman who is listening to all of this and feeling the weight of everything happening — and wanting to be part of the response but not knowing where to start.

She doesn't hesitate.

"Trust yourself. There's probably a reason that you are feeling the way you do. No one else is going to come along and make what you want — so it's your responsibility to get up and make it a reality." She pauses. "I promise, you'll be the better for it. And you might just make someone else's life better, too."

That's the whole thing, isn't it. The Instagram post. The 500 women. The 4,000 members. The events and the door-knocking and the ballot reviews and the Tuesday evenings that turn strangers into people who voted because someone helped them understand what they were voting on.

It started because one woman trusted herself enough to ask a question out loud.

You already know what to do next.

Find DAWG at @denveractivistwomensgroup and get involved this fall — large-format meetings happen monthly on Tuesday or Wednesday evenings. Find your place in it.