To Dream of Spring

I love quotes and excerpts. They are keepsakes that I call on for inspiration and encouragement. Lately, one quote, from a piece written by Marcus Harrison Green, has become a mainstay. These words have come to me often as I reflect on my nearly two years with Seattle Foundation and prepare for 2024:

 “Our world remains as it is only by our captivity to the status quo. It is an oppression enforced by our inability to dream of spring in the depths of our society’s winters. To know freedom, to know hope, is to allow ourselves the rendering of a world not yet born but laboring to be – conversation by conversation, march by march, epiphany by epiphany, day by day.” 

 Marcus’ piece resonates deeply with me and serves as a relatable reminder of my role leading a community foundation. Seattle Foundation was created more than 75 years ago by philanthropists who pooled their resources to invest in the Greater Seattle area. They helped to form Seattle’s civic and cultural infrastructure that exists today. We continue to be a philanthropic partner to many individuals and families who love this community and seek to give back, who are civically engaged in a variety of ways, and who hope to one day pass on this practice of giving to their children.

So far this year, we have worked with our philanthropists to grant over $150 million across the country. More than $93 million of our total giving has gone to organizations in Washington for a variety of needs, including housing and social services. Trust-based and equitable practices continue to inform our core grantmaking efforts, which are stewarded by the foundation’s impact team. So far this year, we have granted more than $11 million across the region, with over 90% of these resources going to BIPOC-led organizations building power and organizing within communities to advance climate justice, equitable development, and a more representative democracy.

We continue to partner with and invest in organizations advancing important policy and advocacy efforts, including the recent passage of Seattle’s nearly $1 billion housing levy. Our signature impact investment effort – the Evergreen Impact Housing Fund – has raised more than $50 million and leveraged more than $460 million since its inception in 2020 to address affordable housing needs across the region. And, we have emerging impact funds that will help to address homeownership for the region’s Black community, thanks to the hard work of partners stewarding the Black Home Initiative, and other entrepreneurship and neighborhood development efforts.

We continue the necessary work of implementing and fine tuning our grantmaking policy to prevent grants from going to organizations engaged in unlawful discriminatory and hateful activities. We’ve accomplished all that I’ve described while making significant progress on closing an operating deficit that has burdened the foundation since 2019, as well as launching a strategic planning process to sharpen our ability to achieve our vision of a joyful Seattle region of shared prosperity, belonging and justice.

Still, despite our best efforts, it is not enough. We have much more to do to address the very real and longstanding systemic inequities that allow some of our neighbors to get ahead while others barely get by. This includes the dire scale of homelessness and substance use many of us walk by every day. This includes the trauma and rage folks of color experience due to displacement from neighborhoods that once were home, but now are barely recognizable and no longer reflect the community they grew up with. This includes institutional racism that shows up in housing appraisals or pay inequities. It also includes the utter exhaustion nonprofits experience being asked to solve complex societal issues while also navigating philanthropy, a sector that in some spaces can still be mired in a savior complex and at times lacks humility, empathy, and trust.

My role puts me squarely at the intersection of these tensions. I sit with my own fear of rebuke and harm while I simultaneously gather the courage to champion racial equity and justice as central to all of Seattle Foundation’s work. And, as I stand in that courage, I’m also acutely aware that because I am Black and a woman, my character, integrity, and competence will constantly be questioned and challenged in ways that my white peers may not experience with the same magnitude.

Despite it all, I still dream of spring. I believe Seattle can be a joyful community for everyone because I have not lost my faith in the power of the collective. To address our most complex challenges and seize our greatest opportunities, it will require all of us – philanthropists, community organizations, civic leaders, and so many more coming together, learning together, and acting together because beyond our titles and lived experiences, we are all a part of this community. Our fates as members of this community are intertwined. We care deeply about this place and possess what is needed to achieve transformational impact.

So next year, I am looking forward to working much more deeply with our philanthropists and nonprofit partners to harness our collective resources and creativity to support our community’s greatest needs. We will remain steadfast with our commitment to equity and justice even in the face of a high-stakes national election and the ongoing pushback against efforts meant to create access for those who have been systematically marginalized for so long. I look forward to what Seattle Foundation will do to foster more spaces for our philanthropists, organizations, and partners to gather so that through every conversation and epiphany, we connect more deeply to each other’s humanity and the shared work of building a stronger community. I look forward to becoming more engaged in this city and tapping into the personal joy that will restore and sustain me.

So much is possible – because of each of you. Here’s to the journey we will take together in 2024.