In 1976, Philanthropy Northwest opened its doors as a learning space primarily for private and corporate foundation leaders in Washington and Oregon. Regional philanthropists like Norton Clapp, Ed Carpenter, Gregory Paul Barlow and Don North comprised early volunteers who convened the network.

Six years later, Alaska, Idaho and Montana joined the footprint. Five years after that, public foundations secured their first seats at the table. By 2017, the organization welcomed its first CEO of color, Kiran Ahuja, and in 2022 Philanthropy Northwest appointed its first all-women-of-color board officer slate including Lilliane Ballesteros, CC Gardner Gleser, Nichole Maher, Brenda Solorzano and Aleesha Towns-Bain.

An increasingly diverse and inclusive network is only one part of our story. With more voices came wisdom, insight and lived experience that sharpened our understanding of where our sector and systems must evolve to center and resource the communities most affected by inequities and injustices.

Today, Philanthropy Northwest is home to funders who are committed to a future where everyone — regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, disability, religion and immigration status — can live dignified, self-determined, healthy, joyful lives.

Though we have a long road ahead, we also have 50 years of learning that we're building on — wisdom from leaders who got us this far and helped us understand what it takes to propel change in pursuit of equity and racial justice.

Here’s what we learned from them….

1. Discomfort is part of the work, and it’s often a sign that honest change is taking root.

Introducing perspectives and truths that challenge longstanding norms is not comfortable work. Nor is being challenged or sitting in the messiness and ambiguity that follows.

Across our history, we’ve seen that time and again change has been propelled by our willingness to sit in this discomfort together.

In the early 2000s, the Grantmakers of Color, a grassroots group comprising some of the only funders of color in the network at the time, began advocating for inclusive and equitable practices across our network.

“We started collectively looking at how nonprofits were serving communities of color and asking if their leadership reflected the communities they served. It was about inclusivity and voice. This caused some discomfort. Some people were offended,” Marie Kurose, who co-chaired the Grantmakers of Color group and was a senior program officer at Allen Family Philanthropies (formerly Paul G Allen Family Foundation) at the time, shared with us.

The idea caused so much discomfort that Marie remembers individuals bypassing her and going directly to her white colleagues about the matter. At that time, the Grantmakers of Color group, which included a number of Asian American and Pacific Islander women, were met with hostility. “I heard later we were referred to as the ‘the Asian Mafia’,” Marie shared.

In 2007, the Grantmakers of Color served as an advisory body for Philanthropy Northwest’s strategy development process, and though their voices were met with resistance, they catalyzed critical conversations and the beginning of an ongoing shift.

20 years later, through many stories of courageous leadership and sitting in discomfort like Marie’s, our network has evolved significantly to become more diverse and inclusive.

“I’m just amazed with the leadership I see now. It is so different from when I was in philanthropy,” Marie shared.

It was this foundational work and many other hard conversations that put our network in a position to begin taking action towards equitable and just outcomes. One example of this has been our network’s exploration of reparative action after 2020.

“Something I've appreciated in recent years is a deepened understanding of the painful legacies philanthropy has inherited, including the ways the sector has — both historically and to this day — benefited from the disenfranchisement of the very same communities it now seeks to support. While difficult, the complicity of philanthropy in these injustices must be fully understood and atoned for before we can meaningfully engage in shared visioning for the future that we want to see,” Ayyu Qassataq, former Philanthropy Northwest board member shared with us. 

 

2. Progress often starts with someone saying, "hey, wait a minute."

Though Marie chaired the Grantmakers of Color group, her inspiration was a young grantmaker from the Gates Foundation who spoke out about a problematic display at Philanthropy Northwest’s annual conference in 2004.

This young grantmaker’s voice allowed other people of color to say, “You know what? She’s right,” and empowered the group to self-organize into the Grantmakers of Color.

Another example comes from former Philanthropy Northwest Board Chair, Nichole June Maher. In 2016, Nichole, who was president & CEO of Inatai Foundation (formerly Group Health Foundation) at the time, joined the board of Philanthropy Northwest just as it was preparing to bring in a new executive director. “I very shakily raised my hand after a set of interviews with finalists and said, ‘Several of the candidates shared that racial equity and diversity is not their thing. We’re saying that racial equity and diversity is our thing, but can it be if the candidates we’re most attracted to have amazing skills but equity and diversity is not their specialty?’,” she recalled.

Nichole’s raised hand was an invitation for the board to slow down the process, and it opened up a critical discussion. Some board members deeply agreed with Nichole’s comment, while others believed that the candidates who weren’t as well versed in racial equity could learn.

The board proceeded to hire our first CEO of color, Kiran Ahuja, a former civil rights litigator and executive director of the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders under the Obama administration. Kiran came to Philanthropy Northwest with a deep commitment to improving the lives of communities of color.

3. There’s no single way to be a changemaker, and this work takes each and every one of us.

Just as critical as the hand raisers and vocal challengers are the many other kinds of changemakers — the behind-the-scenes connectors, quiet infrastructure builders, narrative shifters, translators, community builders, aunties and elders.  

Philanthropy Northwest board member Kendra Witt-Doyle reminded us that in practice, changemaking can look different across contexts too.