2018 was really the start, and I want to give kudos to the board for jumping in and having these difficult conversations around our identity.
 

One of the first exercises we did was to ask all board members to share where they thought we were today and where they thought we should be in the future alone a spectrum of roles that ranged from "transactional bank" to "community catalyst." Together we acknowledged that we were very much in the transactional bank role and while some members were interested in staying, the majority wanted to do more. So that really planted the seed for us to explore our possibilities. 

There was a lot of energy to re-imagine our role and there was also some fear of change, uncertainty around what something different would look like, and questions around capacity.
 

At the same time, the community in our region had been diversifying over the last 10 to 15 years and we were holding that alongside our primarily white leadership, so it was really a big identity process that we had to walk through together and with patience.

It was challenging to figure out the best way to do this because we didn’t have the resources to do a dedicated, long-term engagement but we integrated it throughout our strategy process and were intentional about connecting the dots to highlight what was going on in our community. COVID was a big moment in this. In our region, Black and Brown people have been most affected by COVID and it really highlighted the disparities. We also have been trying to get board members out to more events and recruit new board members with deep awareness of community issues.

And you know, the process is bumpy. We’ve had some particularly tense conversations around racial equity, which is necessary to engage in true, long-lasting change. It’s uncomfortable, it’s messy, and it’s really been about meeting each person where they are while holding a vision of how we can evolve.

Thank you, Lisa – I couldn’t have done this without your partnership, and thanks for bringing up the community piece too. I do want to get away from using the word ‘donor’ and towards ‘partners’ who are maybe not experiencing the day-to-day struggles of some people in our community but are still engaged and providing financial or other resources. I think of Representative Steve Bergquist on our board, as an example, who mobilized to drive the South King Food Fighters effort right when the pandemic started. There are many different types of people like him who fit that definition of working with neighbors and friends to help solve problems and create a sense of connection, belonging and joy.

As we continued to listen to stories from the community, and as we worked with Lisa on creating our strategic framework, the idea of amplifying community voices became key. We also knew that many small organizations we were funding through our CARE Together Fund – which has been our COVID response fund – were not on the radar of donors and larger funders. We wanted to use our positionality to get those stories out, both for the benefit of the organizations and for donors who wanted to learn what’s happening in our region.
 

We also experimented with a little bit of storytelling at our 2021 Celebrate Event when we hosted a conversation between a 90-year-old white woman who is a founder of RRCF and young man of color who is a rising star in the region. They talked about their values around community and their common vision for this region. That was really powerful and we thought, we need to do more of this, so we asked nonprofit leaders in our community, hey, is this something you’d be interested in? and sparked the idea that way.

We brought 12 nonprofit leaders together – a number of whom didn’t know each other – so even bringing voices together was part of the amplifying. This group met for 10 months and what emerged were the themes you see in the videos around dignity, belonging and transformation – as well as the idea itself to make it a video series.
 

I also give a lot of credit to our videographer Michael B. Maine who facilitated the project meetings and has such a way of slowing things down to get underneath layers; dropping in a question, letting it sit and having it bubble. I learned from him that part of amplifying voices is making room for the silence or the small ripples to breathe and see what emerges.

I worked with our creative team (Michael, another videographer named Gavin Sullivan and a team at Pyramid Communications) in between meetings with the community leaders. During the meetings with leaders, I would ask questions and probe at times, but Michael really was the lead. He helped facilitate and then we just saw what emerged. A lot of my role was witnessing, listening, capturing their stories, and then working with our creative team and videographers to put something together to bring back to the group. As a foundation we also fundraised for the project and compensated the leaders for their time – I want to thank Satterberg Foundation who funded our efforts.

I felt honored to be a witness to these SKC non-profit leaders’ stories and it comes back to the message that they share in the videos, which is, trust the community. We didn’t really know what shape this would take or how long it would take, we just needed to trust the flow of the project – and that’s always a big lesson for me because I try to control things. You know, my whiteness creeps out and I’m unlearning all the things that 30 years of fundraising did to me, so my lesson is to trust the community and something great will emerge. And make space for the silence so that things can emerge. It doesn’t have to happen on a specific timeline. Trust that.

Let’s get more resources down here for these groups. There are over 100 organizations listed on the website and we’re more than happy to partner with anyone interested in connecting with them.
 

I would also love to hear from people as they watch the videos. Was there something that made you feel uncomfortable or challenged? Inspired? And what does that mean for you as a funder or individual in your own journey? Let’s come together as practitioners and have a conversation about that.