At Philanthropy Northwest, we are grateful to have an engaged board of directors who represent our region and the diverse field of philanthropy. As we enter 2024, we are excited to welcome three new board members to our governing body as well as a new slate of board officers who will help guide our organization forward.
Learn more about our incredible, new board members and board officers below.
New Board Members
Aden Bliss, Chief Financial & Operating Officer, The Ford Family Foundation (OR)
Aden is the chief financial and operating officer at The Ford Family Foundation in Roseburg, Oregon. He found his way to the foundation because of the opportunity to serve communities in his home state — especially those that have been underserved and too often forgotten.
In his role as chief financial and operating officer, Aden makes sure that the foundation’s operations run smoothly, efficiently and are structured in a way to best support its mission and work. “Whether it’s through our technology, how we manage our resources, or making sure we have people aligned with our work, we can deepen the foundation’s impact,” he says.
Aden earned degrees from Stanford University and Wharton School of Business. He joined The Ford Family Foundation in 2015 after serving as chief financial officer for Blue Shield of California Foundation and for nonprofit organizations training school leaders and providing research and development in education.
Omni Romero, Director of CARE (Community Advocacy, Research, and Education), Pride Foundation (WA)
Omni (they/them) is the inaugural director of community advocacy, research and education (C.A.R.E.) at the Pride Foundation and resides in Richland, Washington. They are reimagining philanthropy and growing a living archive of gender-affirming storytelling to enable cultural change for BIPOC Trans+ people. Omni identifies as a nonbinary organizer, strategist and storyteller living with HIV committed to transformative justice and wellness for all BIPOC LGBTQI2S+ people and their communities. Their philanthropic experience is trust-based and rooted in mutual aid and includes service in a variety of grantmaking capacities from localized giving circles to federal grants to municipal and nonprofit participatory budgeting, among others. Omni was born to undocumented Mexican and Salvadoran farmworkers in rural Washington State where they spent their youth working in agricultural fields across the Northwest. English was not their first language, and they are the first in their family to attend a university. Omni graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with honors in cultural anthropology where they learned to value lived experience as much as, if not more than, academic credentials. Since 2012 they have led anti-racist and gender-affirming systems change across the US and Mexico. Since 2017, they have provided gender-inclusive Spanish interpretation/translation for clients globally. Before returning to the Pacific Northwest, they lived in North Carolina for over 8 years and organized for abolition across the South thanks to Durham Beyond Policing, Southerner’s on New Ground and other Black Queer Feminist formations. Omni has held various social justice leadership positions nationally and has trained thousands across the country on topics including evidence-based interventions in healthcare, gender-affirming HR, and transformative grantmaking and storytelling. Omni’s HIV Language Justice work has been featured in CNN’s Blind Angels Series. Omni loves to explore rivers and starscapes, experiment with metal and poetry, they love all things purple and their proudest moments are making people laugh.
Se-ah-dom Edmo, Executive Director, Seeding Justice (OR)
Se-ah-dom (Shoshone-Bannock, Nez Perce and Yakama) (she/her) is the executive director of Seeding Justice in Portland, Oregon. She brings deep experience in community organizing for racial and social justice work across the nation. Prior to joining Seeding Justice, Se-ah-dom served as the sovereignty program director at Western States Center where she was the coalition convener of Tribal History: Shared History (Senate Bill 13, 2017) in Oregon, which established and funded the teaching of Indian History and Sovereignty in K – 12 schools across the state. Se-ah-dom is also the co-editor of the “Tribal Equity Toolkit 3.0: Tribal Resolutions and Codes for Two Spirit and LGBT Justice in Indian Country” and “American Indian Identity: Citizenship, Membership & Blood.” A hallmark of her career has been fostering relationships and collaborations between tribes and organizations doing social, racial, environmental and economic justice work across the region. She is an American Leadership Forum Senior Fellow and a member of the steering committee of Oregon Recovers and the chair of the board of Oregon Consumer Justice. Se-ah-dom’s ancestors are from Celilo, a fishing village along the Columbia River and one of the oldest known settlements in the West. She lives in Gresham with her husband James and their children Siale, Imasees and Miyosiwin, as well as her parents, Ed and Carol Edmo. Se-ah-dom joined Seeding Justice in December 2018.
New Board Officers
Please join us in welcoming our new board officers.
| Board Chair Nichole June Maher, Inatai Foundation (WA) |
Vice Chair of Programs |
Vice Chair of Board Operations Lilliane Ballesteros, Latino Community Fund (WA) |
| Treasurer Diana Birket Rakow, Alaska Airlines (WA) |
Secretary Cat Martin, Paul G. Allen Family Foundation (WA) |
We also would like to acknowledge and thank our outgoing board officers as well as our outgoing board members. We are truly grateful for their commitment and continued support of our network.
Outgoing Board Officer
- Alex McKay, Community Leader
Outgoing Board Members
- Kaberi Banerjee Murthy, Conrad Prebys Foundation
- Toya Randall, Casey Family Programs
Philanthropy Northwest Board Members
Chaired by Nichole June Maher of Inatai Foundation, Philanthropy Northwest’s board consists of 19 leaders and represents our network of philanthropies of all types working in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming. You can find the full list of our board members below.
Lilliane Ballesteros, Latino Community Fund
Diana Birkett Rakow, Alaska Airlines
Aden Bliss, The Ford Family Foundation
Warren Brown, College Spark Washington
Shona Carter, Black Future Co-op Fund
Michelle DeWitt, Bethel Community Services Foundation
Se-ah-dom Edmo, Seeding Justice
Mike Halligan, Dennis & Phyllis Washington Foundation
Kris Hermanns, Seattle Foundation
Nichole June Maher, Inatai Foundation
Cat Martin, Paul G. Allen Family Foundation
Alex McKay, Community Leader
Ayyu Qassataq, First Alaskans Institute
Ernie Rasmussen, Bigfoot TeleCommunications of the Colville Tribes
Omni Romero, Pride Foundation
Brenda Solorzano, Headwaters Health Foundation
Brian Tanner, Potlatch Fund
Aleesha Towns-Bain, Bristol Bay Native Corporation Education Foundation
Huong Vu, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
