About This Episode:
In this episode, Vanessa is joined by Alesha Washington, President & CEO of the Seattle Foundation. At the foundation, Alesha leads efforts to inspire transformative philanthropy with the objective of fostering a joyful region of shared prosperity, belonging, and justice. With her leadership, the foundation has set a refreshed strategic direction, elevated its positioning on key issues like affordable housing, transit, and childcare access, and strengthened its operations for greater community impact. In this wide-ranging conversation, they discuss what community foundation work can do when it fixes joy as an objective, the immense opportunity that foundations have in this moment of profound change for the social sector, and the value of taking learnings from one region and considering how they might play out in a new place.
About Alesha Washington:
As the President & CEO of Seattle Foundation, Alesha leads efforts to inspire transformative philanthropy to foster a joyful region of shared prosperity, belonging, and justice. During her tenure, the foundation has set a refreshed strategic direction, elevated its leadership on key issues like affordable housing, transit, and childcare access, and strengthened its operations for greater community impact.
Prior to joining Seattle Foundation, she served as the Program Director for Vibrant Neighborhoods and Inclusive Economy at the George Gund Foundation. She led democracy-building and civic engagement strategies statewide and regional grantmaking to bolster community revitalization and economic growth. Alesha has spent a significant portion of her career in government relations, having held senior policy and advocacy roles with Greater Cleveland Partnership, Cleveland Neighborhood Progress, and the Centers for Families and Children.
Alesha serves on the boards of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and the Center for Effective Philanthropy. She is a 2015 American Marshall Fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
Alesha received her undergraduate degree from Oberlin College and her Master’s of Nonprofit Management from Case Western Reserve University.
In her words…
“Even if we are not the generation to achieve it, joy is the north star of what is possible and what continues to drive us.”
“I need my philanthropic peers to pause for a second and ask themselves what would they do if they weren’t afraid? And then think about how to make that possible. We have a responsibility and a privilege to invest in organizations doing powerful work across our communities.”
“Our well-being is linked to one another. If affordable housing or inequality in general is a challenge in Seattle, that has an impact on wealthy people, whether they see it or not. Public safety has an impact on everyone, not just some. So when we start to recognize that, but then we also get beyond a deficit mindset and focus on what we actually want for Seattle and what kind of place we want it to be for the future, that gives us something to aspire to.”
“Democracy is the way our team thinks of everyone having a role that they can play in shaping the policies that influence our lives in the communities that we live in. It’s about fair representation across the board. And so we invest in many organizations that are grassroots or growing in terms of their ability to organize folks around policy issues, mobilize people, and build people power, that then actually affects policy change at the end of the day.”
“It comes down to a question of who gets to write the stories that shape our lives at the end of the day? For us, it is important that diverse communities have the power to shape the narratives that ultimately influence their lives. And that’s everything from investing in artists—artists are always the front line of visionaries that help us shape what is possible and what can be—and then research about certain communities or certain issues and how folks are impacted, and how that influences policies. Those communities deserve and have the right to the power to shape the narratives that ultimately influence what happens then in terms of who gets resources or support, or opportunities that are opened up. And so narrative change for us is about empowering communities to shape those stories and to shape those narratives.”
Transcript
Vanessa Wakeman: Welcome to the Social Change Diaries. I am your host, Vanessa Wakeman. We are in season seven, talking about righting and writing history. Today, I am excited to be joined by Alesha Washington, the President & CEO of the Seattle Foundation. In her role, she leads efforts to inspire transformative philanthropy to foster a joyful region of shared prosperity, belonging, and justice. During her tenure, the foundation has set a refreshed strategic direction, elevated its leadership on key issues like affordable housing, transit, and childcare access, and strengthened its operations for greater community impact. I want to hear all about that. Welcome, Alicia. Thank you.
Alesha Washington: Well, thank you so much, Vanessa. I’m glad to be here.
Vanessa Wakeman: When I was looking at the Seattle Foundation and familiarizing myself with all the work that you do, the one thing that stood out to me—actually, what really jumped out to me—was this idea of realizing a joyful community, a place where every individual and family has what they need to live full lives.
Joy is not a tenet or pillar of what I’ve seen in the vision and mission of a lot of organizations. So, I’d love to understand how you came to that idea, what it looks like in practice, and how you know when it’s happening.
Alesha Washington: Yeah, no, it’s a great question. I’d love to start by telling you a little bit about Seattle Foundation, and then I’ll come back to how joy became a part of the ethos when I joined. So, the foundation has been around since 1946 in this community. It was formed with $8,000 by a collection of people that came together and said that we want to improve the quality of life in Seattle and beyond.
And so, over the last 80 years, we’ve grown into an institution that manages more than $1 billion in assets. That billion dollars, however, is largely made up of funds that philanthropists have entrusted to us to distribute to causes across our community. A smaller portion of our grantmaking, about $8 million annually, is directly driven by our team. Our vision is centered on creating a joyful community rooted in shared prosperity, belonging, and justice. Through our strategic grantmaking and the way we work alongside our philanthropists, we move more than $200 million every year across the region, throughout the state, and to some extent nationally. All of this is aimed at supporting nonprofits doing important work and, through our impact lens, filling gaps and strengthening community-based organizations that are advancing joy, shared prosperity, and belonging.
So, how did joy become part of our thinking? It really began with my work in Cleveland. I’m not from Seattle and have only been here for four years; I moved here specifically for this role. Prior to that, I was in Cleveland, my hometown, where I was born and raised. During the two years before moving to Seattle, I worked in philanthropy for a private family foundation there. One of the questions I began exploring in the city I grew up in was: What does a joyful Black future look like for Cleveland?
What I found when I asked residents, colleagues, and others that question was that people were almost challenged by it. They struggled to imagine it. If you know anything about Cleveland or many Midwestern cities, they experienced a period of prosperity followed by decline, and now many of those communities are in the process of rebuilding resilience. This is especially true within Black communities that were once thriving with Black-owned businesses and interconnected networks that allowed communities to flourish. Much of that has been lost over time because of gentrification and displacement.
Yet, while the idea of a joyful future was challenging for some to envision, the question immediately brought people back to what they remembered about growing up in Cleveland and what had made their experiences as Black individuals so vibrant. They talked about having businesses in their communities and role models who demonstrated what economic success could look like. They reflected on being part of tight-knit communities where children were cared for collectively. It didn’t matter who saw you; if you were out of line, someone would report back to your parents, and if you were doing well, people celebrated that too.
It was that sense of community that began to speak to a broader understanding of joy. Within those reflections was also a recognition that, even if you look at the surface of what may be playing out in neighborhoods that have experienced decline, there remains a deep memory and understanding of what it means for people and communities to truly thrive together.
When you go deep into that community, you still have the cookouts, you still have the families that look out for everyone’s children, you still have the laughter, and you still have the things that connect us and bind us in community. So joy became an important part of the work because, for me, joy has a long history, particularly within the Black community, around resistance and strength. For me, it is a way that we can hold beauty and chaos together. Yes, our communities experience challenging times, but that doesn’t mean that the people who live within them don’t still have things that give them hope and strength. And joy plays a factor in that.
So when I got to Seattle and started to ask the question, what makes this community joyful? What makes this community vibrant? Whether I was talking to a wealthy person or to a resident down the street who had experienced displacement and gentrification in terms of the legacy of their family home in a Black neighborhood, they all pointed to the same things. They wanted a safe home. They wanted a place to raise their kids where they would have opportunity. They wanted a community where they felt like they belonged and knew their neighbors. No matter who I talked to, they wanted those things.
And so, in this environment, where things have become so polarized and where we can easily become fragmented into our own camps and not see across to other people’s experiences, joy became an anchoring factor. Building on my work from Cleveland and bringing it to Seattle, I began to see that these are the things that still bind us together despite the challenges and differences we feel around us.
When we talk about joy, everybody’s face lights up because that’s something they want for their community. So that’s really been the journey of joy for me and my work, because it always pushes me, and it pushes the institutions I work with, to look beyond what feels like the hard part and instead look toward what is still possible for us, even in this moment.
Vanessa Wakeman: So I love that, and it really does speak to the idea of shared values and shared desires. Even when people are on opposing sides of political issues and how those issues are framed, I think that when you’re sitting in someone’s home or around their kitchen table, they all want the same things for their children and their families.
I wonder if, as a community foundation, you’re able to connect with organizations in a different way. When I think about a private foundation versus a community foundation, I’ve always thought of community foundations as having a different relationship with the people and residents they serve, perhaps a closer one. There seems to be a different understanding of the world because you’re embedded in it in a different way, simply based on how the money comes to you, the flow of resources, and the broader ecosystem.
I wonder how much of a role that plays in your ability to build joy into the vision for your organization and into the way you engage with and support the residents of the communities you serve.
Alesha Washington: Yeah, I mean, it plays a big role. The difference I can see in leveraging joy as part of our ethos in Seattle versus Cleveland is that, in Cleveland, it really helped shape a vision for how we would drive investment across the democracy-building and community and economic development portfolios that I worked on. It also shaped the kind of dreaming work I could do with the organizations we invested in and how they might approach their work through that lens.
In Seattle, and within a community foundation, we work with so many more stakeholders than a private foundation normally would, right? Usually, the relationship a private foundation has is with its board and then with the organizations it supports.
With a community foundation, especially one structured like Seattle Foundation, where we don’t have an endowment, the majority of what we do is donor-advised work. Then we have a much smaller set of discretionary resources, like I mentioned earlier.
Those are the resources that we move in terms of strategic or direct grantmaking within Seattle. So, the community of people we work with includes donors, community-based organizations, local government, state government, and other civic actors. We get to sit in the tension of all of those relationships, so to speak, while also serving as a convener across them. That makes joy a really important anchoring point.
It keeps bringing us back to the question of what binds us together and what we want for this community, despite our differences, no matter where you’re coming from or what your walk of life may be. It also reinforces an understanding that community is more than just place. It is the recognition that our well-being is linked to one another.
If affordable housing, or inequality more broadly, is a challenge in Seattle, that has an impact on wealthy people whether they see it or not. Public safety affects everyone, not just some people. And so, when we begin to recognize that, and move beyond a deficit mindset to focus instead on what we actually want for Seattle and what kind of place we want it to be in the future, that gives us something to aspire to.
Vanessa Wakeman: This season, Righting and Writing History, we’re talking about the correction of what’s happened in the past and authorship: What are we writing?
When thinking about the idea of joy and the framing of democracy, which is what I will be wanting to touch on in this conversation, where do you think joy lives within our collective work towards protecting, preserving, and strengthening democracy?
Alesha Washington: So, the Foundation’s approach around democracy comes from one of the pillars of our strategic grantmaking, which is the grantmaking that my team leads. Democracy is really how we think about the ways everyone has a role they play in shaping the policies that influence our lives and the communities where we live.
It’s about fair representation across the board. We invest in organizations that are often grassroots or are growing in their ability to organize people around policy issues, mobilize communities, build people power, and ultimately affect policy change.
We’ve seen amazing organizations start with us through small grants, even $5,000 grants, to support initial organizing efforts with residents and community members. Over time, those organizations have grown to the point where they are able to actually influence policy change across the state of Washington. This has included everything from ensuring doulas receive Medicaid reimbursement as a payment source, which is huge in ensuring that women and mothers have access to the care and support they need as they bring new life into the world, to advancing climate justice policies that ensure our waterways remain clean and that we continue to be mindful of the quality of the air we breathe.
We’ve seen small, grassroots organizations that began with neighbors coming together build the capacity to create that kind of powerful change within the state and even within the city of Seattle. And so, we invest in that way.
I think the way joy shows up in that work is through the continued push to imagine what is possible for a fair and equitable democracy. There are amazing organizations that I look to, like PolicyLink, that continue to challenge us to think about the founding of our country and recognize that the foundation of our democracy was not necessarily built to include all of us as part of the democratic process. But as we move forward, what do we have the right to demand from democracy so that it can serve us well?
For me, joy in that context comes from recognizing that, yes, it is a constant challenge to fight against the many, many battles we experience when voting rights are continuously under attack across states and at the federal level. It comes when organizations are being attacked or persecuted for their right to organize communities and stand up for our right to protest. Those are all challenges to the work.
But the joy comes when we can still see beyond those challenges and keep pushing because we know the kind of future we desire: one rooted in fair representation. And even if we are not the generation that achieves that vision, that north star of what is possible is what continues to drive us.
Vanessa Wakeman: Yes, yes, yes. Now I want to throw in a communications question because that’s what we do.
So I know that the foundation identifies narrative change as essential to protecting a just democracy, and I agree. I know you just mentioned that, you know, there are organizations that are affecting policy. Would you share with me how you came to the understanding that we need to include or be thinking about narrative to protect a just democracy, or how narrative is inherent to the work?
Alesha Washington: Yes. I think it comes down to a question of who gets to write the stories that shape our lives at the end of the day, right? And for us, it is important that diverse communities have the power to shape the narratives that ultimately influence their lives. And that’s everything from investing in artists, right? Artists are always kind of the front line of visionaries that help us shape what is possible and what can be.
And then I think when it comes down to research about certain communities or certain issues and how folks are impacted and how that influences policies, those communities deserve and have the right to the power to shape the narratives that ultimately influence what happens then in terms of resources or supports or opportunities that are opened up. And so narrative change for us is about empowering communities to shape those stories and to shape those narratives.
And to not always have it coming from another view that has no deep understanding, knowledge, or even lived experience within those communities. Allowing accurate data and accurate information to then inform the systemic changes that we seek to pursue in the quest of greater opportunity and greater vibrancy for communities and for place.
Vanessa Wakeman: To the nonprofits who are listening and have been nervous and hesitant about being in active communications, like continuing their narrative or reacting to counter-narratives, being silent or being told to be silent. You know, the general recommendation is to just be quiet. What would you say to them? What are the words of encouragement, or ways to think about the risk versus the potential reward as we think about the importance of narrative without negating some of the real vulnerabilities that are inherent?
Alesha Washington: Yeah. You know, my call to action is probably less for the nonprofits on the front lines that are trying to do this work and more so for the foundations and funders that support them. Because, for me, that’s where the real conversation is. No matter what kind of philanthropic institution we lead, we hold a certain level of power and privilege that community-based organizations do not.
And that is an opportunity for us to step up and support risk mitigation, provide protection, and be a support and an ally so that organizations that are actually doing the work to drive the kind of narrative change or democratic progress that we’re pushing for at the end of the day have the support and cover they need to do that work well.
So, for me, the question is really, at this point, given where we are today: What still has philanthropic institutions afraid to move? What still has them telling organizations to remove certain language from their websites or proposals? I need my philanthropic peers to pause for a second and ask themselves: What would they do if they weren’t afraid? And then think about how to make that possible.
Because we have a responsibility and a privilege to invest in organizations doing powerful work across our communities. And we’re falling short of our role if we can’t step up in a moment like this and do it.
Vanessa Wakeman: I can tell you now that I’m going to ask our producer to isolate that quote and play it 500 times. It’s going to be on repeat. You know, when you’re on the radio, and a very popular artist drops a new song, and everyone starts requesting it, they’re going to be like, “Can you play that Alesha Washington again?”
That really encompasses, I feel like, my elevator pitch for what I’ve been in conversation with organizations about at the philanthropy level as well. There is an opportunity here. So, thank you for sharing that from your seat. I really appreciate it.
And I think you’re right that philanthropy does have an incredible opportunity here to support organizations. When we talk about this idea of correcting and authoring, it’s all here. We are in a terrible situation, but there are opportunities to create something even better. When things are burned down to the ground, there is also an opportunity to create what you want.
And so, I think that’s where we are. So, thank you for that one.
One of the initiatives that you all have, the Civics Commons initiative, talks about building infrastructure and collective muscle. How did that come about? I would love to understand, through your strategic thinking and planning lens, and framing this question through the lens of democracy and how we plan for the future: Is it the Foundation saying, “Hey, we have some foresight, we see emerging patterns, and these are the things that we know we need to be thinking about”? Is it donors saying, “I want to give resources toward this particular focus area”? Or is it your grantee partners saying, “We think this is coming, or we’re concerned about this”?
Talk to me about how something like Civics Commons comes to be. Share what Civics Commons is, but also how you envision it improving and strengthening your community.
Alesha Washington: Yeah, it’s a great question. So, I’m going to give a ton of flowers to the creator of Civic Commons. Civic Commons is a fiscally sponsored project of Seattle Foundation, so we’re their back-office support, but they really drive their own strategic direction and work, as any typical sponsored project would. We just ensure that they have the infrastructure and support they need to do that work.
The founder of Civic Commons is Michael Brown, and he actually was the first person of color, the first Black man, to lead community grantmaking at Seattle Foundation almost 30 years ago. So, Civic Commons really came out of his evolution from serving in leadership at the Foundation and leading community grantmaking to then having this idea around how we actually start to look at the civic health of the Seattle region and work with people across sectors to say:
Going back to that earlier idea where we talked about joy as an anchoring point, how do we get behind a core set of values and areas of focus to help our community become stronger over time?
Civic Commons was born out of that idea. It really has three areas of focus: network weaving, which is about how we bring different actors across sectors together; belonging, creating a sense that I don’t just live in a place, but I feel deeply rooted and connected here; and tracking civic health, which asks: What are we doing from a data standpoint as a community to understand how we’re doing? That could include things like voter engagement or economic growth, depending on the factors we want to examine.
The thing I love about Michael, and he would be a great person for you to talk to at some point, is that he’s a straight shooter. He gets to the point. But he will always say that, at the end of the day, he doesn’t actually care about the issue being worked on. He cares about the way people come together and work together over the long haul to create real movement on issues.
A major initiative they have been involved in, which gets to the other part of your question and falls under the umbrella of network weaving, is the Black Home Initiative. Several years ago, with partners, they launched this work to really look at the state of Black homeownership across the Seattle region and Washington State. They recognized that homeownership rates were significantly lower compared to white homeowners, and that loan rejection rates and other barriers reflected broader inequities. When you looked across the system, you could see the inequality playing out in the pathways for Black people to achieve and sustain homeownership in the state.
Working with CDFIs, affordable housing organizations, the city, the county, the state, and financial institutions, they have spent the last several years creating bridge loan products, education programs, and other resources to help people access homeownership in a safe way and sustain it over time. They have also worked toward policy change within the state of Washington to create a reparations-like effort through policy, ensuring that Black homeowners have access to the services and opportunities needed to move along that pathway.
The Black Home Initiative has been a monumental effort under Civic Commons, all through the lens of network weaving. It takes actors across sectors coming together, being patient, and seeing the long game. There will be other issues that they work on, but the framework remains the same: How do we think about cross-sector collaboration, focus on a goal we can all hold, measure our progress over time, and navigate the difficult moments when we are fighting or disagreeing? How do we come back to our anchoring point and keep moving forward?
It has been a pleasure watching Michael and his team do this work. It really speaks to the idea that individuals play a role because donors invest in efforts like the Black Home Initiative, other foundations invest in the work, and we have also invested in the work. You have elected officials because of the policy implications, and you have nonprofits engaging directly with potential Black homeowners to understand their challenges. That insight informs the programming, initiatives, and bridges that are built to support them.
You have all different parts and players of the community feeding into what something like the Black Home Initiative becomes.
Vanessa Wakeman: I feel like what you just described is the essence of the ideal of democracy, right? High levels of civic engagement, people feeling a sense of belonging, agency, and empowerment. That’s what we all want.
So, how do we take programs like this or thinking like this and, you know, pop it, drop it into communities everywhere? Because that is the way that, as you mentioned, we get people who may not have the exact same ideas about external factors, but who very much share an identity around the internal, or the common space. Using that as a way to bring people together, I think, is really powerful.
So, I think that’s wonderful. Tell me about the regional history of the Foundation. How have you gone about thinking about the past? Starting with the $8,000 and the smaller investments to where you are now, it seems like a very massive, exciting, and joyful vision for the future. What has that trajectory been like for you?
When you started, was it: “Okay, this is where the organization is. I’m excited to be here because I see these opportunities, or I can build upon what was already there”? What did you see then, and what do you see now?
Alesha Washington: Yeah, it’s a great question. I mean, I’ve been reflecting a lot on the founding purpose of the Foundation because this is our 80th year. It has made me reflect and go back to the beginning to understand the why, right? Why this place was even created in the first place.
What struck me, and I don’t know if this was on the founder’s mind, Dr. Richard Fuller, or not, but the Foundation was formed in 1946. When I think about what was happening in the world and in Seattle in 1946, we’re coming out of World War II. There was economic disparity across the board, especially in a place like Seattle where many key parts of the economy were in decline because of the war and the shifting nature of where work would be.
People were facing unemployment at high rates. You had Japanese internment happening, so families were being displaced within that community. You had redlining at a high degree, so Black and Native families were impacted in terms of access to homeownership and job opportunities. Discrimination was high. It was a very potent force in terms of what was playing out.
I have no idea if that influenced the formation of Seattle Foundation or its focus around improving quality of life, but it sits on my mind as I fast forward to today and see similar challenges around gentrification, displacement, and growing inequality.
That’s what I stepped into when I joined the Foundation and moved to Seattle in 2022. I was coming from a city in the Midwest that had reached a point of rebuilding itself after experiencing hard times. Then I stepped into a city on the coast that, at face value, has incredible economic growth and vitality. But when you dig deeper, you see the significant divide between those who have access to opportunity and those who do not.
And the fact that the gap is widening means that, at some point along that trajectory, the bottom falls out. No community can sustain the level of inequality that we are seeing build in a place like Seattle. And I would argue other big coastal cities where you have such a stark divide as well. And so that’s what I stepped into. I also stepped into it at a point when the Foundation had been on its own journey of reckoning with its role around racial equity and justice.
When the Foundation really started to build beyond its early years, a lot of its discretionary grantmaking focused on capital grants to help get the civic and artistic ecosystem of the city up and running. So, supporting institutions like the ballet and the art museum, and helping build those anchor institutions within the cultural landscape.
Then, in the 1990s, the Foundation was called out by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy for its lack of attention to diverse communities and community-based organizations. And so it had to begin evolving and really start thinking about: What is our responsibility to be proactive and invested in communities of color and other communities with significant needs, beyond just supporting these large institutions?
That led to new frameworks for thinking about what makes a healthy community. Then you have 2020 and all of the events we experienced, from the pandemic to the murder of George Floyd, that forced that question even further. The Foundation had to wrestle with how to navigate relationships with donors who were giving to a variety of causes and how that aligned, or did not align, with the needs of communities that were not receiving the resources and support they needed.
So, when I stepped into this role in 2022, my job was really to think about and actualize how we make this commitment that is now part of our ethos around equity and justice real. Not just words that we’re saying or things that we have on our website, but something that shows up in our work and in the way we operate.
And what’s in front of us going forward is that, no matter how many grants we put out the door, as long as inequality is growing at the rate that it is within this region, nothing will truly change. So, how do we start to look at the velocity of our grantmaking and the power we have in working with donors, organizations, and other actors to say: A part of a joyful community is the anchor of our vision around shared prosperity. How do we get there in the future? And what is our role in supporting that?
So, that’s been our journey. That’s how I stepped into it, and that’s where I see us going. The vision is the vision for a reason. It should guide us, and we should have the audacity to believe that we can make it true. This next focus around shared prosperity is about asking: How do we get closer to making that vision a reality?
Vanessa Wakeman: So, in the prosperity question, as a region or an area that has experienced significant growth, how do you temper that, right? It’s like, okay, I have wrapped my hands around the community that’s here. Please, give me six months where we have no additional people moving here. How are you able to maintain the pace of change and provide support alongside that growth?
And what do you see, as a community foundation, as the biggest leverage that you have to be able to right-size and ensure timely responsiveness?
Alesha Washington: Yeah. You know, the pace of change is significant. And it’s not one that we hold ourselves. It’s a question for this entire community, from elected leadership across the board to the private sector, the nonprofit sector, and the philanthropic sector. It is a question for all of us to hold.
Because, to your point, people are still moving here, right? As long as we have tech as a major industry and all the things that are playing out, Seattle is still a growing market for highly educated professionals who are coming here for opportunity. While there is some shifting in where some of the big companies are locating parts of their work, Seattle continues to be a place of opportunity.
At the same time, we are mindful that it is still a place where there are people who do not have a high level of economic opportunity. And unfortunately, most times, they look like me or you, right? As women of color and people of color who cannot afford to remain in the city. So, you see this outmigration tied to economic realities. That is not going to let up anytime soon.
The rate of change is a real thing, and it requires all of us thinking and working together around what that looks like. For us and our work, the levers we look at really come down to the ways we can work with philanthropists who care about this place and try to influence the way they direct their giving to address core issues within our community.
It is also about the way we can work with the public sector. As a grantmaking institution, that is our superpower, right? We know how to bring money in, and we know how to move money out. Leveraging that very simple core function is something we have to maximize when working with government and other actors who want to pool resources to invest in affordable housing, expand childcare access in our region, or increase homeownership opportunities for communities that have historically had limited access.
The way we can play a role and create leverage is that we already do the thing that some organizations may not be set up to do well: we can move resources where they need to go.
Then, through our strategic grantmaking, we have an opportunity beyond the convening role I mentioned to also think about how we advise at a high level and help educate people so they understand the issues playing out across our community, the organizations leading the work, and how they can get involved in meaningful ways.
That convening, advising, advocacy role, and our ability to leverage and move resources are what we rely on every day to anchor us to that question of velocity: Where are all these dollars going, and can we move them in a way that is creating meaningful impact rather than just being scattered across our community?
Vanessa Wakeman: Got it. I want to touch on democracy again. I think that all of the social issues that are served by the Foundation sort of fall under the umbrella of democratic ideals, right? Whether it’s fair housing, equitable opportunities, or other issues that impact the community.
In this current moment, how are you prioritizing where you’re putting effort, resources, and infrastructure? Is it a matter of saying, “These are all very important issues, and they all impact the livelihood and health of a community”? How do you think about those priorities? How do you determine where to put attention, dollars, and resources?
Alesha Washington: You know, if I were channeling my impact officer, she would say that we don’t lean too heavily into specific issues. We think more about: What is the pathway for organizations to be in a place of strength to drive change through whatever issue they are working on at the end of the day?
We do have some notable issues where we have leaned in, like housing, childcare, and transit, given that those are not just priorities from our own work, but we know these are top issues across our region that many different people are working on. We try to invest dollars and educate our donors in a way that helps them understand how they can get involved in the issues that have emerged as top community priorities.
But when it comes to thinking about the focus and direction of our grantmaking, to your question, what really becomes important in the framework that we look at is: How are we strengthening our role as an incubator and a catalyst?
I talked earlier about how we can start with a small grant with an organization and then help them grow and scale over time to where they become powerhouses in their work around organizing, building power, and moving people toward real policy change.
Most times, we are investing in organizations that are leading advocacy work that other foundations are not quite ready to invest in. But when we make that initial investment and work with them over time, it creates opportunities for them to start connecting with more mainstream philanthropic resources that they may not have had access to initially. Then they can begin to scale and build more of their capacity to the point where they become key players and advisors to public officials on policy.
So, that idea of it being less about the specific issue and more about our role as an incubator and catalyst: How do we help a small organization start, get off the ground, and build momentum around something that is important to the community, organizing people, and building power? That is the space we always want to be in, regardless of what issue they are working on at the end of the day.
Vanessa Wakeman: That sounds like a very healthy model. I have two more questions for you, and the first one is around this idea of history.
So, decades from now, historians will examine what foundations did and what all of us did. I’m very concerned about how I’m going to show up in the history books. I’m doing everything, everything I can. I want future generations to be like, “That’s my aunt. That’s my…” Whatever it is, I want them to be able to feel proud of my contributions.
And also, hopefully, the agency can look back and say, “Wow, that agency really did some great work.” When they are looking back at the Seattle Foundation, which I have every confidence will still be in existence, maybe it will be the 150th anniversary. Let’s turn to 2026. That was a very fragile period.
What do you want the record to say was done when democracy needed defending?
Alesha Washington: Yeah, I would want to say that we moved money like it mattered. That we were not afraid to invest resources. That we moved with the kind of urgency that was required of the moment.
And that includes the dollars that our team could direct, as well as the ongoing awareness-building and education that we did with our donors so they would know how to move.
But, at the end of the day, I would want to say that we moved money like it mattered.
Vanessa Wakeman: And for you personally, I think that, from my very brief period of being in conversation with you, I have full confidence that the work you’re doing now will live on for a very long time. But you may not be able to see it. And it seems like that’s part of the plan, right? That is deliberate. You want to put some things into action.
What matters enough to do anyway? What is the work that you would continue to do even if you don’t see the outcome? If nobody knows? If it doesn’t show up or have the impact we hope for in the next 25 or 50 years? What is worth doing anyway?
Alesha Washington: For me, it is reimagining what community philanthropy can be. Community foundations have a long history of being viewed as philanthropic banks. We are essentially bringing money in and moving money out, and we are agnostic about all the other things that go around it.
But I came into this role with a belief that we can be more than that in terms of how we show up in support of the communities where we sit and that we serve. And I still believe that to this day.
So, how do we think about the way all of these resources we sit with can be leveraged toward building the kind of directional strength our communities need, rather than just saying, “We’re advising, we’re doing grants management, and that’s all we care about”? No. We sit in a community where we amass a lot of information about community needs, opportunities, and organizations doing good work. We have this opportunity and pathway with people who have resources to give to help influence how those resources are used at the end of the day.
And that can even move toward impacting policy and the way systems function within our communities. So, we’re talking about much more than just bringing money in and moving money out. The power that can be amplified from that is the reimagining I want us to think about, and who gets involved in determining where those resources go.
I think that is the space for us to move. Participatory grantmaking is a part of the work that we do through our directed giving, and I want to see that scale and grow over time.
So, my push, and what I hope is said about me at the end, is that I did enough to alter the DNA of this institution that it creates a whole new framework for how community philanthropy can function into the future.
I probably won’t see it, but if I know that I at least planted the seed, I’m excited to see what will bloom.
Vanessa Wakeman: I love that. That feels like the perfect mic drop to end the conversation, and I will say thank you so much for joining me and for sharing your thinking and vision for this work.
Alesha Washington: Thank you. It was a pleasure, Vanessa. Thank you so much.
Vanessa Wakeman: Seattle, stand up! “Joyful communities” sounds like a slogan that should be adopted by the Seattle Tourism Authority immediately! Alesha and the Seattle Foundation should pitch that as the slogan for why people should come to Seattle, and the Authority can give you all a percentage because I think it is such a brilliant way to think about being in community.
But I was also thinking about the labor of social change: the work of building, creating a sense of belonging, and ensuring equity and safety for communities. It can feel difficult, long, and oftentimes impossible. But to have joy as a North Star, I can see how that alchemizes within a community’s DNA and helps people move toward that vision together, despite differences.
As I said during the conversation, it also feels ancestral and familiar. When you think about the ways Black communities and others have run toward joy, even in the worst of circumstances, it is powerful to see that happening in practice and embedded in the intentions of a Foundation as it supports communities and leaders.
Another thing I want to touch on as I summarize my thoughts from this conversation is how refreshing it was to hear Alesha’s perspective on who gets to write history and who gets to write the story. Last season, we spoke about Who Shapes the Story, which connects closely to my reflections today. When she described the importance of ensuring that communities have the ability to shape the narratives that influence their lives, she used the word “power.” She said, “For us, it is important that diverse communities have the power to shape the narratives that ultimately influence their lives.”
And to me, that absolutely feels like righting and writing history. So, well done!
I truly enjoyed this conversation and hope we get to speak with Alesha again in the future. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did. There is so much more to come.
Be sure to follow the show on our website, thewakemanagency.com, Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen so you never miss an episode. Be sure to tune in next week. See you then!