Are We Worthy?

Are we worthy of the trust we want to have in our community?

My board chair posed this question to me recently and I have been reflecting on it, and the possible answer, ever since. It is an important one as I consider my role now as the leader of Seattle Foundation.

I moved to Seattle in mid-April and officially took over as President & CEO of the foundation in May. Early in my arrival I began talking with my board and staff about the importance of striving to be in right relationship with community. For me, this means we, as a foundation, will operate with honesty and transparency. It means we will show up with empathy, curiosity, and respect. We will be humble and listen in spaces that are new to us. We will work towards shared understanding and accountability with our community –a willingness to call each other in with love and care. To be in right relationship means we are on an ongoing, imperfect, intentional path to learn, grow and move together.

Being intentional in this way, through every action we take, is how we get on the path to being worthy of the trust we hope our community will have in us. But far too often, we – those in positions of power – miss or ignore this as fundamental to the work of building trust, advancing equity, and pursuing justice. Too many institutions have become proficient at the language of trust but in the end continue to steal joy from and perpetuate harm in the very communities they claim to serve. I have seen this repeatedly throughout my time serving in the nonprofit and philanthropic sector.

This happens when we make Black, Indigenous, and other leaders of color and BIPOC-led organizations jump through unnecessary hoops to prove their worthiness for funding because they do not fit our profile of “readiness.” We do this when we continuously fund well established, well resourced, and most times, white-led organizations because of our comfort with their “capacity” but dismiss the grassroots leaders and community-based organizations who have the courage to warn us about the harm these organizations have caused before. We do this when we show up as “saviors” of a community and center ourselves, belittling their autonomy and creativity while also dismissing the teachers, guides and experts in that place that have always been there, and that are deserving of honor.

Seattle Foundation has had to learn these hard lessons over the years. We were called out nationally in the nineties for our lack of investment in BIPOC communities and again a few years ago for our grantmaking policy. We have taken important steps since to shift our discretionary grantmaking pool – roughly $20 million – so more than 85 percent of the resources flow to BIPOC leaders and organizations on the frontlines of movement building and organizing work.

While we manage over $1 billion in assets for individuals and families committed to philanthropy, it is donor intent that guides how those resources move. This is different from a private foundation that generally can determine the grantmaking strategy for the assets they hold. Thus, to have greater impact towards our vision of advancing racial equity, shared prosperity, and belonging, we must be intentional about (and welcome the opportunity to be) engaging fundholders on our racial equity journey; and must also be partners on their own journey to ultimately foster greater allies willing to invest alongside us.

We are also exploring and learning from others in the philanthropic sector about approaches to address harm in grantmaking. To do this well, our decisions must be centered in organizational values. In 2023, much of our work, as a staff and board, will be focused on building and executing a strategy that will enable us to shape these values and move forward as an organization with clarity and boldness.

Our journey is far from over, in some ways it feels like it is just beginning. I am here because I am motivated to help Seattle Foundation journey towards greater equity and justice for our community. Despite Seattle’s challenges, which many other cities across the country share, I see so much beauty and possibility in this place. I see it reflected in the conversations I have with longtime residents and elders about the history of Seattle’s neighborhoods and people. I see it and smile when I am in the presence of young people and community leaders that find joy here while also challenging Seattle to be better. As a new leader finding my place in all of this, I desire to partner with those who are willing to keep this question central to our work:

?Are we worthy of the trust we want to have in our community?

As I reflect on 2022 and prepare for 2023, I hope that we – as institutional funders, philanthropists, and those in positions of power – learn, practice, and show up in ways that make us worthy of that trust. I hope we fund and invest in ways that foster joy and justice for our community. I hope we have the courage to tell the truth when we fall short, and that we are willing to check and, if needed, not fund organizations that consistently prove they are not worthy of our community’s trust because we believe we can no longer be complicit in the harm that they cause.

A dear mentor once told me that this work of philanthropy is as hard as we make it to be, and that certainly is true. We sit in positions of privilege, power, and hold close proximity to wealth. We can use this to transform the world in which we live into something better or exacerbate the challenges we face. Let those of us in philanthropy and the nonprofit sector be willing to do the hard stuff in partnership with folks leading the charge for justice and shared prosperity in our community. Let us trust them to lead. Let’s decenter ourselves to achieve something greater than all of us.

This is the path to being in right relationship. This is the path to being worthy of our community’s trust. This is the path to the joyful future that we all deserve.?