Kids running home from school

Communities of Opportunity

A groundbreaking partnership between community, Seattle Foundation, and King County

Improving health and well-being within ethnically and geographically diverse communities across Greater Seattle.

Here in Greater Seattle, where you live, how much you make, and the color of your skin are major predictors of your life experience and your chances of living well and thriving. While average measures of quality of life, social, and health factors are among the highest in the country, our region now experiences some of the greatest inequities among large U.S. metropolitan areas.

To help change this trajectory, Seattle Foundation and King County launched Communities of Opportunity (COO) in 2014 to improve health, social, racial, and economic outcomes by focusing on places, policies, and systems changes. By offering an initial investment of $2.5 million over five years, we started work with diverse community partners in this multi-sector effort to focus on upstream policy improvements that benefit the region as a whole. We invest in community-led partnerships, and have supported work in White Center, Rainier Valley, and SeaTac-Tukwila. We award grants to organizations working to increase health, housing, and/or economic opportunities through policy and systems reform.

For more information about Communities of Opportunity please contact Shannon Small, Senior Program Officer, Policy & Government.

Additional Resources