By: Alesha Washington
When I reflect on this year, I am heartened by the progress we are making at Seattle Foundation. We are in a healthy financial position, allowing us to invest in the systems and infrastructure to maximize our operations and services. We are creating more experiences to engage our philanthropists on key issues that support our community. We are deepening our partnership with grantees to leverage a mix of tools – traditional grantmaking, impact investing, and advocacy – to grow our impact. Together, this work and the progress we will continue to make will help us foster a more joyful region of shared prosperity, belonging, and justice.
This progress would not be possible without the talented and dedicated staff at Seattle Foundation who I am grateful to learn and grow with every day. This spring we celebrated these People on the Move as we elevated key team members to support the execution of our new strategic plan and celebrated folks starting new career journeys.
Today I am pleased to announce Lindsay Goes Behind as our next Chief Impact Officer, who will play a key role in leading our community grantmaking and engagement, civic action, and advocacy efforts with our talented team.
As we searched for this next leader, it was important to find someone who was sophisticated in system change efforts, notably through public policy advocacy, as we seek to strengthen our role as a civic leader in the region. We needed someone who would honor and continue to build on our journey to become more explicit and intentional in our equity and justice work. We wanted to partner with someone who would help us continue the work of being in right relationship with community, which is always imperfect and evolving, but important to ensure that we are learning with our community partners as they evolve, and new leaders emerge. And, I needed a trusted thought partner who could nurture our work in community as it is today and help it become stronger and more impactful over time as we evolve as an institution.
Lindsay embodies these areas and more. She has an incredible background in public policy and advocacy work, supporting and organizing within communities who tend to be marginalized from the policy making process. She joins us most recently from Chief Seattle Club (CSC) where she served as the chief program officer, supporting the growth and development of CSC’s supporting housing development and human services. Prior to CSC, Lindsay was the managing director of the Na’ah Illahee Fund helping to steward philanthropic efforts in the Native community.
She serves on numerous boards and committees, including the Equitable Development Initiative Advisory Board of the City of Seattle. Throughout her career she has worked alongside Seattle Foundation, including as a member of the Governance Group for Communities of Opportunity, the grant initiative we do in partnership with King County to promote community power and systems change. Lindsay is known as a strong and caring leader who can get things done and brings great passion and vision to her work. I am thrilled to have her as a new senior leader in the foundation and am excited for you to get to know her too.
Take a few minutes to hear more about Lindsay in her own words and stay tuned as we share more of our journey to be of greater service to this community. It brings me so much joy.
Yours in partnership,
Alesha Washington
