Our Legacy Vision
Our legacy vision is a strong, thriving nonprofit leadership equipped to navigate an uncertain future with the support of a funding community committed to investing in capacity building.
Our Values
Learning
We embrace and support active, continuous learning and share what we learn with our community and philanthropic partners with the goal of inspiring others to invest in capacity building.
Equity
We commit to investing in Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC), and women leaders and prioritize investments in organizations that support BIPOC communities and the reduction of racial and gender-based disparities.
Community
We value trusted relationships. We center our community partners in everything that we do and work with them to support the capacity building needs they prioritize.
Cedarmere Foundation's Future Plans
The past two years of navigating the Covid-19 pandemic have made it crystal clear that nonprofits face immense challenges as they seek to support and empower our community. In order to invest heavily in the capacity building organizations and initiatives that sustain and strengthen the nonprofit sector in Washington State, the Trustees of the Cedarmere Foundation have decided to spend down our endowment over the next several years with an intentional focus on the following strategies:
- Invest in the development, support, and sustainability of nonprofit leadership.
- Share what we learn with philanthropic partners to inspire investment in capacity building.
To help steer the foundation as we move through the sunsetting process, we have appointed Melanie Matthews as Executive Director who brings years of experience in the philanthropy sector supporting capacity building strategies and strengthening nonprofits; and we have expanded our Board to include a total of three community leaders - new Trustees, Sarah Tran and Beto Yarce, and long-time Trustee, Amy Zimerman - with deep experience and grounding in nonprofit leadership in our region.
Guided by our values of learning, equity, and community, we will work toward our legacy vision and use our endowment to support and strengthen leadership capacity within the nonprofit sector. We hope that through this intentional process, our investments will endure long after we have made our last grant.
About the Cedarmere Foundation
The Cedarmere Foundation is a family foundation established in Seattle, Washington in 2006 to provide opportunities for multiple branches and generations of our family to work together toward a common goal that benefits the communities in which we live, work, and play. Our mission is to support the development and sustainability of effective governance and leadership in small nonprofit organizations that focus on education, health, or human services in the Puget Sound region of Washington State.
Guided by our mission, we have partnered with more than 50 nonprofit organizations by providing them with capacity building grants over multiple years. We have also partnered with many capacity building funders to strengthen the nonprofit sector and inspire other funders to support capacity building.