Our Community Partners

Community Credit Lab

WHO WE ARE:
Community Credit Lab enables regenerative Lending Programs at the direction of Lending Partners that represent communities facing discrimination in the financial system. Founded in 2019, CCL employs five staff members and has a current annual operating budget of $421k. By creating and supporting decentralized solutions that pivot capital and power to communities, everyone has an opportunity to thrive. Learn more about the Lending Programs and Lending Partners that we've supported to access affordable credit for their communities here: https://www.communitycreditlab.org/.

WHAT WE DO:

Mission: To enable regenerative lending programs at the direction of partners that represent their communities.

Community Credit Lab facilitates lending programs that increase affordability, increase access, and shift power by decentralizing design and lending decision-making processes in the financial system. CCL provides support services and back-office infrastructure that enables the actualization of affordable community lending programs designed to center people facing discrimination in the financial system.

Ada Developers Academy Student Loan Program
Community Credit Lab and Ada Developers Academy built a Lending Program that provides community-funded, 0% interest loans to students going through the Ada program: a year-long, immersive software development training program preparing gender minorities to successfully enter software development careers. The first six months of the program include classroom training focused on Code Curriculum, Engineering Skills, and Advocacy Training. This stage of the program is so intense and immersive that students are not able to hold other jobs while they work through the Ada curriculum. So, while Ada is 100% tuition-free (with no income sharing agreements on the backend either), students coming from low-income backgrounds need financial support to care for their basic needs and their families.

Character Based Lending Program for Entrepreneurs
To demonstrate what’s possible, Community Credit Lab and Common Future partnered with three entrepreneurship support organizations, led by and primarily focused on supporting entrepreneurs of color: ConnectUP!, MORTAR, and Native Women Lead. These character-based lending programs will distribute capital based on relationship and trust to support entrepreneurs with affordable and flexible capital to help grow their businesses. Each program was designed by their respective Lending Partner to address the unique challenges of the businesses they support. Community Credit Lab provided program design support to each Lending Partner and will be providing loan management services needed to run and evaluate each of their lending programs.

RECENT SUCCESS:
Over the last two years, CCL has adapted our approach based on learnings from our Lending Partners and borrowers. Beyond our initial focus on access to credit (which we’ve learned may increase inequality as a standalone effort) and affordability of credit (which we know is essential to reversing the poverty premium and extractive financial practices), we have learned that shifting power is essential to reimagining an inclusive and just financial system. CCL is now integrating all 3 of these principles into consumer and commercial lending programs—with over $1.5 million facilitated across 7 Lending Programs with 11 Lending Partners.

Communities Rise

WHO WE ARE:

The Nonprofit Assistance Center and Wayfind merged in May of 2019 under the name Communities Rise.  We currently have fourteen people on staff. Our annual operating budget for 2020 is approximately $1.5 million. You can learn more about us at our website:  https://communities-rise.org.

WHAT WE DO:

Communities Rise works with organizations and microenterprises in communities impacted by systemic oppression to increase their capacity and build power. We recognize the strength and resilience in our communities and offer support through peer learning, coaching, and legal services and trainings. We also work with community leaders in the broader nonprofit, public, and philanthropic sectors to create a more equitable system.

Our mission is to foster movements to build power in communities impacted by systemic oppression to create an equitable system through cross-sector collaboration, capacity building and legal services for community organizations and microenterprises.

We foster movements to build power in communities impacted by systemic oppression by doing the following:

1. We strengthen community organizations so they can pursue their missions and movements to build power in their communities.  Everything we offer builds upon skills that exist in the people who make up the organization. We do this through the following programs:
   1. Through our nonprofit cohort program, we help community leaders meet urgent organizational needs, provide them with tools and trainings that build skills and support their organization’s long-term health, and create a space and network to engage in ongoing peer learning and growth.
   2. We provide fundraising and grant writing services through one-on-one consultations with professionals at our fundraising and grant writing clinics.
   3. We provide free legal services to nonprofits and microenterprises on their business legal needs through our legal services program.

1. We work to bring more equity to the nonprofit sector by advocating for more funding and resources to support community and grassroots organizations that have been historically excluded. In addition, we engage in cross-sector relationship building, facilitating conversations between community organizations and funders.
2. We are also looking at trends and gaps in the sector and working with community to develop resources to fill those gaps.

RECENT SUCCESS:

Merging the Nonprofit Assistance Center and Wayfind is a huge success for us and the communities we work with.  We believe the merger and creation of Communities Rise enables us to provide holistic capacity building services and strengthens our equity work in the sector.  Our hope is that the merger will result in authentic community collaborations, greater resources for communities impacted by systemic oppression and greater equity in the nonprofit and microenterprise sectors.

Front and Centered

WHO WE ARE:

Initially coming together in 2015 as a group of community leaders and organizations of color with shared experiences as frontline communities who care about climate justice issues, Front and Centered is now a growing statewide coalition of communities of color-led groups. Our diverse missions and work come together at the intersection of equity, environmental and climate justice. Front and Centered serves as a backbone organization for the coalition. We launched as an independent nonprofit in 2020, with a core team of 11 people.  Our operating budget has steadily grown from approximately $1M in prior years, to a 2021 operating budget of now $1.6M.
https://frontandcentered.org/

WHAT WE DO:  

As a statewide coalition focused on environmental and climate justice, Front and Centered focuses on People, Policy, and Practice.  Coalition membership with Front and Centered means community groups believe in the principles and values inspired by the Jemez Principles upon which Front and Centered was founded. Together, and with key partners our coalition actively works towards the vision for a Just Transition.

We are working for sovereignty and self-sufficiency for our communities so that future generations can thrive. We strive to make racial inequities on all issues a thing of the past, and to ensure that people of color and indigenous people are at the forefront of building equitable, democratic systems and policies that work for their communities. We are working for a future where everyone has equitable access to the building blocks of opportunity and prosperity like a healthy environment free from ecological destruction, affordable housing, and good careers based on safe work with livable wages.

Front and Centered provides capacity building and program and policy support for our growing coalition.  We bring people together through convenings and community listening sessions; we advocate for positive lasting change with our coalition and key partners by advancing statewide laws and policies; and we aim to influence positive changes in community practice and among the public at large through our community education efforts about important issues that may have emerging and current policy implications.

Front and Centered practices equitable governance principles, guided by a Community Council which oversees Front and Centered portfolio of policy, programs, and capacity building efforts. The Coordination Team provides a continuum of expertise, serving as staff to the coalition, coordinating statewide strategies, research, policy and advocacy, technical assistance, grantmaking, and other capacity efforts to support the leadership and resiliency of our members.

RECENT SUCCESS: 

In 2021, our biggest coalition victory included passage by the Washington State Legislature of the Healthy Environment for All Act (also known as the HEAL Act), Senate Bill 5141. This landmark legislation spotlights that where you live, your income, race, or language ability should not determine how healthy and safe you are. The HEAL Act defines ‘environmental justice’ in state law, outlines how agencies should consider community needs and environmental justice (EJ) in their work, establishes a permanent EJ Council to work with these agencies, and expands equitable community participation. The HEAL Act will be an essential tool as we aim to accelerate a Just Transition toward climate and environmental justice.

JustLead Washington

Who We Are:

JustLead Washington is growing a sustainable network of legal and community leaders working to promote equity and justice throughout Washington State. Since its founding in early 2017, JustLead has grown to include a team of 6 full-time and part-time employees and operates with a budget of approximately $600,000. For more information, please visit www.justleadwa.org.

What We Do:

JustLead envisions thriving and inclusive communities, where everyone belongs, and no one lives outside of what Professor john a. powell has called “the circle of human concern.” To move toward this future, JustLead aims for a transformed legal system that can help create a world that is just, equitable, and restorative, and an environment where advocates and organizations committed to that goal have the training, tools, and capacity to work effectively and collaboratively.

JustLead’s programs and services center leadership development, racial equity, and meaningful collaboration between community and legal partners. Our signature program, the Leadership Academy, is an intensive cohort-based program where Fellows from across Washington State ground their work in shared values and learn competencies that further leadership at the individual, organizational, community, and societal/structural level. Our Leadership Academy alumni network now includes more than 170 leaders across Washington State who continue to work together to further systemic change.

JustLead also provides leadership and equity-focused training, consulting, facilitation, and coaching, and organizational assessment services to help equity & justice advocates and organizations maximize their ability to eradicate poverty, racism, and other forms of structural oppression. We reach over 1,000 attorneys, judges, court staff, social service and nonprofit staff, and community leaders per year through in-person and virtual support.

Our capacity-building work also includes staffing and coordinating the Washington State Race Equity & Justice Initiative (REJI), a network of partners committed to addressing racism and racial inequities within the law and justice systems, as well as creating sustainable and scaleable resources to support learning within the equity & justice community, such as the REJI Organizational Race Equity Toolkit.

Recent Success:

JustLead is grateful to have identified ways to offer resources that remain relevant in the time of the triple pandemics of COVID-19, virulent racism, and deepening poverty. In Spring 2020 we offered an virtual “adaptive leadership” series to over 120 participants, and this year more than 7,500 people accessed the REJI Toolkit and blog series. Program participants report being more prepared to face conflict and organizational change and better readiness for strategic equity efforts.

Latino Community Fund

WHO WE ARE:

Founded in 2006, the Latino Community Fund of Washington State (LCF) is a statewide nonprofit organization with offices in Seattle, Burien and Yakima as well as staff in Wenatchee and the Tri-cities. LCF has a staff of 14 FTE and in 2020 had an operating budget of nearly $3 million.  Learn more about our organization at https://www.latinocommunityfund.org/.

WHAT WE DO:

The Latino Community Fund of Washington State (LCF) believes healthy and educated Latino families build vibrant local communities and economies in Washington State. LCF works to create a more vibrant Latino community through civic engagement, healthy families, arts and culture. We recognize the importance of identifying, sharing and advocating for what is working in the Latino community. As part of our mission we cultivate new leaders, support cultural and community-based nonprofit organizations, and improve the quality of life for all Washingtonians.

RECENT SUCCESS:

In 2020, LCF helped raise nearly $1.5 million dollars for COVID relief. We distributed $500,000 in rental assistance and $300,000 in food vouchers for community members in need. LCF also helped reach 20,000 households through our census work and engaged 32,000 voters through our civic engagement efforts.

Na'ah Illahee Fund

Who We Are:

Na‘ah Illahee Fund (NIF) is a Native women-led organization that seeks to be a galvanizing force within Indigenous communities, where we amplify self-determination and activism. We have 13 employees and an annual operating budget of $2.5 million. Our mission is to support and promote the leadership of Indigenous women and youth in the ongoing regeneration of Indigenous communities in the Pacific Northwest. We do this through convening, facilitating education and skill sharing, community organizing, and through strategic grantmaking around climate and environmental justice, food security and food sovereignty, civic participation, and advancing regenerative economies. We have an all-Native Board of Directors and a majority Native staff. For more information, please visit https://www.naahillahee.org .

What We Do:

We lead a collection of programs that strengthen self-determination and resilience from a personal to systemic level:

• Wise Action: NIF staff collaborates with community-of-color-led groups and organizations to bring an Indigenous lens to environmental policy and justice work. Through every effort of organizing, we bring more Indigenous leaders into this work, highlighting the Native voice and building community power.
• Women’s Giving Circle: Each year, a diverse circle of women build community, provide mentorship to emerging leaders, and gather financial resources to support Northwest Native women-led community initiatives.
• Yahowt (Southern Lushootseed, “Lift us up together”): NIF leads a Climate Justice cohort that brings together Indigenous women leaders – teachers and learners, as they share and build knowledge, skills, networks and develop community-based sustainable projects together that we commit to resourcing.
• E’Lip Illahee Land Trust: Rematriate the land! We are establishing a land trust with the goal to increase (mostly urban) Indigenous peoples’ access to land, and preserve traditional knowledge.
• Youth Programming: Native Girls Code, Indigenous LGBTQ, and Tech Geeks are three paths of NIF’s out-of-school programs that nurture personal development and sense of self for Indigenous youth.
• Cedar Rising Coalition: A project focused on Missing Murdered Indigenous People and Gender-based Violence policy, advocacy, and coalition building with Native women leaders.
• Mamook Sikhs (Chinook Wawa language, “to Make Good Friends”): Facilitated by our staff, we offer an Indigenous Allyship workshop to government, nonprofit, and community groups. Our goal is to offer cross-cultural understanding and support for Indigenous people through building trust and partnership.
• Capacity Building and Fiscal Sponsorship: We help Native individuals and community groups with sponsorship, research, grant writing and to connect them with resources.
• Grantmaking: We raise public and private funds to make investments in the projects we create.

Recent Success:

Most recently, we have also launched the Native Community Crisis Response Fund for the impacts of COVID-19, dedicated to increasing food security and supports for the growing incidents of families in crisis. To date, we have distributed over 1000 Indigenous Food Bundles, built family and community gardens across Washington state, and have granted $300,000 to Domestic Violence programs and community groups. We hope to transition crisis response into a Just Recovery Fund, strengthening infrastructure in food security and healthy, engaged communities.

OneAmerica

WHO WE ARE:

OneAmerica was founded in 2001. Our operating budget for 2020 is $4,223,310, we have a staff size of 28, and you can learn more about us at www.weareoneamerica.org.

WHAT WE DO:

OneAmerica® is the largest immigrant and refugee advocacy organization in Washington State, organizing with and advocating for diverse communities including Latinx, African, and Asian. OneAmerica was founded immediately after September 11, 2001 to address the backlash, hate crimes, and discrimination against immigrant communities of color.

Today, OneAmerica plays an active and leading role in state and national coalitions working on immigrant rights, education, economic and environmental justice, voting rights, and immigrant integration. We believe that building broad-based movements led by people of color and their allies and grounded in grassroots community organizing will create a more just, democratic, and compassionate society.

Our Mission: OneAmerica advances the fundamental principles of democracy and justice at the local, state, and national levels by building power within immigrant communities in collaboration with key allies.

Our Issue Areas:

Education: We believe in the right of all students to the very best education. Together, we’re working with parents, educators and allies to make sure that all of Washington’s families have an education system that’s inclusive, responsive and meets the needs of every student.

Democracy: We believe that building political power is core to our mission. We organize in immigrant and refugee communities across Washington State; we engage community leaders through issue campaigns and advocacy at the local, state and national level; we help legal, permanent residents to naturalize and become citizens; we ensure that citizens are registered to vote, and we ensure that voters are informed on the issues that impact their lives, families and communities.

Immigration: OneAmerica is dedicated to making sure that all immigrants in Washington State have the resources and support they need to advocate for and defend themselves. We fought Trump’s attacks and are now working to undo the damage, making progress towards a just immigration system under a Biden administration.

RECENT SUCCESS:

OneAmerica and partners won $300 million for the Immigrant Relief Fund which supports undocumented immigrants who were hit hard by the pandemic and excluded from federal stimulus and state unemployment.

In 2022, OneAmerica launched a platform called Our Thriving Home which lays out a vision for immigrants and refugees that is proactive versus reactive and focuses on what we need to thrive not just survive. One element of that is winning on the Immigrant Relief Fund. Long term, we’ll work to create a permanent unemployment insurance system for undocumented workers, who contribute so much to our society.

Rooted in Vibrant Communities

WHO WE ARE:

Rooted in Vibrant Communities (RVC) was founded in 2014. We currently have five full time staff and have an annual operating budget of $800,000. For more information please visit our website: www.rvcseattle.org.

WHAT WE DO:

RVC promotes social justice by cultivating leaders of color, strengthening organizations led by communities of color, and fostering collaboration between diverse communities.

RVC was formed to strengthen communities of color, and created a fellowship program designed to develop the bench of nonprofit leaders of color. After a year of piloting the program and gaining some valuable lessons, RVC is strategically moving from a single leadership program model toward holistic capacity building focused on organizations led by communities of color. This new model combines our existing fellowship model with four new core capacity-building areas: operations support, leadership coaching, block granting, and convening diverse communities.

RVC’s Emerging Leaders of Color Fellowship program identifies a cohort of talented leaders of color, gives them a two-year full-time, paid placement at host grassroots organizations in Rainier Valley led by communities of color, and provides ongoing professional development training.

RVC currently partners with ten organizations to provide full-time staffing in the form of fellows, and hopes to double the investment in our current partners as we expand the suite of services that RVC provides. Our aspirational goal is to match the amount of RVC in-kind support provided with direct general operations funding, through block granting. In order to quickly scale up our operations support work and begin providing block granting in the next fiscal year, this will require a starting budget of about $1 million, with additional investment resulting in an increase in the number of partner community-based organizations.

RECENT SUCCESS:

RVC is currently in the second year of the fellowship program, and has ten amazing fellows who are working at organizations in the Rainier Valley. Our second cohort of fellows will begin in September of this year, and we are searching for strong candidates.

Seattle Arts & Culture for Anti-Racism (SACA)

WHO WE ARE:

Seattle Arts & Culture for Anti-Racism (SACA) began in 2015 with a small group of volunteers who wanted to explore how to support and advance anti-racism work throughout arts and culture organizations at Seattle Center. Since then, SACA has grown participation with representatives from more than 40 organizations and has expanded its work by offering free trainings, affinity and caucus spaces, one-on-one consulting, panels and more. We currently have one full-time employee and an Advisory Board of 10 members. Our annual operating budget is $110,455. Our website is: https://www.seattleantiracism.org/.

WHAT WE DO:

Mission

SACA exists to dismantle how white supremacy shows up in the arts and culture world by advancing and supporting anti-racist work both in Seattle and beyond. We build power with Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC), whose voices and experiences inform every aspect of this work, to create a more racially equitable arts and culture community.

Vision

SACA envisions an arts and culture sector that is actively anti-racist, representative of BIPOC communities in leadership, staff, donors and audiences and that is committed to dismantling white supremacy culture and other systems of oppression that harm all of our communities.

Values

Collaboration – We agree to build power with BIPOC communities, not over. We commit to doing our own work as individuals and not depending on other folxs to do it for us, especially BIPOC. We are committed to lifelong learning & the undoing of how white supremacy shows up in ourselves.

Respect – We are committed to being active listeners that lead with empathy rather than shame. We are in mutual agreement that we will not question racism, either in practice or in theory.

Accountability – We will take responsibility when we perpetuate harm. We center the experiences of BIPOC and are responsible to those communities.

Community – We are committed to dismantling white supremacy culture together. We acknowledge the disproportionate emotional labor BIPOC folxs carry in this work and agree not to exploit it, but carry it as a collective.

Programming:

Affinity & Caucus Spaces

Monthly meeting spaces organized for intentional community building, support and learning for various demographic identities.

Lunch & Learns

Monthly panels that center around themes of race and social justice. These panels are made up of national and local community leaders who have lived experience and expertise in the issues we are addressing.

Workshops

Quarterly workshops that center intersectional anti-racism work.

CURRENT NEED:

We currently need additional funding to ensure SACA can continue to support arts and culture organizations free of cost as they work to evolve into anti-racist institutions. Support from foundations like Cedarmere have made a huge impact on our ability to offer programming and additional support. We will continue pursuing further funding opportunities as we work to realize our vision of an arts and culture sector that is actively anti-racist, representative of BIPOC communities in leadership, staff, donors, and audiences and that is committed to dismantling white supremacy culture and other systems of oppression that harm all of our communities.

Sound Child Care Solutions (SCCS)

WHO WE ARE:

Founded in 2006, Sound Child Care Solutions (SCCS) is the first early learning, shared services organization in Seattle, WA. Our eight child care programs share administrative and financial services in a Central Office so that Center Directors can focus on supporting teachers and creating high-quality programming for children and families, rather than the full breadth of duties required to run a successful program. With an operating budget of $7.5M, SCCS’s staff of 120 Center Directors and teachers build a child’s positive self-identity, and child and parent confidence in their abilities to succeed inside and outside of the classroom. Please visit us at www.soundchild.org to learn more about our important work across Seattle’s communities.

WHAT WE DO:

Sound Child Care Solutions’ (SCCS) core work is to alleviate the opportunity gap between children who receive high quality, culturally relevant education and those who don’t in order to benefit young people furthest from educational justice. This gap disproportionately impacts children of color and families living in poverty, and perpetuates the disparities we see in Kindergarten readiness and sustained academic achievement. The first five years of life is a period of profound brain development, where children gather the building blocks to create a foundation in support of a successful personal and professional future.

SCCS started with one early learning Center and now, we operate eight Centers with 11 program locations throughout Seattle. Each Center is unique to the neighborhood location and needs of that community. Center Directors and teaching staff represent their communities served which results in meaningful relationships with Center families. With equity at the core of our work, SCCS understands the importance of serving families of all income levels while providing specialized support to children from lower-income communities. We are excited about our existing growth while simultaneously looking forward to and preparing for the opportunities of the future and changing landscape of early learning. We firmly believe that the shared services model holds great promise for our non-profit sector and we see shared services as a strategy to combat the inequities in education.

RECENT SUCCESS:

SCCS has partnered with Childhaven and Child Care Resources to implement a pilot program aimed at supporting teachers, families, and children experiencing trauma and toxic stress. This project, largely funded by the Federal Government, will help teachers evaluate professional development needs to better serve children exhibiting unique behaviors. SCCS is grateful to witness a growing interest in professional development and support services that will better prepare children and their families for a successful Kindergarten transition.