Partner news! Awards and Acknowledgements (March 2022)

Partners in the News

Updated 3/24/2022

Read API Chaya’s article on Restoring Mana: Healing in Pasifika Communities featured in the International Examiner, Restoring Mana: Healing in Pasifika communities:

Mana was the inspiration behind a series offered through API Chaya’s Pasifika community organizing program. The goal of this series is to offer a space of Mana restoration to the Pasifika community through indigenous practices, including art, dance, music, and medicine. Through our Mana programming, we hope to offer tools that will help people heal, and reconnect to one another and to nature. We seek to strengthen our Mana through the storytelling and practices of our ancestors.

James Roberson from the Rainier Beach Action Coalition (RBAC) was recognized in the The Seattle Times earlier this week, for his prolific use of the Find It Fix It app:

James Roberson, who is Find It, Fix It’s No. 2 superuser, has had a similar experience.

“The city isn’t consistent with its response rate,” he said.

Roberson has used the app more than 1,500 times since January 2020. He, too, mostly reports graffiti. Roberson lives in Rainier Beach and is a team supervisor for the Rainier Beach Action Coalition, a community advocacy group. Most of the graffiti he reports is in his South Seattle neighborhood.

“For me, it’s about making sure my community is beautified,” Roberson said. “The whole city was inundated with graffiti the last couple of years because young people had a lot more time on their hands … but even with COVID, if you’ve got graffiti, why wouldn’t you clean it up?”

Hacks & Wonks Podcast feature on: Transforming Systems of Harm with Sean Goode & Rebecca Thornton of CHOOSE 180

Sean Goode and Rebecca Thornton from Choose 180 stop by to share how to transform systems of harm and injustice - by supporting young people impacted by them as well as their own staff in doing this work. They discuss a better world where neighborhoods are resourced, generative programs are co-created, and the humanity of those accused of causing harm is centered alongside the healing of those who are harmed. Such a world is not as far off as one may think, but does require the transfer of power to those closest to the pain and a long-enough runway to have lasting effects.

Trends in Impact Investing and Financial Advisory: In Community Credit Lab’s latest blog series, they discuss investment benchmarks in community investment, trends in impact investing and community investment, and CCL’s approach to shifting power and enabling access to equitable credit. Part 3 focuses on trends in impact investing and financial advisory related to community investments:

Reimagining a financial system that prioritizes humanity and distributes power requires us to think beyond traditional structures in different contexts. At CCL, we continue recognizing that our work and the leadership of our Lending Partners are part of a much larger movement within the financial system that is looking to build new economic models where everyone can thrive. This movement requires action at every intersection, interrogation across every institution, and stewardship at every organization. We continue to derive energy from the people who work in between to bridge and create expansive opportunities for all.

Skyway Coalition Signs Partnership with Homestead Community Land Trust for Housing, Economic Development and Environmental Justice

With the goal to amplify and empower the voices of the community to address gentrification and displacement, Skyway invited Homestead into a community planning process culminating in a four-point strategic plan. The plan’s four pillars build on the creation of new homeownership opportunities as the drivers of economic opportunity for local area businesses and contractors, security and economic mobility for first-time homebuyers, food security and environmental resiliency.

Through the Memorandum of Understanding, Skyway Coalition and Homestead Community Land Trust agree to work cooperatively to implement the plan’s four pillars. Shared initiatives will increase opportunities for homeownership in Skyway for low- and moderate-income households, with particular emphasis on Black, Indigenous and POC residents, through the development of new construction homes, and homebuyer education and outreach.  

Seattle Foundation Civic Commons Black Home Initiative is in the news! Check out these stories:

Seattle Times: JPMorgan puts up $1.95 million to boost Black homeownership in Seattle area

The new initiative aims to add 1,500 Black homeowners in South Seattle, South King County and Northern Pierce County in the next five years. Housing prices have shot up in some of those areas since the start of the pandemic. In Southeast King County (covering Auburn, Kent, Renton and Skyway), the median home sold for $650,000 last year, up 23% from the year before.

“That’s a very audacious goal. I don’t even know if it’s possible,” said Michael Brown, civic architect at Civic Commons. “But in order to get there, we have to disrupt the system the way it currently is.”

Seattle Medium: Civic Commons Launches Black Home Initiative To Increase Black Homeownership In Greater Seattle Region

“We live in a region that has created prosperity for many residents but left Black communities behind on every pillar of well-being, economic prosperity, health equity, legal justice, education and civic engagement,” said Andrea Caupain Sanderson, CEO of Byrd Barr Place and one of eight members of the Black Home Initiative core team. “It is time to activate the right levers that will change outcomes for the better in our Black communities. We also know that when we all do better, we all do better.”

And find out more about BHI on their website: http://civic-commons.org/bhi

Q&A: Maiko Winkler-Chin leaving SCIDpda to lead the Seattle Office of Housing - Maiko Winkler-Chin, executive director of the Seattle Chinatown International District Preservation and Development Authority (SCIDpda), talks with the International Examiner about joining Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell’s cabinet as director of the Office of Housing:

Housing is a tool that can be used for a variety of other things. So in certain communities, owning housing allows you stability in permanency, but can also be an asset that you leverage when you open a small business or when you do something else. I know how many of the small businesses that we have, that have probably leveraged their housing in order to get some sort of funding to help move in and to help provide capital for the business.

And you’ve heard a lot about the need for communities of color to really own their assets. And what does that look like? Does it look like a co-op model of housing, because a single family house in Seattle is frickin expensive?

Resources, Opportunities & Events

Call for Applications: 2022 New Economy WA Frontline Community Fellowship!

Have an idea or an active project to make systemic change in our economy? Interested in getting support on your project and being part of a cohort of others with shared values? We are inviting Applications for systems change projects for a just, transformative and regenerative economy from individuals or organizations from communities of color on the frontlines of an unjust system.

The Fellowship Program objective is to support communities to experiment in making change to the underlying conditions of our economy, toward an economy of democracy and community control, that is sustainable and equitable, and creates shared economic well-being by fulfilling local BIPOC needs. This fellowship empowers emerging new economy leaders to advance their pilot initiatives. Four to five fellowships will be selected and allocated initial grants to advance their project and participate in a cohort of Frontline Community Fellows. As a Fellow, you will receive: 

  • Grant of $8,000 to $10,000

  • Relationship building and peer learning

  • Customized project support

  • Access to technical experts and professional development learning opportunities

  • Opportunities to showcase project and consult with funder communities and other partners

  • New this year, Fellows will join a participatory budgeting process for the 2022 New Economy Washington Fund, a community controlled funding pool of up to $100,000* to be distributed at the discretion of fellows and other new economy leaders and organizations

 Instructions and Application Form | Application Deadline is April 25, 2022!

Surge Reproductive Justice is looking for three new board members to join them as they enter a new season of abundance and growth! Their desire is for a tight group of highly supportive board members who believe deeply in their mission and in using their time and talent to champion and undergird Surge’s work.

More information in the application: bit.ly/SRJBoardApp2022 (link in bio). Applications due April 4th!

Quarter 2 Best Starts for Kids Virtual Open House!

This is a great opportunity for organizations supporting babies and young children across King County to join Best Starts for Kids staff and learn about various upcoming funding opportunities, including:

  • Early Childhood Workforce Systems Coordination RFQ

  • Cultural Navigator for Early Support for Infants and Toddlers

  • Child Care Workforce Demonstration Pilot

  • Child Care Health Consultation – Service Delivery

  • Technical Assistance: Getting Help With Your Proposal

You are welcome to register for more than one session, we also encourage you to join for the entirety of each session. Learn more and register here

View the recordings and slide shows from the first Virtual Open House on January 12, 2022.

Power in Connection with FEEST!

FEEST Student Organizers are hosting their first event of the year!!! Power in Connection, with FEEST! is gonna be a fun night full of community building, passionate conversations, and fun games

This orientation is for youth who are new to FEEST, and want to tap into the organizing work that we are doing and build relationships with students at your school! Join on March 30th from 5-6:30 PM on Zoom to enjoy this beautiful event of connection. Register here.

This is also a great opportunity for folks who are interested in becoming Student Organizers to come in and learn about FEEST. Learn more about that paid opportunity here.

Save the date! The Rainier Beach Action Coalition (RBAC) virtual Food Justice Town Hall will be taking place on March 31st from 6-8pm on Facebook live.

The theme of this meeting is ‘Food as Liberation: Healing our Body, Mind, and Community.’ Representatives from several other local organizations will be speaking and participating in a short panel discussion featuring questions asked by community members like YOU! What do YOU want to know about food access in Rainier Beach? Share your questions and comments for the Town Hall here!

Partner Job Opportunities

Current opportunities with COO community & institutional partners (updated 3/24/2022):

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