- [Narrator 1] Production and distribution of City Club forums on Ideastream Public Media are made possible by PNC, and the United Black Fund of Greater Cleveland Incorporated.

(upbeat music) (crowd chatting) (bell dinging) - Good afternoon and welcome to the City Club of Cleveland, where we are devoted to conversations of consequence to help democracy thrive.

It's Thursday, November 16th, and I'm Christie Manning, senior program director for the Saint Luke's Foundation, and I'm so pleased to welcome back home Alesha Washington.

(audience clapping) Alesha joined the Seattle Foundation as president and CEO in 2022.

She was described as the next generation of philanthropy, and leads one of the Northwest's largest community foundations devoted to advocacy, equity, and community organizing.

In her new role at the Seattle Foundation Alesha is building strong philanthropic relationships that are grounded in anti-racism, bridge building, economic equity, and social justice, which she hopes will serve as a national model for how community philanthropy can fully embrace racial equity and make it the center of the philanthropic sector's work.

Alesha has an extensive knowledge of public policy and inclusion, and a prolific career in Northeast Ohio's non-profit sector.

She previously served as program director for Vibrant Neighborhoods and Inclusive Economy with the George Gund Foundation.

Before that she spent five years at the Greater Cleveland Partnership, first as the senior director of Government Advocacy, and then as the vice president of Government Advocacy.

On a personal note, Alesha supported me when I was first starting out in philanthropy, and she served on our Resilient Families Strategy Committee.

A daughter of Cleveland, Alesha attended Oberlin College and Case Western Reserve University.

Also joining on stage, City Club CEO Dan Moulthrop, he will serve as moderator for the conversation.

If you have a question for our speaker, you can text it to 330-541-5794.

That's 330-541-5794, and City Club staff will try to work it into the second half of the program.

Members and friends of the City Club of Cleveland, please join me in welcoming Alesha Washington.

(audience clapping) - Some, some, wow.

Wow, Alesha Washington, president and CEO of the Seattle Foundation.

- Yeah.

- Look at you.

- Look at me.

(audience laughing) - I'm so happy for you, and so proud to be your friend.

- Thank you.

- And so grateful to you for coming home a little early for Thanksgiving so that we could host you here at the City Club.

Welcome home!

- Thank you.

What up, Cleveland?

(audience clapping) - So we're gonna have this conversation today about the state of philanthropy, the state of the community foundation, where things are, where they're headed, and what things look like for you.

But how is it?

I mean, how are you doing two years in?

How are you?

- I'm doing well, and Christie, I love that in the sense of daughter of Cleveland, that can't be complete, though, without saying a graduate of Glenville High School, right?

(audience cheering) So I want that thought out there as well.

I never imagined that I was gonna leave this place to be somewhere else serving and doing this work, but it's been an amazing adventure so far, right?

New community, just in terms of landscape, politics, civic life, people that are a part of my kind of own special circle, but one of the greatest adventures I've been on so far.

So I'm doing well.

- Good, good.

I wanna ask you about what you thought a community foundation was when you were sort of going for the job, and what you found out it actually is when you're in the job.

- Oh, yeah, yeah.

(audience laughing) There's some big differences.

I think I just need to publicly apologize to the Cleveland Foundation (everyone laughing) for all the times I was upset of like, why are we not moving these grants?

Because what I learned very quickly is despite what you see in asset size that does not tell the true story of what community foundations are.

I think the field had got very accustomed to using assets under management, the millions or billions of dollars that we steward on behalf of other folks as a way to signify strength.

But the reality is, most of us, like myself, run an organization that has a much smaller operational budget, and we steward a lot of resources, but our ability to quote, unquote, "control" or "use" those resources flexibly is limited, right?

And so I have to always work in this space of folks with wealth that wanna do good for community, but have a personal agenda of how they wanna do that, but also an understanding of the needs within the community, and how do I influence them to align giving with this very small pot of dollars I also have that is 95% donor-advised funds, 5% what my team can control.

How do I create leverage and influence for those dollars to move in an important way?

It's all about relationships and influence.

And I did not appreciate that at the level that I do now, almost two years into running a community foundation.

- Yeah, yeah, so Seattle Foundation has 1.2 billion?

- Yeah, we steward 1.2 billion assets.

We're part of the largest group of community foundations in the country by that metric.

I run a $12 million non-profit that has $11 million (Dan laughing) in discretionary grant making and no endowment, right?

And so my universe of how I do this work looks very different.

Now one community foundation is one community foundation, right?

Cleveland Foundation has a different story for me.

San Francisco Foundation has a different story for me.

But the reality of a non-profit with a $12 million operating budget that can create leverage and influence with $1.2 billion in assets, that's a complex space to work within.

- Yeah, so this 1.2 billion grows over time, the Seattle Foundation's relatively young foundation in the world of how Cleveland measures things, the oldest community foundation.

(audience laughing) Is that correct, Lilian?

(audience laughing) But still it's not, I mean, just because it's young doesn't necessarily mean that you encountered an innovative and forward-thinking enterprise when you got there.

- Oh yeah, I mean, I consider Seattle Foundation a 75-year-old startup in a lot of ways, right?

We have a long track record behind us now, and what it means to harness resources for our collective good.

And I don't think this is a unique challenge to Seattle Foundation, I think many community foundations across the country, including Seattle Foundation, are all wrestling with the business model that established us isn't necessarily serving the needs of our communities today, right?

If your core business model is to actually function as a philanthropic bank where you just process grant requests for folks that wanna do good for community, but now you have to step into a role as a civic leader, and influencer, and serving greater needs, especially around racial equity and justice in a way that you didn't have to do 75 years ago, necessarily.

How do you pay for that work?

That's the question, right?

Because a $12 million budget is not gonna get me that far with the needs that we see in the region.

We can step in and be a civic leader, but from a business standpoint I have to actually be able to resource that work to be done well.

And so re-imagining this business model in a way that you can do good and do more, and have more impact, that is the question of our time right now.

- Yeah, how are those conversations going inside of the foundation with the foundation's board?

- Well, I was hired with that charge, right?

And so the board had a very strong view several years ago when they knew they would be looking for the next leader, is that they made a strong commitment, a very explicit commitment around racial equity and justice being central to the work.

And we needed to figure out the operational model that allows us to work effectively.

So I've come in the door knowing that that is a charge, and what we're trying to work through.

I have an incredible team, shout out to Michele Frix, my executive vice president who's here with me today.

Give it up.

(audience clapping) That's my ride or die, she holds it down.

(audience laughing) But this is what we spend a lot of time on every day, and thinking through from products and services to new things that we can be offering, to different ways that we have to actually influence the assets that we hold, how do you build a structure that works?

And I'm also grateful that there are peers across this country like Cleveland Foundation, that are also in this conversation as well from a national perspective, that given that so much of our work can be contextualized by the local community, there's some universal themes that we all share.

And so how do we make this quest to re-imagine our model, not just an individual quest, but some of us come together and do it collectively.

- So I mean, you stated pretty clearly that the business model that created the foundation being a philanthropic bank isn't the model for the future.

What is the model for the future?

I mean, what do you think it looks like?

What is it?

How is it different?

- Yeah well, I only have musings, right?

'Cause this is the question we're trying to answer in real time.

But I think so much of it is really gonna center around our ability to have greater discipline and courage around the way that we creatively use the assets that we have, right?

I think a number of us are in a scenario where we have gotten used to kind of submitting to whatever a donor wanted.

And that led to exceptions and fees that led to doing a number of things that from a business standpoint, a Fidelity or Charles Schwab would not do, right?

Their prices are their prices, the services are the services, and people pay for that.

We make a lot of exceptions in the name of social good, but from a business standpoint, it actually doesn't make a lot of sense, and you can't sustain that way, right?

And so how do we get more courage and discipline around valuing ourselves and what we offer?

I think there is also something to the way that we creatively think about those assets under control, right?

I have a wonderful CFO who's already starting to imagine the ways in which we can do impact investing much more sophisticated in a way that moves more resources into community, but also creates a return for our bottom line.

And I think there's been this long trend with community foundations that I think, I'm hoping we are getting out of now, and thinking that we could compete with the commercial DAF providers, and we can't.

That's a separate category on and to itself, that should not be something that we're worried about in terms of competition.

Do we cost more than them?

Yes, but the value that you get is that we have deep knowledge of our communities, we have deep knowledge of the organizations that we invest in, and so for folks that have resources that wanna do good at that level, you should feel good paying more, because what you're doing on behalf of community is much more in depth than a commercial provider would offer you, right?

And so there are some things around the way that we show up, the value we see in ourselves, creatively using the assets, and being disciplined to say the cost is the cost, right?

So pay that.

That I think is a part of us (Dan laughing) sharpening this model in going forward.

- And it seems like also another element would be convincing donors that your endowment, that the organization itself is worth investing in, so that you can leverage their dollars as well.

- Yeah, yeah, and that's a journey in terms of relationship as well, right?

I think what I've learned in my own experience with Seattle, and I've been fortunate for this time that I've been able to spend with folks that hold funds with us, is that I see a whole spectrum of folks that are deeply aligned to kind of our core strategies in giving and wanna be right there with us, and they look to us to say, who should I invest in?

Where should I invest?

And let me move those resources.

I have a big group in the middle, some of them older, who are thinking about retirement, and stepping down, and passing their wealth onto their children.

It's like, I've been a civic leader in this community, I have knowledge I can give you.

And it's like, well great, let's get together and figure this out in a way that you are engaged, but you also feel valued in this relationship as well, so that we're able to move resources together, right?

Maybe in complementary way.

So yeah, you keep funding the food bank, we'll keep doing work around Food Justice, but it's all in service of this community.

And I think there's also in a really important place around learning where we have to break down the silos that naturally exist within community philanthropy, at least in the traditional way.

Where we kind of, again, steer towards the donor and their desires, but in a region like I'm in right now, you have community organizations that are exhausted with the way that philanthropy has showed up, and caused harm, and created mistrust, and all sorts of things that aren't taking it anymore, right?

And so there's a strong expectation that we really operationalize what it means to center equity and justice in the work, that we are valuing the facts and folks that have lived experience as folks that actually have solutions to the things that we are working on, and that we work with our philanthropists to actually teach them more about trust-based philanthropy and how they show up because we are all in this community.

So one is not above the other.

We need to be working collectively to figure these things out, and we sit in the middle of those relationships to try to create the conditions for a safe space for those conversations to happen.

- Can you say a little bit more about the community accountability that you encountered coming to Seattle and how it was different from what you'd experienced here.

The ways in which the community holds you and your board accountable?

- Yeah well, I can tell you two notable examples.

One, and this was before my time, but in 2021, at the height of a lot of the movement around Defund The Police, Seattle Foundation was protested publicly, hundreds of people outside of the foundation's offices challenging it for dollars.

And mind you, it was only three DAFs at the time.

But that was enough, right?

Of dollars going to the Seattle Police Foundation.

People were calling the foundation to the carpet in the sense of you can't say a thing but move in a different kind of way.

Your words need to match your actions.

And so the board had to engage deeply in that conversation in a way that I don't think a community foundation board is used to having to step into the community, and dealing with people that have a clear agenda and demands.

And the outcome of that was the foundation amending this grant, making policy to ensure that no resources, so DAFs, core grant making, none of it, was going to organizations that are engaged in unlawful discrimination and hate activities.

Now that's how it may sound like a basic thing, but that's even a new movement for community foundations to be moving for policies that implement that.

They may have had it on their core grant making discretionary side, but no one touches the DAFs, right?

And so this was a significant move pushed by community for Seattle Foundation to change.

I think another- - [Dan] Did that include defunding the police foundation?

- So no, not at this point, because unlawful discrimination is not the same thing as harm.

That's a gray area, right?

And so that's the space of work we're actually in right now, around it's one thing to have legal definitions that we can pull on for these things, and screen, and deny grants around.

It's another thing to think about what does it mean to address harmful grant making, right?

And that is gonna rely on what are your values at the end of the day?

And having courage to say that while this may not be legally in this space of hate or discrimination, it is not aligned with our values.

- So have you had an instance then where the donors to a particular DAF have been trying to direct funds to an entity that you guys will not fund, and you've had to say no, and then have the tough conversation with them where they've already given you the money, and you're saying we're not gonna do what you're asking us to do with it.

- Yeah, yeah.

- How'd that go?

- It's a spectrum of things.

(audience laughing) It's a spectrum of responses, and I'm sure Michele's looking like, be careful about what you say.

(Dan laughing) (Alesha laughing) So I think, again, it goes back to relationship in some ways, right?

Because what we are finding is, I think one perfect example that I always think about is that we had a DAF, very small grant, like $2,000 that they were sending to an organization that hit the screen that we would deny the grant.

And so we sat down and had the conversation with the husband and the wife.

What we learned in the scenario, it is that it wasn't the husband and the wife requesting that grant out of their fund, it was their daughter that just did it annually, asking them to move dollars to this organization she wanted to support.

So the conversation became less about we're denying your grant, and it actually centered on this is a father that has to have a very tough conversation with his daughter who he loves dearly, right?

And so how do we prepare him to have that conversation?

Because once he understood our policy, he got it, right?

But where he needed help, I gotta call my kid and tell her that.

Like this is a thing.

- I'm wondering what organization this was that you denied the grant to?

You don't have to say that.

(audience laughing) Can you describe the kind of organization it was?

What kind of organization hits that screen and gets like, no, sorry.

- So I'll give examples of things that have come up, groups that actively fight against services or programs for LGBTQ+ youth.

We had one instance of an organization that did a lot of comms and marketing work around how slavery actually wasn't that bad for Black people, it taught us marketable skills.

Stuff like this hits the screen that we have to say, I don't, okay, no.

- Okay.

(Alesha laughing) Got it.

Thank you for sharing what you shared.

(audience laughing) That's helpful.

So in the end, though, with the couple who had contributed to the foundation, I mean, were they grateful for you raising this and giving them an opportunity to help their daughter get right with God?

- Or at least, (audience laughing) if she felt so inclined that she wouldn't do it through us, right?

And so I think the support to understand the why, and then how to move into action, that's the core of most of these conversations.

Of course there are some that will adamantly oppose and say, we're gonna move our resources, and we help them do that, right?

And I think that's a part of the courage thing that we're getting stronger with within community foundations.

That in the past advisors would not have wanted to have that conversation with the donor about threatening to move their funds, we would do everything possible to keep them there.

I think this environment we're in now is that if we are not aligned, that's okay.

Here are your other options of where you can take your fund to service what you need, and that's fine.

I also think there's a fear factor here that we're learning to get over as community foundations, and Center for Effective Philanthropy has done great research on this of this fear of loss, if we take a stand on values or a point of view actually does not result in this massive exit of donor-advised funds.

You may have some that trickle off, and again, shout out to my team that's done the analysis to actually know who's high risk that we actually have to be concerned about here, and what is the impact on our bottom line, right?

And we know that that risk is low for us in terms of operational impact for the ones that we can identify today.

But the bigger opportunity in all of this is who do you gain?

Because now you actually are clear about what you stand for, and what the work is that's been waiting on the sidelines to figure out who you are, and now they're ready to be on the ride with you.

That's the more interesting part of that conversation.

- And are you finding that?

- Oh absolutely, especially younger philanthropists, like the mid to late 30/40-year-olds that are like, - I understand you have some of those in Seattle.

- Actively engaged.

Oh yeah, I got a few.

(audience laughing) I got a few, and they're amazing.

They're an amazing group, right?

And so I think it's about that next generation of philanthropists starting to really step into this work, because they feel like there's a relevant institution that they can partner with.

- And are you finding that the next generation of philanthropists who would be millennials or Gen Z's are interested?

I mean, they're engaged in democracy building, in power sharing, they align with these values, that's what you're seeing?

- Yeah, yeah, and they may be in different parts of the spectrum in terms of their knowledge or comfort with dealing with those sorts of frameworks around, again, power sharing, values-based giving, trust-based giving, but they're growing up in a world where they feel much more inclined to be active in a way that is not saying that their parents or their grandparents weren't, it just looks different now as our world continues to evolve.

I think we're also finding that the depth of relationship is much more stronger in a lot of ways in terms of really I wanna say be hands-on and engage, and so we're always trying to balance what that means with organizations that are doing the work and actually don't have time to be entertaining people with wealth that wanna learn more like what are the least harmful ways for them to do that that doesn't disrupt the work?

But you also find folks that like technology is gonna be a big thing in our field, now any further into time, because especially in a region like Seattle where it's tech heavy, folks are looking for that app, for that thing that they can do to make giving easy, and so it's a lot of what we're thinking about, there's the deep relationship side, but also how is our technology innovative in a way that also supports people in giving through that lens.

- I wonder if you also, though, wind up having to educate some of your donors that there's not always an app for that.

- Oh yeah, that's why so much of it is relationship based, especially in Seattle.

I mean, shout out to Seattle, it is my community where I am at this point in time for sure, but there's a strong sense of, I can fix that, and it's on my phone.

It's not always on your phone, sweetie.

Like these are like, (audience laughing) this is human problems and opportunities, it is complex, it requires relationship, it requires a way to decenter yourselves, and generously listen, and show up and learn about experiences that are not your own.

You can't do that through an app.

- Can you talk about sort of where, I'm personally particularly interested in democracy and in philanthropies push into democracy building, and we've seen that in Cleveland Foundation and Gund Foundation here in Greater Cleveland in recent years as well as Saint Luke's and others.

And I know that's an area where Seattle Foundation is pushing resources as well.

What are the frameworks you're thinking about?

Where does democracy fit in the big picture and also what else are you thinking about?

- Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's a central part of the picture, right?

And so we have a vision for a joyful region of shared prosperity, belonging, and justice.

That's what we're striving for at the foundation.

Our mission is to harness resources for our collective good in order to reach that vision, right?

And a joyful region in our view is one that every child has real access to opportunity regardless of what they look like and where they came from.

And joy is the center of that work, 'cause everything that happens isn't bad, there's beauty and chaos, right?

And so we need to be able to celebrate the good as much as we're all out trying to solve these big, complex problems at the same time.

And so democracy absolutely is one of the center parts of the work that we drive in that space.

And it is the tried and true things that we know around really deep and authentic civic engagement, and civic education, so folks know the basics of who's the mayor?

Who are the city council members, right?

I pay taxes, I have a vote, y'all work for me, some of this core power building that is necessary for folks to feel like they have real agency in what happens in their community is also doing a lot of the work to invest in organizations across Washington state that are doing work to organize in communities, and turn out to vote to make sure folks know the issues, how they can engage, right?

That we actually recognize the power that residents have, and we give them the tools and the resources that they need to engage in meaningful ways.

And so that's a core part of our work.

Climate justice through a resilient environment is a big piece of our work as well.

Is our environment healthy?

Are our neighborhoods healthy?

Do people have quality options?

Whether it's parks or housing, what does that look like?

Displacement in Seattle is a real thing.

I am- - [Dan] Using that word instead of gentrification.

- It's gentrification, but also displacement in big ways, right?

I don't think I recognized the beauty of what it meant to grow up in a Black neighborhood to where I saw people that looked like me every day where it was normal to be surrounded by so much Black beauty and love.

And I have moved to a place that over the last decade Black neighborhoods have been decimated in Seattle.

You have neighborhoods like the Central District that I live very close to that years ago was 85% African American, today it's in the single digits in terms of the turnover, because of the pricing of the housing market, people either selling because they were convinced that was the thing to do at the time, or they've been priced out, and so they're living 45 minutes, an hour, even two hours away from the core city, 'cause they can't afford to live there anymore, and the pain that I see when you have these cultural markers of the Black Panther party, and crosswalks that are red, black, and green, that reflects something that's no longer here anymore, right?

That is devastating for me to see when I know the beauty of growing up in a Black neighborhood.

And so I purposely say displacement is a part of our work because it should not be the case that people that live for generations in a place can no longer be there today because they've been replaced by others that make way more money than them, right?

How do we still think about affordability?

(audience clapping) So a lot of our work around resilient environment, yes, it's about climate justice, but it's also about the work that goes into making sure that people can actually stay in place, and be able to afford to live within the community.

And then the last space that is kind of tied to that is around an equitable economy.

So when we talk about share prosperity, for that to be real we actually have to have equitable systems that allow for people to have a quality of life where they can thrive and be successful, right?

Shared prosperity is not just a term about feel-good philanthropy.

If we're not changing systems at the end of the day, we're not doing anything, right?

And so much of the work across those pillars of economy, and democracy, and environment, it's about systems change, it's about power building, it's about organizing within communities, 'cause that's where the real change comes from, is people at the end of the day, so how do we resource the organizations that are doing that work so people have real agency over their lives?

- Can I ask you to put a finer point on systems change?

What system do you wanna change?

Like what?

- Housing, tax, right?

- So speak specifically, what do you think needs to happen in Seattle?

What can we learn from it here?

- Yeah, so on housing, and all of these things go back to public policy systems.

Philanthropy is not alone.

Even in a city, a region like Seattle, philanthropy is not enough to create the kind of transformational population-level change that we're talking about, right?

And so we do a lot of work to bring things to scale around, whether it's a focus on Black home ownership, or affordable housing in terms of new builds, but it is about how do you impact housing policies at the local level, at the state level, and dare I say even at the federal level, but a lot of our focus is local and state, that it is not just about private dollars going into the system, but you actually have public sector dollars moving in a more flexible and creative way.

And it impacts the way that private players in the market are actually doing things that it's not so many barriers to actually trying to get affordable housing within a place.

On the tax side, another kind of key difference I've learned being in Seattle from Cleveland, Seattle loves a levy.

I thought Cleveland loved a levy, no, Seattle loves a levy.

(audience laughing) There's been six elections since I got there, and I'm struggling to keep up with what's happening.

But we just supported the passage of a nearly billion dollar housing levy in Seattle, right?

That is gonna bring a lot of affordable housing to the region.

It's a drop in the bucket to what's needed, but it's a push, right?

And it's an increase to get us on that path.

There's a transit levy likely next year, right?

To increase public access to transit in that way, so there is a lot of work happening to make sure that the public sector are moving resources at scale in a way that helps us actually get away at some of the problems that we're trying to solve for.

So impacting that system around tax policy and spending, it is a big piece of our work that we think about, from the spending to the campaigns, to the innovation that we can support government bringing something to scale by de-risking some of the early work that needs to happen to know if something can be successful.

- That's great.

Alesha Washington.

(audience clapping) So I have so many questions, but I'm not the only one with questions.

I think there's a number of people in the audience, most of whom love you madly, who have a few questions that they'd like to ask.

So we're about to begin the audience Q&A.

If you're watching on the live stream or just joining, I'm Dan Moulthrop, chief executive here at the City Club, and we are joined by Alesha Washington.

As I said, she's president and CEO of the Seattle Foundation.

She used to work at the Gund Foundation, she used to work at the Greater Cleveland Partnership, she used to work at the Centers for Families and Children, (audience laughing) she's Cleveland born and bred, and she has made our community much stronger and better as a result of all the work that you've done here, and we are so proud of you.

We welcome questions from everyone, all of you here in the audience today.

Members, guests, students joining us, students and those of you joining us via livestream at cityclub.org.

Remember, if you wanna text a question, you can text it to 330-541-5794, or you can tweet it @TheCityClub, and our team will work it into the program.

May we have our first question from Evelyn Burnett?

(audience laughing) - Oh hey, y'all.

I love you friend.

- I love you too.

- You've been away for two years.

What do you want us to focus on in your beloved hometown?

What are we missing now that you've had a little space from your beloved hometown?

- That is a really good question.

So two things come to mind.

I want the philanthropic community here to always take a hard look at itself, and think about the way in which it shows up with community.

In terms of conversation, in terms of how grantees and organizations are treated, in terms of your thoughtfulness about who's in the room when you're thinking through strategy, or thinking through ways to move resources.

There is a power dynamic in this community that looks very different from what I experienced in Seattle where there is much more power, and accountability, and autonomy that I see with organizations in a way that does not exist here.

Not in a real way, right?

And I think that we are responsible for creating those conditions for that to be, and I need y'all to get out of that, right?

And like really... (audience clapping) really just be thoughtful about how you're showing up, and listen generously, and practice humility, it's important because you and I talked about this Dan, to think about challenging a major philanthropic institution here, one would never.

I get challenged anytime I walk down the street in an organization of DAF.

(audience laughing) And that's healthy, that is actually healthy in terms of a balanced relationship, sharing of power, right?

And so I encourage that on one end.

The other thing that I would say is, I worked a lot in the economic and community development space here, and when I look at Seattle in some ways I almost feel like it's Cleveland a decade behind this, and I know we struggle with using the word gentrification in this community, right?

We don't see that yet because there's still so much work around how to just deal with vacancy, and abandoned homes, and demolition and all the things that I was very engaged in when I was here.

But if we're not careful, some of these small attempts that I'm watching around, all of a sudden a neighborhood name changes, right?

Who decided that name change, right?

I think about the work I was involved in around Clark-Fulton before I left, where you had a Puerto Rican, a Latinx community there, that's like this is our last place to go.

What is gonna happen is the hospital is doing this major development which is great, but what does that mean for us, right?

And these are these telltale signs that right now it may not feel like a lot, because we're still trying to deal with vacancy, and abandoncy, but like if we're not careful, we're gonna look up a decade from now, and our communities are gonna look different, and they're gonna be called something else, and you're gonna have Black and Brown people that feel displaced and traumatized the way that I'm looking at Black and Brown people in Seattle today.

And so that's what I would say.

- Good afternoon, I'm so proud to be a Tarblooder like you are from Glenville.

I want you to imagine that you are talking to an auditorium of Glenville students, and with what's going on so often they don't see any joy.

So I wanna hear how you would convince them that they deserve to be where you are.

(audience humming) - That's a beautiful question.

And I've thought about it just in terms of my own kind of growing up in Glenville and in this community, and I think the biggest thing that someone helped me see that I would wanna pass on is that the world is so much bigger than your neighborhood, right?

And my charge to educators, and to folks that are around kids are to make sure that they have access to those kind of opportunities that allow them to see that for real.

There's a notable core memory I have, and my mom is here so she may remember this, where I was in high school, probably junior year, and I got accepted into a program at Ohio State called the Essex School for the Gifted.

I think my English teacher at Glenville was a part of making sure that I applied to get into this, and I had never been to Columbus before, right?

That felt like a world away for me to be driven to Columbus and then dropped off by myself with a bunch of kids that did not look like me, and were not from my community, and I had to stay there for a couple weeks.

And I remember calling my mom crying that first night, come get me, 'cause I wasn't used to being around white kids like that, I wasn't used to being around kids from rural parts of this state, this was not my environment, come get me.

And I remember her telling me, you gotta do this, you gotta get through this, and by the end of those couple weeks I had new friends that I never imagined, right?

I had a view of just this state, and relationships, and community that was bigger than I could have ever imagined.

And it was because someone helped me see that my world was bigger than my neighborhood, and they pushed me into opportunities to help me experience that.

That's where the joy comes from, right?

I know what it's like to be in a neighborhood that, yes, the community is strong, but my friend got killed at the gas station up the street, right?

I know what that feels like, and had no one ever figured out a way to get me out of that environment to see what else existed, who knows where I would be?

So that would be my advice.

- Can we just recognize your mom for a second?

- Mom!

(audience clapping) - Great job, mom.

(audience laughing) - All right, so I have a text question for you.

What do donors need to know or hear to be more aligned with a funding approach that centers social change?

- So I think it is in some ways it's a little bit of work on both parts.

I think we have the opportunity at Seattle Foundation, and I think any philanthropic institution, about creating the types of experiences that help people learn, right?

I'm kind of past this is racial equity 101, right?

How do we actually help people get in community and have real conversations around gentrification, and displacement, and seeing things firsthand, and understanding it in a way that it changes their view, particularly through the power of stories.

I think the work on the donor side, again, is the same thing that I've been saying as a theme, it's generously listen, be humble, right?

None of us have all the answers to anything, and be thoughtful about the way that we put into practice these things that we're talking about.

Trust-based philanthropy is not meant to be just some term, it is meant to say that if you believe this organization has the ability to do this work, give them the resources, flexible resources, for them to do the work, don't be all in a business, I guess there's accountability that we have to watch for here, but if you trust someone to do the work, empower them to do the work.

And so I think that's both sides of it.

- Hello, there.

- Hello.

- Earlier you said that you have values in your organization, and you've made some tough decisions about which organizations align with your values, and which don't.

I'm interested in hearing the thinking behind the framework you've had to create to do that.

Just as one quick example, and you don't have to speak to this when LVQT+ and then Evangelical Christian churches, that's in my mind a clear division, but I don't know that you can make that a clear division.

So that's the question.

- Yeah, great question.

And so when I referenced that earlier, that is work we're in in real time right now, right?

And so there's not a final answer on what that is, but the frame that is actually guiding us in that right now is a strategy process that we're in to really get clear about vision, and mission, and the strategies and approaches to our work.

And really wrestling with that question of, if this is about the power of us, this collective ability for our community to come together and move on issues that matter, then starting to set the values that define that, and again, this is that gray area, this is that space of unknown that we're all kind of charted into at this point around, then developing a clear set of values that if you make a decision or make a call, and there is pushback, you can stand firmly on what that is.

And so the story's not fully written on that yet, but more to come, but the processes are really around a clear strategy that helps us define things, and do that collectively with our fund holders, with our community partners and others, so that it's a collective path, not just us in the dark room coming up with this and then trying to roll it out to community.

- Hello, good afternoon, Alesha.

Welcome home.

My question is kind of twofold.

When I look at Cleveland, we have an aging demographic in the Cleveland area, and in Cuyahoga County, and so you see generational differences and preferences when it comes to the role of philanthropy.

What role are young professionals?

Do we value issues versus organizations?

Baby boomers have, there are certain perceptions and experiences.

And I'm wondering, what do you see out in Seattle?

Do you see generational differences when it comes to the role of philanthropy?

And if so, what are those differences?

- It's the same you just described, right?

I mean, I think while the context looks different, because communities are different, we are at this interesting kind of inflection point where you have baby boomers and others, if there are philanthropically engaged, thinking about the way that they want their kids or others to be engaged, right?

And sometimes they may find that their kids are not interested in doing it the way that they do it, right?

And so what does that mean for the resources I wanna pass on?

Or am I doing that and allowing them to do whatever they wanna do?

And then again, younger generations that do wanna be more active and hands-on, and how do you support that?

I think one thing I'm really interested in is how to create spaces for those generations to be coming together, and learning from each other, right?

I really feel like this is the crux of our work, and for a lot of us it's about breaking down these silos that just have long existed, and creating these spaces where as members of the same community we are learning from each other, right?

I have seasoned philanthropists that have a lot of knowledge to give, and they've been supporting me in that.

I have younger, passionate folks that wanna be engaged, and there's some learning that can happen there, right?

And so how do we create that space for it to happen is what I'm interested in exploring.

- Welcome and thank you for being here.

- Thank you.

- You talked a little bit about with your past experiences, some not so great ones.

How do you manage to keep such a positive outlook, and portray such wonderful attributes and engagements, and it's wonderful that we have students here from various schools 'cause they can see that, and hopefully it's contagious, but how do you manage to keep that positivity, especially with the world in which we live today?

- Woo, we're gonna end on this question, right?

- [Dan] Yeah, we got a few more minutes.

(Alesha laughing) - Two things, joy and community, right?

That's what sustains me.

I mean, most of this room is my community, right?

This is family, these are friends, but there's a subset of this room, and I'm looking at one person right in front of me, that stay on the phone heavyweight, right?

Whether it is to laugh and joyful moments, or it's tears or I'm scared about a thing that I have to do.

That community that can come around you to balance the challenge and also celebrate the wins is important.

And joy, I keep coming back to it, 'cause joy is not happiness, it's not that everything in your life is going well, it's the ability to still persist in the midst of it, right?

And so joy is such an important part of that journey for me because that is another piece of what sustains me, even when things are chaotic all around me.

(audience clapping) - Alesha, thank you so much.

I'm Jennifer Trivelli from Mission Investors Exchange.

- [Alesha] Oh, nice.

- You mentioned impact investing briefly, and you mentioned that philanthropy needs a new business model, and that philanthropy alone cannot make the changes that we wanna see.

So can you speak to your view on your impact investing strategy at Seattle, and what you're doing to address housing, and some of those thorny issues, and the way that you're engaging donors, especially in that body of work?

- Yeah well, first of all, I love your organization, I love Mission Investors Exchange, - Thank you, - very much so.

- Back at you.

(Alesha laughing) - And so we have a couple signature efforts that we've been pushing over the last several years to kind of test our ability to use impact investing as another tool to do this work.

A notable one is our Evergreen Impact Housing Fund.

This was launched in 2020.

We collaborated with philanthropists and others to seed an initial $50 million at that time, since 2020 we've raised nearly 500 million that has gone into real affordable housing projects across the broader region.

And so we just broke ground on a project in a community just outside of Seattle and broader King County, or Pierce County, and we have more in the pipeline, and we're also now creating opportunities for more of our donors to co-invest with us in that type of work.

Because again, this is our piece of knowing that if we can identify which the city has done well, the number of housing units across the spectrum, so affordable, all the way up to market rate, we're focused more on the affordable end, that we're gonna need in the next 20 years to be prepared for more population growth, this is our way of getting at that in a big way.

And we have other efforts that we're starting to bring online around equitable development.

It's a really intriguing thing for me to see the number of community-based organizations that are not developers, but trying to get in that space of development now because of the needs in neighborhoods, and the private market not serving them, development is not for the faint of heart, right?

And so the work that goes into actually creating spaces for BIPOC developers to actually get the support, and access, and resources that they need to step in.

So shout out to Cadence in the room, right?

GCP table, folks already here doing this incredible work.

So kudos to you.

We're doing a version of that in Seattle to actually make a much more diverse and inclusive environment for equitable development through impact investing.

So those are some of the things that I'm proud of, that we're leveraging impact investing to do that, and we wanna do more with our balanced pool, actually our assets, to leverage that more creatively in this space.

And again, shout out to Cleveland Foundation that's already been down this path from a real estate standpoint, so lots to learn from, and lots more to do.

- Being in such a tech-driven area, what do you think is the foundation's role in closing the digital access gap?

- Oh, such a good question.

We got a role in it, I would say for sure.

And a lot of that plays out at the K-12 educational level, right?

What access is starting fairly early on to support that?

And the benefit of being in a tech town is that we got some heavyweight partners, like a Amazon, and like a Microsoft, that can be good stewards in what that is.

And so many of us went through the stories at the height of the pandemic in terms of what equipment, digital tools that kids need as schools were shutting down.

We've stayed in that space of helping to continue with that work so kids have real access to those tools, but it's all a part of this larger conversation around public education that I know Cleveland's going through as well is that how do you make sure kids have access to the tools that they need while you're also dealing with a very challenged public education system in terms of funding, right?

And creating equitable environments across schools for the resources that kids have.

And that some schools are better off because they have more resource in their community, and others do not because of the impact of redlining and other things that create a resource deficit environment for them.

- We have another text question.

Following the murder of George Floyd, there was a sharp increase in big dollar business and philanthropic interest in racial equity, justice, and equality.

However, it feels like there has been just as drastic decrease in interest in that work the past couple of years.

Is that perception a reality?

And if so, what should philanthropy do?

- It is a reality, right?

I mean, we are seeing the articles, we are seeing the organizations that are going back to assess for all the companies that made those commitments.

How much spending or activity has actually occurred?

And it is underwhelming to the commitments that were made.

And we're also living in this environment where there is a very strategic play to really push back against all the gains that we've seen over the last I'll give it a decade to be generous, right?

But this work around racial equity and justice, we are seeing very explicit pushback against that through I think it's the Fearless Fund, a Black woman-led investment firm that is trying to lean in and support Black female entrepreneurs that is being challenged with lawsuits, right?

In court, right?

The way that the Civil Rights Act is actually being kind of, just completely gutted and pushed in a way that now the focus of it and the intent is being flipped on its head, to now push away from what that is, right?

And so we're in a real moment in time right now where there is a strong push, and very calculated push, to push back on the gains we've been pushing for, and the gains have always been around actually trying to create a system that was never meant to work for all of us to actually work for all of us, right?

And so given that, I need everybody to have their eyes wide open, right?

I need people to be standing in courage, right?

Because the pushback is real, and it is in our community, these are not national headlines.

I think it was, and I'm gonna blank on the financial institution that also had a challenge against programs that they had targeted towards BIPOC entrepreneurs.

That lawsuit was filed in the Northeast Ohio District Court, this is real and it's happening in our communities, and I think for philanthropy, but not just philanthropy, for companies, right?

You gotta stand 10 toes down, right?

You have to hold firm to the commitments that you've made, you have to stand in the face of people threatening to sue, or pull resources.

Yes, it's scary, I live with that fear every day, that's when I jump on the phone with one of my friends because I'm feeling that as a human being, but if we step away, think about what we lose, think about what we lose for the kids in Glenville, or Central, or Hough, that won't have those opportunities because we got scared.

Think about what we lose for the entrepreneurs and others in this community that have been fighting for just this much of the pie that won't even have that if we get scared and step back, right?

Think about what we lose for Northeast Ohio in terms of our economic competitiveness, and how we get ahead knowing that we're the kind of community where we can't afford to leave people behind.

Think about what we lose if we get scared and step away from this fight.

And so I need us to lean all the way in, and support each other through the fear of that.

(audience clapping) - Well, to follow that up, (audience laughing) who are some of the Seattle grantees and/or community-based practitioners that are preserving Black culture in neighborhoods that we should pay attention to?

- Oh, I love that question, that's a good question.

So the first one I'm gonna shout out is a organization called Wa Na Wari.

It's an amazing story of a guy that was simply trying to preserve his grandmother's home in a community that, as I described earlier, was dealing with the type of gentrification and displacement that that was almost a near impossible task.

But he's held onto that home, and he turned it into a community space and an art gallery.

And before anybody knew I was CEO of anything, when I was just a new resident in Seattle, that was my safe haven.

That was the space I would go to on the weekend just to be among the art, and just to see Black people in community, 'cause it was one of those sacred places where you could still see a bunch of Black people gathering, and that was important for me.

And Wa Na Wari cuss me out a couple times, and that's fine, right?

(audience laughing) Once they realize who I was, but we good now, we've built a strong relationship.

(audience laughing) But even that I love, right?

The ability to build that kind of relationship, but for that to be a sacred space, I would say definitely pay attention to them.

Another one in the art space is a new gallery called ARTE NOIR.

That is, again, right in the heart of the Central District.

They were opened by a mother and daughter duo that has been big in the civic.

- What are you most concerned about, and what are you most excited and energized by?

- I think at a human level there's always gonna be a question of am I doing this right?

Is this enough?

There's always gonna be that thing of, am I doing enough?

Am I doing this right?

What does that mean?

Michele always is my confidant for me to storm into wherever she's sitting that day and be like, am I getting this right?

And then she talks me off that cliff.

What I'm energized by, what I look forward to, I think it is this work as a whole.

Yes, it is hard, and it can be frustrating, but there is something so beautiful in the opportunity to actually see our communities become the place that we always dream of, right?

To actually know what it means to experience a joyful community.

Because, again, joy is something I think we can all relate to regardless of our lived experience and where we came from, and to think about the opportunity for all of us to experience that authentically, that excites me.

- All right.

Well, Alesha Washington, you may be building a new community for yourself in Seattle, but you need to know that this is always yours right here.

Thank you for spending some time with us today.

(audience laughing) Are you okay?

Okay, good.

I need your help on something here.

I'm gonna close it out, and then you get to ring the gong to close it out.

- Oh, sure, okay.

- So big thanks to Alesha Washington for joining us today.

Again, president and CEO of the Seattle Foundation.

Our forum today is part of our Health Equity series, which we present in partnership with the Saint Luke's Foundation.

Thanks, guys, appreciate you.

We'd also like to welcome students from MC2STEM High School and Wickliffe High School.

Great to have you all with us today.

(audience clapping) Also many thanks to the guests at tables hosted by CHN Housing Partners, Enterprise Community Partners, G2G Consulting, Greater Cleveland Partnership, Seattle Foundation, the George Gund Foundation, ThirdSpace Action Lab, United Way of Greater Cleveland, and the Urban League of Greater Cleveland.

Did I get 'em all?

I think I got 'em all, awesome.

(audience clapping) Tomorrow we are welcoming her excellency Oksana Markarova, the ambassador of Ukraine to the United States.

She'll be joined here on stage by Senator Rob Portman to discuss the latest from the front lines in Ukraine.

We will be off on Friday, November 24th, so we wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving.

We're back here on Friday, December 1st, with a conversation among the presidents of Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland State University, and Tri-C. Yeah, I know, it's gonna be pretty good.

So there's plenty of other really cool stuff coming up too, check it all out at cityclub.org.

Alesha Washington, high five, and thank you, please.

Yeah, you can adjourn.

Our forum is adjourned.

(bell dinging) Thank you.

(audience clapping) - [Narrator 2] For information on upcoming speakers or for podcasts of the City Club, go to cityclub.org.

(ambient music) - [Narrator 1] Production and distribution of City Club forums on Ideastream Public Media are made possible by PNC, and the United Black Fund of Greater Cleveland Incorporated.