During the summer of 2022, a group of WaWF members and community members met several times to review applications submitted for the Collective Grants that also indicated an interest in being considered for our Advocacy Grants. The committee split into three subgroups to review and research organizations in our 2022 priorities: Mental Health and Housing, the School to Prison Pipeline, and Community Cultural Preservation.
The committee had great conversations about what we mean when we say advocacy, and how best to try and understand the broad range of advocacy activities happening in Washington State. Stay tuned for more lessons learned from Chair Megan Bruce coming soon!
Through a collective process, the grant committee decided to make six, $7,500 grants to organizations with a focus on community-centered advocacy. We are delighted to introduce them to you today and encourage you to visit their websites and support their work.
Community Cultural Preservation
Native Action Network: Our mission is to enhance the beauty, strength, and integrity of the American Indian & Alaska Native community through personal empowerment and civic participation.
Para Los Niños: From birth and beyond, Para Los Niños (PLN) supports and empowers the entire Latino family through early learning and kindergarten readiness, literacy and academic skills development, summer enrichment, and social justice parent leadership programs. Our mission is to support Latino families to transform their communities and create academic and life success for every Latino student. PLN believes that all Latino children are capable of excellence, and we achieve that goal by building culturally relevant programs upon a foundation of love and respect, supported by a community leadership model that recognizes the talents and skills of each person. We have built deep relationships of trust with the Latino immigrant community in Washington because we operate as a bilingual and bicultural organization that uplifts our community’s language, culture, and heritage.
Mental Health & Housing
New Connections: Our mission is to interrupt the poverty-to-prison pipeline and promote community reintegration after incarceration.
Open Doors for Multicultural Families: Open Doors for Multicultural Families engages and partners with culturally and linguistically diverse individuals with developmental/intellectual disabilities and their families, using a cultural brokerage model to navigate services, provide specialized programming, and advocate for systems change.
School to Prison Pipeline
South King County Discipline Coalition: The South King County Discipline Coalition’s mission is to end disproportionate discipline of students of color and interrupt the school to prison pipeline through anti-racist organizing, leadership development, and advocacy strategies that center parents and youth directly affected.
Powerful Voices: Powerful Voices (PV) creates brave spaces with girls* of color to take charge of their own power as leaders, igniting their abilities to confidently express themselves, build community, and act against injustices affecting their lives. [*A girl is anyone who identifies as one!] We are deeply committed to disrupting the school-to-prison pipeline and uplifting Seattle area BIPOC-youth-led movements working to dismantle institutional racism, sexism, adultism, and other systemic oppressions.