For years, Washington Women’s Foundation has stood unwavering in our support of racial and gender equity. We have championed diversity and inclusion, belonging and justice.

We have no plans to stop.

Our dedication to supporting people of all backgrounds—LGBTQIA2S+, Black, Indigenous, incarcerated, homeless, hungry, immigrant, impacted by climate change, women—remains steadfast. We are committed to addressing the systemic impacts of white patriarchal supremacy on areas like healthcare, education, the arts, climate, housing, hunger, and the law. This has been our work for three decades. It is what we do.

Our commitment to equity is long standing, and we are proud of the people and causes we have served through the many nonprofit partners we have had over the years. Among others, we have supported:

• LGBTQIA2S+: We gave to Ingersoll Gender Center, Gender Diversity, and GenPride, organizations that offer vital services for individuals with diverse gender identities and sexualities.
• Immigrants and Migrants: We granted to Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, Voices of Tomorrow, Casa Latina, and Firelands Workers United/Trabajadores Unidos, all of whom advocate for and empower immigrants and migrants.
• Women: We helped fund The Ttáwaxt Birth Justice Center, Planned Parenthood of Greater Washington and North Idaho, and Cierra Sisters, because they champion bodily autonomy, self-expression, and safety for women.
• Black and Brown Children: We gave to South End Stories, Yakima Music en Acción, Palmer Scholars, and the Salish School of Spokane as they work tirelessly to protect and inspire Black and brown children facing systemic racism in their educational life.
• Incarcerated and Economically Marginalized People: We granted to Downtown Emergency Service Center, The Way to Justice, Freedom Education Project Puget Sound, Path with Art, and Choose 180 who advocate for the dignity and rights of incarcerated individuals and those living in poverty.
• Environmental Justice: We helped fund Got Green, Peacekeeper Society, Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition, and Nurturing Roots because they strive to protect our land, air, food, and water from the impacts of pollution and climate change.

Our commitment today is the same as it was last year, five years ago, ten years ago: partnering with a broad swathe of local nonprofits to eliminate racial and gender inequities in Washington State. And the need for broad-based support across many areas of the nonprofit sector is now greater than ever, as this article from the Center for Effective Philanthropy illustrates: How Funders Can Respond to an Unprecedented Threat to Nonprofits.

As individual members and as a collective giving Foundation, we hold the power, privilege, and protections necessary to address this hollowing support for socially beneficial work as a whole. We must grow and fill this vacuum as best we can, using all our available resources—our time, talent, treasure, testimony, and ties. Because if not us, then who? If not now, then when?

It turns out, we must practice now what we have always practiced and remember what we have always known.  When we pool our resources, our impact is greater. We are stronger together. We go farther as a group.

We are a strong and inclusive collective of informed women who together influence community transformation. Now, more than ever, we must embody that collective strength and our united drive to make the world a better place for all.

In the end, the people who will save us all are all of us. Together.

Over the coming months we will explore together long-term possibilities for how we can come together to better serve our community in the future, even as we strive to meet the current moment. Throughout any changes we make, however, we will remain committed to helping create, with our nonprofit partners, a world where every human being can develop and explore their full human potential and thrive in a world made equitable for all. Despite the challenges that have erupted of late, our fight, our dreams, and our vision for a just and equitable world remain undiminished.

Onward!

Maria Kolby-Wolfe

President & CEO