We're Hiring a Center for Philanthropy Building Manager

Posted: 10/14/2020

Application Deadline: Open until filled or 5pm, 11/13/2020

Hours: 40 hours per week 

FLSA Status: Exempt

Salary Range: $50,000 - $60,000

Location: Portland, Oregon

Northwest Health Foundation is seeking a full-time building manager to join our team of spirited and dedicated professionals to support the Center for Philanthropy’s operations.

Northwest Health Foundation owns and operates the Center for Philanthropy in Portland’s historic Old Town/Chinatown neighborhood to provide a shared office environment for the Foundation, other foundations and nonprofit organizations. The Center for Philanthropy (C4P) provides shared phone, Internet access and printers along with meeting spaces for tenants and community organizations.

The C4P Building Manager will be responsible for oversight and management of the building. This position is integral to both providing a warm, welcoming and inclusive place for NWHF staff, tenants and visitors and to ensuring the physical building stays safe, clean, and well maintained. This includes working with vendors that provide managed IT services, cleaning, HVAC and other routine maintenance and services; coordinating office and community meeting space; managing tenant relations and leasing; and overseeing building operations and maintenance.

Introducing our New Public Affairs Manager

Today we are overjoyed to announce our new Northwest Health Foundation staff member: Felicita Monteblanco.

Felicita will start at Northwest Health Foundation on August 24. As public affairs manager, Felicita will support advocacy campaigns to change public policy, often in partnership and at the direction of community-based organizations. She will also manage government relations and lead NWHF’s communications, among other responsibilities.

Most recently, Felicita was the policy and advocacy officer for Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center, which serves Washington and Yamhill Counties and is the largest federally qualified health center in the state. Prior to Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center, she worked at Vision Action Network, building a network of connected nonprofits and philanthropic leaders throughout Washington County.

Felicita was elected to the board of directors for the Tualatin Hills Park & Recreation District in 2017.
(Read this blog we wrote a couple years ago about Felicita and her friend and fellow elected official Erika Lopez.)

Felicita hosts quarterly gatherings for Latinx leaders in Washington County to connect around social justice issues. She was recognized for her service to the community with the American Association of University Women “Breaking Barriers” award in 2019.

In her free time, Felicita loves to dance, travel and canvass for candidates she believes in. 

Please join us in welcoming Felicita to our team!

We're Hiring a Public Affairs Manager

POSTED: April 8, 2020
APPLICATION DEADLINE: 5pm, May 8, 2020
HOW TO APPLY: Submit a cover letter (2 pages max) and résumé (2 pages max) as a PDF via email to employment@northwesthealth.org with “Public Affairs Manager” in the subject line. 

The Public Affairs Manager is responsible for providing strategy, leadership and implementation in public affairs and communications. This is a full-time, exempt position reporting to the President & CEO. Salary depending on experience. Excellent benefits package with retirement, full medical and dental insurance and generous paid time off. 

Goodbye and Q&A with Michael Reyes, Community Engagement Officer

Michael and his son Fidel posing with Plank.

A few words from Northwest Health Foundation Director of Programs Jen Matheson:

In this precarious moment it is dedicated and reliable people that give us reassurance. Michael Reyes Andrillion has been just that at NWHF for the past six years. 

Michael has been the key driver of our disability equity work, stewarded the Kaiser Permanente Community Fund, Healthy Beginnings + Healthy Communities and otherwise lent his expertise across our programs. He has had a tremendous positive impact across our organization and this region. 

How Michael shows up to support partners has changed who we are as an organization. Whether it was traveling to Eastern Oregon to meet with local leaders, finding a new meeting location to ensure accessibility, or staying late to clean up after an event, his willingness to show up and serve is a practice we strive to continue. 

We are thrilled for Michael’s new role at the Oregon Department of Education. Oregon’s students and families have an advocate who centers community voice and power. We are excited to see the impact he will make for educational and racial justice in our state. 

Saying goodbye to a beloved colleague is hard, but saying goodbye during a global pandemic is an unexpected challenge. As we work from home we are finding ways to celebrate Michael and look forward to a future date when we can raise a toast and offer a hug in person. 

Michael's last day with NWHF is March 27th. We will miss him so much. 

Read more about transitions at NWHF here.

Q&A with Michael:

Q. What are you most proud of having worked on during your time at NWHF?

I’m proud of seeing all the accomplishments our funded partners have made in the legislature and at the ballot. As the funder, we cannot and should not take credit for the hard work our communities went through to pass these policies. But I know we helped a bit and gave their organizations funding and capacity and resources to stay in the fight. When I think about important policies like restoring driver’s licenses and Cover All Kids, it feels really good to know we contributed to that.

Q. What’s something you’ve learned at NWHF that you’ll carry with you?

Relationships matter and we should all be in the business of relationships. None of the work we do at NWHF would be possible without the relationships we forged with our community partners. And those relationships don’t form simply because we’re a foundation and we have money to give them. I hope we earned their trust by spending time in their communities, sharing meals, having tough conversations, and really getting to know the people who do the work. 

Q. What’s something that you contributed to NWHF that you hope will continue after you’ve left?

I hope the foundation continues to prioritize meeting our communities where they are at. We spent so much time across our region of Oregon and SW Washington being in community and you could always tell they appreciated having the funding partner come to them and get to know them in their own backyards. One of my favorite comments from a community partner I visited in Burns, Oregon once was, “wow, no one ever comes out here to visit with us.” You could tell it meant so much to her.

Q. What will you miss most about NWHF?

My team. We really did become like a family because we spent so much time together not only in the work but opening up our personal lives to each other. Everyone there inspired me to do my best because I was surrounded by colleagues who are all doing their best too.

These are some of the most amazing people I’ve ever worked with and I’m honored to consider them my friends.

Q. What advice do you have for the philanthropic sector?

Philanthropy has been the community’s steward, and often the gatekeeper, for funds and resources for many, many years. It’s time communities have more of a say where those resources go. I challenge funders to go out there and build stronger relationships with community partners. Make them part of your decision-making and re-examine how your policies and practices keep communities out. Most importantly, if your staff and board don’t reflect the communities you serve, make an honest effort to fix that.

Q. What’s next?

I’m excited to share that I will be joining the Oregon Department of Education in a new role as part of the Student Success Act. This was such a monumental piece of legislation that will invest significant resources back into our schools. The state is working to ensure that community members have a say where those funds go. I’ll be working with schools, community partners and state leaders to improve educational outcomes across our state for Latinx students and families.

What’s very exciting is I get to bring so much of what I learned at NWHF and many of the relationships I’ve forged with me. I may be in a new role at a different organization, but I know I’ll be seeing many of you around!

Q&A with Michael Alexander, Our 2020 Board Chair

Q. What attracted you to join Northwest Health Foundation’s board of directors?

A. I had an opportunity to be introduced to the Northwest Health Foundation board when I was working at Regence Blue Cross Blue Shield, and I thought, this is an impressive group of people. This is a foundation involved in transformative work. Thomas Aschenbrener was still the president, and Reverend Mark Knutson, Phil Wu and Nichole Maher were all on the board.

Three to four years later, while serving as CEO of the Urban League of Portland, after Nichole became president, she began carefully cultivating me. I realized NWHF might be thinking about asking me to join the board. 

Every time I visit the office and see my name and photo on the wall, I have a sense of being so honored to be part of this work.

Q. What have you been most excited to be a part of at NWHF?

A. The Healthy Beginnings+Healthy Communities initiative has been a wonderful way to gain a sense of emerging and compelling issues beyond the Portland corridor. The question of how we serve the needs of our greater service area has been a prime one for the board and for me. People throughout Oregon and Southwest Washington face the same challenges we do in Portland, but with fewer resources and often less focus from foundations. 

Learning is ongoing at Northwest Health Foundation. I admire the degree of self-reflection the staff engages in around who is missing and who needs to be brought to the table. We don’t try to find a comfortable place to ground ourselves, because it isn’t about our voice. It’s about providing a platform of self-determination for   marginalized communities.

Q. Is there anything in particular you hope to accomplish as board chair?

A. I want to continue the emphasis on addressing issues of equity related to geography and disability rights. It’s important to look at each of these through the lenses of communities of color. In addressing these foci, the overlay of race is a primary consideration for the Foundation. We’re missing an opportunity to optimize our impact if we don’t include the voices of isolated and disabled BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color).

Q. What do you see as Oregon and Southwest Washington’s greatest opportunity? Our greatest challenge?

A. I think our greatest challenge and greatest opportunity are the same thing. Increasingly it’s become important to enable and empower communities not just to find their voice, but to lead solutions. This includes running candidates for office, as well as increasing the degree of representative democracy across the region in getting community members on policy panels, boards and committees. NWHF’s Civic Health initiative, with its commitment of both 501(c)3 and 501(c)4 resources, encourages and allows BIPOC communities to take advocacy to the next step, to create strategies that will best address issues.

Q. What do you do outside of chairing NWHF’s board?

A. I spend a lot of time looking at pictures of my seven grandchildren on Facebook, six of whom are  on the East Coast. They range from 13 months to six years old. 

I serve on the Port of Portland Commission, which deals with large and emerging issues around our local waterways and Portland International airport. I also contribute a significant amount of time to serving on the board of the Black United Fund of Oregon, which is a wonderful complement to my work at NWHF.

Twice a week I go to what I call my  humbling exercise: a yoga class. I’ve been going for two years, and I never get better. I also cycle to many of my meetings at the Foundation from Sellwood. 

Northwest Health Foundation and the Black United Fund are particularly close to my heart. I can’t think of a better way to spend my disposable time. 

Q. Is there anything else you want to share?

A.  Northwest Health Foundation is so fortunate to have a tremendous staff. We transitioned very thoughtfully from the skilled and enlightened leadership of Nichole June Maher to the timely and strategic leadership of Jesse Beason. He, and the rest of the staff, are the right people to guide us through the strategic pivot point of Civic Health.

Goodbye and Q&A with Jason Hilton, VP of Finance

A FEW WORDS FROM NORTHWEST HEALTH FOUNDATION PRESIDENT JESSE BEASON:

Jason brought his expertise to bear across the Foundation’s investments. He deftly moved us into a more responsive portfolio, guided mission-related investment work and helped elevate our role in both owning and managing the Center for Philanthropy. Throughout, Jason brought humor and stories forged from a childhood in southern Oregon and a continued love of the outdoors. We will miss him!

Q&A WITH JASON:

Q. What are you most proud of having worked on during your time at NWHF?

A. I am very proud of the fact that during the past six years we have increasingly been able to incorporate our values into our investment process. As a result, we have been able to drive significant impacts in Oregon, as well as around the globe, while still achieving investment returns sufficient to cover our spending needs and grow Northwest Health Foundation’s endowment.

Q. What's something you've learned at NWHF that you'll carry with you?

A. I have learned so much during my tenure here. Having had opportunity to spend time getting to know diverse communities around our state, learning about the history of racism in Oregon, and seeing the challenges different communities face has been both eye opening and life changing. I can’t think of many other jobs in the financial world where I would have had that opportunity.

Q. What will you miss most about NWHF?

A. Besides the innumerable opportunities to share feelings in meetings, I will miss my colleagues the most. It is rare to work alongside such talented and wonderful people.    

Q. What advice do you have for the philanthropic sector?    

A.  I have become increasingly convinced that lived experience matters as it relates to our work.  I would encourage philanthropy to consider lived experience in relation to mission statements as it selects leaders, employees and grantees.  I believe the work is more effective when we have leaders and employees who reflect and can identify with our priority communities.  

Q. What’s next?

A. I am looking forward to some much-needed rest and time with friends and family over the holidays. Then I will begin to thoughtfully contemplate my strengths and experience and hopefully identify a job opportunity where I can have a significant impact.

We're Hiring a Part-time Director of Finance

POSTED: October 30, 2019
APPLICATION DEADLINE: Open until filled OR 5pm, November 22, 2019
HOW TO APPLY: Submit cover letter and resume to employment@northwesthealth.org

This part-time (.25 FTE) position is responsible for oversight and management of the investment, accounting and financial functions of the Foundation and other administrative areas. It works closely with other senior leaders to drive growth and seek improvements in operational processes.

We're Hiring a Building & Office Manager

POSTED: October 3, 2019
APPLICATION DEADLINE: Open until filled OR 5pm, November 1, 2019
HOW TO APPLY: Submit cover letter and resume to employment@northwesthealth.org

The Center for Philanthropy Building & Office Manager is responsible for oversight and management of the Center for Philanthropy. This includes managing office and community meeting spaces, tenant relations and leasing, and building operations and maintenance.

Goodbye and Q&A with Eduardo Moreno, NWHF Community Engagement Officer

A photo of Eddie in the Oregonian, holding a sign at a Yes on Measure 88 rally.

Eddie has helped transform who we are as a foundation, how we work and how we engage with community. Eddie brings graciousness and presence to everything he does, making sure everyone feels welcome and connected to each other. Eddie also brings joviality and curiosity, is quick to laugh, is game for the mundane and the novel, and is dogged at getting resources to the communities that deserve it most! He naturally sees the ways our local funding community can work together differently to better serve community-based organizations and encourages us to work harder to build those connections.

Through The UnWind, in partnership with Kaiser Permanente Community Fund, Eddie gathered leaders from across our region to come together, build relationships and learn about sustainable practices for social change organizing.

Eddie helped build the Health & Education Fund, convening five regional funders (no small feat!) to find shared values and develop a strategy focusing on the resilience and strength of parents and families, challenging our assumptions and pushing us to learn and fund in different ways.

We hope we can carry on his approach—centering people, honoring the power of relationships and building trust through working together.

Eddie will be deeply missed. We wish him the best on his next adventures!

Q&A with Eddie

A. What are you most proud of having worked on during your time at NWHF?

Q. This a tough one to answer, because I love every aspect of my work. The Health & Education Fund, Oregon Active Schools and the Momentum Fellowship are all prime examples of how diverse and unique our work at NWHF is, but when I started working here in 2012, we used to host community dinners where I had the opportunity to engage with familiar faces and meet rising community leaders from around the state. Spending that unstructured time over a meal to learn about one another helped inspire what I think my answer is…. The UnWind. From inception to implementation, I worked with our friends/partners at Kaiser Permanente Northwest to design a people-focused investment. I am proud of the two fearless facilitators and the 19 incredible community-based organizations who understood our vision and brought this program to life. I hope they continue to support one another and teach others in our sector the importance of unwinding.

Q. What’s something you’ve learned at NWHF that you’ll carry with you?

A. Relationships matter. Go where community is. We all have conflicting personal lives that sometimes limit our ability to travel, but our team at NWHF (board and staff) often plan tirelessly to bring our foundation to people and places outside of the Portland metro area. This is something I will continue to advocate for, and if you don’t believe this is effective, check out how our grant giving and community partnerships have changed over the years.

Q. What’s something that you contributed to NWHF that you hope will continue after you’ve left?

A. Work hard and have fun. We live in a topsy-turvy world, so let’s not burn ourselves out or think we are in this alone. I hope that NWHF will continue to invite our close friends and family to visit community. Sometimes it takes a little more time and energy, but in the end we all have a shared fate, and we need to include our loved ones in sharing both the good and the tough moments in our NWHF lives.

Eddie, former NWHF President Nichole June Maher, and Eddie’s Nana and Tata at Native Professionals Night.

Q. What will you miss most about NWHF?

A. Hands down, the NWHF family. I look forward to working every day, because the NWHF family extends beyond those who work here. Every day I interact with many thoughtful and hardworking leaders from community groups, philanthropy and government dedicated to making our region a better place to live for every person who calls Oregon and Southwest Washington home.

NWHF staff, Health & Education Fund consultant Dani Ledezma, and Parent Voices Oakland Executive Director Clarissa Doutherd.

Q. What advice do you have for the philanthropic sector?

A. Nothing is set in stone, and it’s time to evolve. Don’t let made up (sometimes archaic) rules get in the way of advancing your mission. Our community partners seek strong and unapologetic leadership in the philanthropic sector. The sector needs to continue to partner with community and step up to take risks when there are opportunities to do so.

Q. What’s next?

A. Wouldn’t you like to know?

Eighteen years ago I left El Centro, California and moved to this beautiful city. That meant I had to leave behind a loving, supportive family network I miss every single day. Today, I’m still fortunate to have five generations of Moreno-Araiza’s (that’s right, my grandparents are also great-great-grandparents) excited to reconnect and spend some much-needed uninterrupted quality time together. That’s about as much as I will share for now, but if you are in the SoCal area these next few months feel free to reach out and who knows… I may have mastered my Nana’s empanada making skills by then.

What’s Waiting for me in SoCal! [Eddie taking a selfie with ten of his family members.]

A Look Ahead: Changes at Northwest Health Foundation

There are few institutions more privileged than philanthropy. Such privilege can make us think we have the luxury of time and an infinite amount of resources. We know neither are true. 

We recognize that when it comes to health, too many of our friends, family and neighbors don't have the luxury of time. Historic and current injustices mean Indigenous and Black people, immigrants and refugees, people with disabilities, and many others face the biggest barriers to wellbeing and have for far too long already. NWHF has been evolving to focus on the bold steps needed to truly advance health for everyone in our region. 

We’re also evolving because we know our cash assets are not infinite and, in our minds, they don’t belong to us. They belong to our mission. Since 2012, this has meant making structural changes to manage our endowment for perpetuity while still increasing grantmaking. It also means, as I first mentioned back in January, further staff changes as we wind down grant programs that we've managed in partnership with other contributors.

This isn’t news to us, as we’ve been preparing for these changes over many years. But it might be news to you. Over the next ten months, we will reorganize our team. We will say goodbye to beloved colleagues whose impact on our work will last well beyond their time at NWHF. We will also hire for some new roles. (Curious? You can view our 2020 organizational chart.)

Some of the ways we do our work will shift. We will rely more on content experts outside of NWHF to support grantees in capacity building. But plenty will stay the same: our steadfast commitment to being a good partner to grantees, rolling up our sleeves when required, and coming alongside community-based work when we’re asked to.

Regardless of how long we’ve been preparing, these changes are not without difficulty or sadness. We make them with our mission in mind and in our effort to remain a small but mighty foundation focused on action. 

Yours,

Jesse Beason, President & CEO

Goodbye and Q&A with Laura Nash, our Communications Manager

A few words from Northwest Health Foundation President Jesse Beason:

This Friday, we bid farewell to our Communications Manager Laura Nash. Where is she headed? You’ll have to keep reading to find out!

From day one, Laura brought a keen eye for improving our communications. She helped crystallize our style to be more plain language and our approach to be supportive of our grantees, not self-congratulatory. But she expanded her role to be way more than we ever imagined. She brought her design savvy to our website and publications. She became integral to program planning. She helped lead our work exploring disability and disability justice, earning national attention in doing so. And she’s been a great friend to so many of us.

In her more than five years at Northwest Health Foundation, Laura has made a lasting impact and we will miss her dearly. But we are so proud of and excited for her next adventures!

Q&A with Laura:

Q. What are you most proud of having worked on during your time at Northwest Health Foundation?

A. Our disability equity work. I’ve been part of Northwest Health Foundation’s disability equity journey since I first started working here in 2014, from Learning Together, Connecting Communities to Advancing Disability Justice. I assisted with meeting logistics to help bring members of disability communities together in person and virtually. I also contributed to our Striving for Disability Equity blog series, in which we owned up to our mistakes and shared our efforts to do better. And, with Disability Justice Leaders Collaborative facilitator Stacey Milbern, I supported members of the Disability Justice Leaders Collaborative to create a recommendations report for advancing disability justice in Oregon and Southwest Washington.

Through communications, we held ourselves accountable to our word. We followed through on making our public meeting spaces fragrance-free, supporting disabled leaders of color and disability-led organizations, and introduced disability justice to community partners throughout our region. We also catalyzed other organizations, regionally and nationally, to examine their own practices and consider how they can do better by disability communities.

This work benefited me personally as well. Through learning and building relationships with disability communities, I realized that I feel at home with these communities. I realized that I am neurodivergent. And recognizing this has allowed me to examine my own internalized ableism and become more self-aware and self-confident.

Q. What’s something you’ve learned at Northwest Health Foundation that you’ll carry with you?

A. It would be impossible to name everything I’ve learned at NWHF, because I feel like so much of it has sunk into me and become integral to how I move through and think about the world. I’m not sure I could parse it all out. One lesson I can point to is how important it is for people to have a say in anything that affects their lives. It seems like common sense, but so many groups of people aren’t represented in decision-making positions. When our leaders reflect our communities, laws and policies will work better for all of us. I’ll hold on to this lesson and continue to contribute what I can to making reflective democracy a reality.

Q. What will you miss most about Northwest Health Foundation?

A. I’m going to miss the work environment. I know I’ll find jobs in the future that feel satisfying, where I know I’m doing good work. But I’m worried I’ll never find a workplace as supportive or fun as NWHF. Everyone at NWHF believes deeply in health equity and puts so much thought and time into making that vision reality. But we also pause for silliness and enjoy spending time with each other. I don’t know if I’ll ever have the chance to make a music video or organize an all-denim photo shoot with coworkers again.

Q. What’s your communications advice for the philanthropic sector?

A. Foundations and other philanthropic institutions should focus less on marketing themselves and creating shiny communications materials. As foundations, we of course need to put ourselves out there so people know we exist and what we’re about. We don’t need to be salespeople; grantees will come to us regardless. Instead, we should use our influence to tell truths, uplift our grantees’ stories, and educate and advocate on the issues we care about.

Q. What’s next? 

A. Grad school! I started a master’s program in fall 2018 at Pacific Northwest College of Art. In fall 2019 I’ll continue working on an M.A. in Critical Studies, and I’ll start working on an M.F.A. in Applied Craft + Design. That means I’ll spend the next two years reading, writing and making, three of my favorite things. I’ll also continue to do some freelance communications work. Oh! And wedding planning. My partner Teddy and I are getting married in 2020.

Announcing our New President

On behalf of the board of directors and staff of Northwest Health Foundation, I'm excited to announce that Jesse Beason has been named, effective immediately, our new President and Chief Executive Officer. 

Jesse has been with Northwest Health Foundation since August 2013, most recently as Vice President of Strategy and Public Affairs. He was selected to be our next president after a thorough national search conducted by Nonprofit Professionals Advisory Group with guidance from the NWHF board of directors' Presidential Search Committee. NPAG connected with hundreds of community partners and potential candidates before developing a short list of finalists.

Jesse's experience and expertise in policy and electoral work, his established relationships with community leaders and organizations throughout our region, and his bold vision for the Foundation's future, among other qualities, distinguished him as the best candidate to lead NWHF.

As we start 2019, the board and staff of Northwest Health Foundation will follow and work alongside Jesse in pursuit of our vision of health for everyone in Oregon and Southwest Washington.

Warmly,

Phil Wu, NWHF Board Chair

Updates on our Executive Search

August 22, 2018

As many of you know, Friday, August 3 was Nichole June Maher’s last day as Northwest Health Foundation’s president. In case you didn’t know, here’s our original post about her transition to a new role.

Since Nichole’s departure, we’ve received a lot of questions about what this means for Northwest Health Foundation. We’re writing this post to answer some of those questions.

1.     Do you have an interim president?

We do not. Our board and staff agreed on a shared leadership model during the transition. Our Vice President of Strategy & Public Affairs Jesse Beason and Director of Programs Jen Matheson are leading program operations, and our Vice President of Finance Jason Hilton and Operations Manager Stephenie Smith are leading internal operations.

2.     How are you going about hiring a new president?

Northwest Health Foundation’s board of directors formed an ad hoc search committee to guide our search for a new president. The search committee solicited and reviewed proposals from executive search firms and selected Nonprofit Professionals Advisory Group LLC. NPAG will conduct a search for NWHF’s next president with input and support from our board and staff.

3.     Are you accepting applications yet?

Not quite yet. Right now, the search firm is drafting and editing a new position description. They plan to open the position to applications in September and conduct outreach and interviews through December. [Now we are! Please see below. - 9/10/18]

4.     When will the new president start?

We hope the new president will start in early 2019.

We’ll continue to add updates to this post as we have them. Thank you for your patience as we work through this transition!

September 10, 2018

Nonprofit Professionals Advisory Group is now accepting applications for Northwest Health Foundation's next president. The position description is available on their website.

November 19, 2018

The executive search is going well, and we hope to name our new president in early 2019.

January 2, 2019

Happy New Year! We’ll announce our new president on January 22.

January 23, 2019

Our new president and chief executive officer is Jesse Beason! Read the announcement from our board chair.

Our President & CEO Prepares for a New Role

We are sad, proud and thrilled to announce that Northwest Health Foundation’s President and CEO Nichole June Maher has accepted a new position as President and CEO of Group Health Foundation.

Group Health Foundation was founded in 2015 and funded in 2017 with the profits from Group Health Cooperative’s sale to Kaiser Permanente. GHF is a 501(c)(4) with $1.72 billion in financial assets. Their mission is to shape and accelerate efforts to improve health equity and advance community aspirations for a vibrant, healthy future in Washington.

We know Nichole is the right person to lead GHF’s work. Over the last six years at NWHF, Nichole led the Foundation through a significant transformation. After years of giving to healthcare systems, mainstream nonprofits and research institutions, we shifted our approach to partnering with community-led organizations that focus on changing policies and systems. We increased our giving to communities of color, rural communities and disability communities significantly, and started to make better use of our 501(c)(4) resources.

We will miss Nichole so much, and we’re incredibly thankful for all that she’s accomplished in Oregon and Southwest Washington.

“Health stems from all aspects of our lives: education, economic opportunity, a sound environment, a connected community and loving family and friends. I have been so fortunate to experience all of this here in Oregon.

It is hard for me to leave Northwest Health Foundation and for my family to leave the place we’ve called home for so long. I also know that while a river may separate us, Washington and Oregon face many challenges in health equity together. I look forward to working on those challenges in my new role at Group Health Foundation. And I know that the many friendships I’ve forged, and community partnerships Northwest Health Foundation has created throughout our region, will endure. The staff and board at the Foundation are such an inspiration to me. I’ll miss them all dearly.”

— Nichole June Maher

Nichole’s last day at NWHF will be August 3rd. Northwest Health Foundation’s board will work with an executive search firm to select a new president and CEO over the coming months. Please stay tuned for more information.

Putting ALL our money where our mouth is with a contracting policy

Chef Naoko describing the food at an NWHF board dinner at her restaurant Shizuku.

We are proud of everything we have done at Northwest Health Foundation to ensure our grant dollars go to the communities who have the most opportunity to create positive change for everyone in Oregon and Southwest Washington. Over 75% of our grant dollars go to organizations led by people of color. Half of our grants go to organizations outside of the Portland metro area. And one out of ten go to disability communities. It has taken long-term, intentional work to reach these numbers.

However, our budget is more than just grants. We spend quite a bit of money operating as an organization, hiring consultants to support our grantees, contracting with caterers and hotels, maintaining the Center for Philanthropy (our downtown Portland office space) and more.

In 2012, when Nichole June Maher took over as Northwest Health Foundation's president and chief executive officer, she requested an audit of our operating dollars. She wanted to know what percentage of our operating budget was spent on hiring racial/ethnic minority, disability, LGBTQ and Oregon-owned firms. We were deeply dismayed to discover that only one half of one percent went to minority-owned firms, and 100% of our paid consultants were white.

Eager to make a change, our leadership team and board immediately began to research philanthropic best practices around minority contracting. Unfortunately, at the time, they couldn't find a single example within our philanthropic network of an organization that had passed a policy to prioritize contractors from specific communities. 

A Healthy Beginnings+Healthy Communities gathering at Kah-Nee-Ta Resort in Warm Springs, Oregon.

So we drafted our own policy centering minority, disability, LGBTQ and Oregon-owned companies, as well as companies that pay a living wage and provide quality health insurance and paid leave. We became members of the minority-led chambers of commerce in Portland and began to build our own list of vendors and caterers.

We also set a goal. Given that Northwest Health Foundation existed for almost 20 years contracting with majority white-owned businesses, we decided we should spend at least the next 20 years with a focus on supporting racial/ethnic minority-owned businesses, with a secondary goal of supporting Oregon-based, LGBTQ- and women-owned businesses.

Five years later, we have made significant progress. 95% of our consultants are people of color, and many are people of color with disabilities. Approximately 70% of our controllable business expenses go to minority-, LGBTQ- and disability-owned firms. (That's not counting women- and Oregon-owned firms.) This includes our plumber, our painters, our auditors, our lobbyist, Tribally-owned hotels across Oregon, amazing caterers and restaurants, photographers... We could go on.

The most important lesson we have learned is it's not hard to meet these goals. There are plenty of incredible businesses out there owned and operated by people who reflect all of Oregon and Southwest Washington's communities and support our values. 

Now, we challenge you philanthropic organizations and nonprofits across our region. Adopt a similar policy. Leverage all of your resources. Join us in supporting Oregon and Southwest Washington's opportunity communities.

A few tips for success:

• You must have a long-term strategy and long-term commitment. Work at it every day.
• Every member of your team can be a leader in this work. While it is critical for your board and senior leadership to commit to this goal, it's the staff who really make it happen through their day-to-day decisions and the relationships they build.
• Use all of your influence. For example, anytime anyone calls to reserve one of our meeting rooms, we encourage them to use a minority-owned and -operated caterer.
• Don't think of this as charity. It's a good business practice. At NWHF, every aspect of our operations and customer services has improved with this shift.

We are hiring a facilitator to lead UnWind

The Kaiser Permanente Community Fund at Northwest Health Foundation (KPCF) seeks a facilitator to lead UnWind. UnWind will convene two cohorts of leaders three times over a period of 18 months. These leaders will come from organizations that have applied to and/or been funded by KPCF and Northwest Health Foundation (NWHF). At the convenings, they will:

1. Individually and collectively reflect upon movement longevity;
2. Collectively identify and analyze challenges to collaboration, including both communications and relational challenges;
3. Practice and develop the skills to address personal and organizational conflict in support of building unity, trust and a broader movement for change; and
4. Build deep, trusting relationships across race, geography and disability.

To Apply: Submit responses to the questions asked in the Request for Qualifications (linked below) to Community Engagement Officer Eduardo Moreno at eduardo@northwesthealth.org by 3pm on Thursday, February 22, 2018.

Meet our new board members: Cyreena, Jorge and Mechele!

In December, we said goodbye to our board chair, Vanetta Abdellatif, and board members, Dr. Robbie Law and Carl Talton. They are incredible people. We can't thank them enough for their thoughtful guidance over the last eight years.

Fortunately, we have three promising new board members to take their place.

Cyreena Boston Ashby

Jorge Gutierrez

Mechele Johnson

Cyreena Boston Ashby is Oregon Public Health Institute's chief executive officer. She's worked with U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley and Governor John Kitzhaber, and most recently directed the Portland African American Leadership Forum.

Read more about Cyreena.

Jorge Gutierrez is the executive director of Lower Columbia Hispanic Council. He is involved not just with managing the organization but also participates in the day-to-day delivery of services.

Read more about Jorge. 

Mechele Johnson has served as a Shoalwater Bay tribal council woman and organized as a part of Willapa Bay Resistance, a grassroots cross-racial coalition that recruits candidates to run for office and builds the voices of low-income people of color and rural Washingtonians.

Read more about Mechele.

At Northwest Health Foundation, we believe the staff and board of an organization should not only be experts in their fields, but reflect the communities they serve. Cyreena, Jorge and Mechele are community leaders and strong advocates for health across Oregon and Southwest Washington. We look forward to the expertise and perspective they bring to our board.

In addition, board member Dr. Phil Wu will take over for Vanetta Abdellatif as board chair; Michael Alexander will take over as vice chair; and Donalda Dodson will serve as secretary.

We're making some staffing changes

We like to say that we are a small but mighty foundation. After a bittersweet goodbye to our friend and colleague Suk Rhee, we set about retooling some roles to make Northwest Health Foundation that much mightier.

Today, we're excited to announce those changes.

Jesse Beason

Jen Matheson

Eduardo Moreno

Jesse Beason is now our Vice President of Strategy & Public Affairs. Jen Matheson is our Director of Programs, providing oversight for NWHF's grantmaking initiatives and programs. Michael Reyes Andrillon and Eduardo Moreno will be our Community Engagement Officers, and Laura Nash, Communications Manager, will increase her hours, joining us full-time to lend support to our program team.

We can't think of a better team of ten to drive our vision for health and our foundation for action!

Goodbye, Suk Rhee

Friday, August 11, is our Vice President of Strategy & Community Partnership Suk Rhee's last day at Northwest Health Foundation. Portland Commissioner Chloe Eudaly recently appointed Suk to direct the Office of Neighborhood Involvement, and she begins her new job in two short weeks, on August 21.

Here at NWHF, we couldn't be more proud of and excited for our friend and colleague's next step. Suk is deeply committed to the health and well-being of everyone in our region; always asks difficult, big-picture questions; fosters a welcoming and inclusive environment wherever she goes; and understands the importance of community-led change. We know she will impact the Office of Neighborhood Involvement, and the whole City of Portland, in positive and meaningful ways.

Suk started working at Northwest Health Foundation in January 2005, more than twelve years ago. She's been a part of some big decisions and transitions here, as well as most of our favorite memories. We are sad to see her go, but we're happy she won't be moving far!

A few words from Suk:

When my family immigrated to this country, we landed in North Carolina. There are many reasons to love NC, yet, I never gained a sense of belonging or home there. This feeling is captured in a passage in The Moon and Sixpence (by W. Somerset Maughn): 

I have an idea that some men are born out of their due place. Accident has cast them amid certain surroundings, but they have always a nostalgia for a home they know not...Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs. Here is the home he sought, and he will settle amid scenes that he has never seen before, among men he has never known, as though they were familiar to him from his birth. Here at last he finds rest.

There have been a few places where I have found such rest. This region, its communities and the work we have pursued together through my many years here at Northwest Health Foundation have felt like home. 

I leave NWHF this month to join the City of Portland’s Office of Neighborhood Involvement as its Director. Thank you to everyone who has walked some part of this journey with me—for the actions you have taken, the lessons you have taught me and simply, for being your brilliant self.  You have graced my time here with your leadership, humor and optimism, for which you have my endless gratitude and love.

Celebrating Local Social Justice Heroes

We know that community building happens in shared spaces. Here at Northwest Health Foundation, we are privileged to have large, well-equipped meeting rooms and excited to be able to offer these rooms on a daily basis to nonprofit organizations serving our region.

Recently, we realized we can do more to welcome and recognize the communities who use the Center for Philanthropy's spaces. With this in mind, we've renamed our meeting rooms after local social justice heroes. While the rooms' previous names (Bamboo, Jade, Orchid, Ming) nodded to the Center for Philanthropy's address in Portland's Old Town Chinatown district, the new names celebrate leaders who contributed to our communities' health in a big way.

These are the rooms' new namesakes:

 

Photo from The Oregon History Project

BEATRICE MORROW CANNADY (1890-1974)

Beatrice Morrow Cannady was a civil rights activist and founding member of Portland’s branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). She used her position as editor of the Advocate, Oregon’s largest African American newspaper, to defend the rights of African Americans in Oregon and southwest Washington.

Read more about Beatrice.

Photo from OregonLive.com

ARTHUR HONEYMAN, MFA (1940-2008)

Arthur Honeyman was a prolific essayist, poet, publisher and disability rights activist who did things his own way. Among his life adventures: running for Oregon’s state legislature twice on a platform of “Spastic Power,” shuffling his wheelchair from Portland to Salem along the freeway to protest the lack of disabled access on buses and springing his mother out of a mental institution.

Read more about Art.

Photo from The Oregon Historical Society

IWAO OYAMA (1886-1952)

Iwao Oyama edited and published Oshu Nippo, the primary Japanese language newspaper in Oregon, from 1917-1951. On the afternoon of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Iwao Oyama was arrested and his printing press confiscated. Nevertheless, as soon as World War II ended, he returned to Portland and resumed publishing Oshu Nippo with a typewriter and mimeograph machine.

Read more about Iwao.

PHOTO FROM WWW.GOFUNDME.COM/ZYS6NNR8

MELISSA SARABIA (1988-2015)

Melissa Sarabia was studying to be an immigration lawyer at Lewis & Clark Law School. She acted as an advocate for educational justice for undocumented youth and would often testify on behalf of DREAMers. Melissa’s family believes she was motivated to protect others’ rights and help them overcome their life obstacles due to her own experience with cystic fibrosis.

Read more about Melissa.

Photo from day1.org

REVEREND RAMONA SOTO RANK (1944-2007)

Reverend Ramona Soto Rank was an enrolled member of the Klamath Tribes of Oregon and the first Native American woman to be ordained in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. As a leader in both American Indian/Alaska Native communities and the Lutheran Church, Ramona strongly supported Native American rights for sovereignty and self-determination.

Read more about Ramona.

We hope to see you at the Center for Philanthropy sometime soon!