“A Restorative and Replicable Effort” – Communities of Opportunity and St. Joseph Fund Enter New Partnership
Community, local government, and philanthropy will support more community power-building opportunities
Celebrating a potential partnership at the COO 10-Year Anniversary last September: Left-Right, Community partners Bonnie Wang and Leslie Stone; Amy Huang of St. Joseph Fund; and Elsa Batres-Boni of COO. Photo by Kerry Wade.
A new pilot partnership between Communities of Opportunity (COO) and St. Joseph Fund (SJF) will support more community power-building opportunities in King County.
The partnership means COO can expand its Place-Based and Cultural Community Partnership strategy to further strengthen community capacity, partnership development, and projects in south King County. The funded projects, to be selected later this year, are intended to present the greatest opportunity to close the gaps in health and well being.
Founded in 2014, COO was strategically created and funded by Seattle Foundation and Public Health – Seattle & King County/Best Starts for Kids Levy. St. Joseph Fund will be COO’s newest funding partner.
The pilot will explore how COO’s unique approach of partnering – bringing together community, local government, and philanthropy – can be further replicated by bringing in a new private philanthropy partner. The pilot funds will be an added investment to COO’s current Place-Based and Cultural Community Partnerships, building on this successful model.
A Restorative, Innovative, and Replicable Partnership Opportunity
COO Director Elsa Batres-Boni said that after several learning conversations that began in 2023, St. Joseph Fund and COO are now committed to working together to explore and pilot this opportunity.
One true power of this partnership rests in its alignment with the values shared by our organizations, Elsa explained. “By strategically working together to invest and partner with community initiatives that aim for lasting change and policy change, we can contribute to building a collaborative environment that tackles key issues against displacement.”
Pictured Above: An early meet-and-greet in 2023 for St. Joseph Fund, Seattle Foundation, and COO in South Seattle. Left-Right: Blishda Lacet and Elsa Batres-Boni of COO; Katie L. Miller, Amy Huang and Jason Lacsamana, St. Joseph Fund; and Whitney Johnson, Roxana Chen, and Robin Haguewood, COO.
Focusing on building assets that the community can own means that the benefits of this funding could go way beyond just meeting immediate needs, and will create real, lasting change, Elsa noted.
This experience will become a case study to inform COO's strategic plan and St. Joseph Fund. It will provide practical and realistic expectations for roles and responsibilities, as well as the types of efforts and operations needed to develop and maintain these strategic partnerships.
“By fostering transparent, flexible, responsive, and strategic practices, we can create new blueprints for healthy collaborations that can inspire future public-private partnerships,” said Amy Huang of St. Joseph Fund. “Together, we have the opportunity to continue modeling effective engagement strategies.”
“St. Joseph Fund and COO demonstrate aligned grantmaking approaches through their values of long-term capacity building and upstream systemic changes to promote racial justice,” Elsa said. “COO’s Place-Based and Cultural Community Partnerships and SJF’s Community Building Initiative and Intersections Initiative are successful examples of place-based models that focus on community-led strategies to address root causes.”
Pictured Above: A get-together in summer 2024 with COO staff, COO Governance Group, and St. Joseph Fund. Left-Right: Elsa Batres-Boni and José Camacho Martinez of COO; Governance Group members Aaron Garcia (then a community partner) and Sili Savusa; and St. Joseph Fund’s Amy Huang and Jason Lacsamana.
This effort will also be mutually beneficial for learning, as both partners explore anti-displacement strategies, especially with St. Joseph Fund's plans to expand their Intersections Initiative in 2025 and beyond.
The new COO-SJF partnership is set to align with the timeframe of the current Best Starts for Kids levy, through 2027.
“This partnership is not just about funding; it’s responding to our community partners’ ask to innovate and influence towards the reinvention of what philanthropic and local government relationships can be,” Elsa said.
St. Joseph Fund and Its Local Roots
St. Joseph Fund (SJF) is the grantmaking foundation of Providence, the comprehensive health care organization that delivers services across seven western states. SJF invests in and fosters long-term partnerships, rooted in love, with regional nonprofits and collaboratives to strengthen and build the power of communities across the western states of Alaska, California, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, and Washington. SJF is based in Irvine, California.
Coincidentally, SJF and COO have some current and past funded partners in common, including Build 2 Lead and Surge Reproductive Justice.
Amy Huang is the St. Joseph Fund Community Partnership Program Officer managing this partnership for the Fund. She works closely with community organizations, local leaders, health officials, and other funders to determine local needs and opportunities for grant making and investments that align with the Fund’s priority areas.
Though she works from California, Amy has deep roots in this region. Before joining the Fund, Amy worked for the City of Seattle in various roles, including partnerships with youth in education and employment. She is also a University of Washington graduate.
“What excites me most about this partnership is that we get to share our commitment to restorative funding practices,” Amy said. “By ensuring that the resources provided are regenerative and non-extractive, we can help build not only financial resilience but also a foundation of trust among community partners. This collaborative spirit, coupled with a focus on reducing administrative burdens, enables organizations to direct more energy towards missions that genuinely uplift and build community power.”
Seattle-area consultant Caroline Burney is serving in a project management role on behalf of the Fund. Caroline has worked for years with community-based organizations, including five years at Cascadia Consulting Group managing community-driven projects for state and local government agencies. As a consultant, she has provided planning, facilitation, policy analysis, and project management to clients such as the King County Equitable Development Initiative, Crescent Collaborative (a funded partner of COO), and COO itself. Caroline will also work on COO’s strategic planning process.
José Camacho Martinez, who serves as Strategy Lead for the COO Place-Based and Cultural Community Partnerships, will support these partners as well.
Pictured Above: St. Joseph Fund and COO team members at a coffee meeting at Boon Boona in Renton in April. Counterclockwise from left: Amy Huang; José Camacho Martinez; Caroline Burney; Elsa Batres-Boni; and Catherine Hinrichsen (COO). Photo by a kind coffeeshop customer.
What To Expect and Timing
The funding process will be announced in early fall. We anticipate that this process may include listening sessions, information sessions, and capacity-building support.
We invite community partners to stay in touch with us about this opportunity by:
Reaching out to your COO program manager
Contacting us at info@coopartnerships.org
Following us on LinkedIn
Signing up for our monthly newsletter at info@coopartnerships.org
“This partnership is more than an exciting opportunity — it's a call to action,” Elsa said. “By centering our work around shared values and a commitment to uplifting community voices, we continue to build lasting power from the ground up.”