COO Funded Partners
Updated COO grantee partners by strategy area below.
To read more about COO Partners, check our News page.
Jump to a section: Systems & Policy Change | Place-based and Cultural Communities Partnerships | Learning Community
Systems & Policy Change
Our institutions and policies shape who has access to wealth, health and prosperity.
Communities of Opportunity partners are working to advance policies that:
Support community priorities
Integrate equity into policies at all levels: neighborhood, organizational, city, county and state, and
Expand representation of cultural communities by stepping into leadership roles
Systems and Policy Change awards are administered by the Seattle Foundation.
*King County Best Starts for Kids funds are restricted from use in political campaigns, state lobbying or any non-charitable or illegal purpose.
2023-2025
2020
2020 Award - COVID-19 Resilience & Response: $125,000
Gender Justice League and partners, The Black Trans Task Force and Heartspark Press will activate, and advocate for trans and non-binary people who are experiencing significant barriers to safe housing (permanent and non-permanent) due to the intersection of transphobia, misogyny, and the COVID-19 crisis.
2020 Award - COVID-19 Resilience and Response: $30,000
InterIm CDA will advocate for the promotion of equitable development and ensure that the COVID-19 crisis is not used to further displace Asian, Pacific Islander and Refugee and Immigrant communities.
2020 Award - COVID-19 Resilience and Response: $125,000
To support organizing with Black and Indigenous communities and communities of color in Seattle and King County towards a just COVID-19 recovery framework that centers policies that prevent further displacement and gentrification and promote resiliency through community stewardship of land.
2020 Award - COVID-19 Resilience and Response: $50,000
OneAmerica will continue advocacy efforts to shape a just, community-led recovery from the COVID-19 Pandemic.
2020 Grant Award - COVID-19 Resilience and Response: $125,000
CHOOSE 180 and Community Passageways will work in partnership for the development of a sustainable advocacy strategy led by those most impacted by mass incarceration, thus ensuring the health and well-being of incarcerated or court-involved young people; and that equitable public health and systemic changes made in response to COVID-19 are expanded upon and made permanent.
2020 Award - COVID-19 Resilience and Response: $133,000
The Community Health Board Coalition will support systems change and policy development work that will address the disparate impact of COVID-19 among communities of color by focusing on addressing mental health issues that are rooted in structural racism and exacerbated by the impacts of COVID-19.
2020 Award - COVID-19 Resilience and Response: $42,000
The Muslim Community & Neighborhood Association will advocate for city policies in East King County that protect low-income immigrant and refugee renters from eviction during and after the COVID-19 crisis.
2020 Award - Policy & Systems: $100,000
2020 Award - COVID-19 Resilience and Response: $20,000
Got Green fights for transformative change at the intersection of racial, economic, gender and climate justice by building community power in South Seattle.
2020 Award - COVID-19 Resilience and Response: $50,000
The YES! Foundation of White Center serves children, youth and young adults through relationship based programs that foster self and social awareness, promote education and repurpose power in an under resourced community.
Also See Currently Funded Partners, Above
2020 Award - Policy & Systems Change: $100,000
2020 Award - COVID-19 Resilience and Response: $50,000
Seattle Indian Health Board (SIHB) is a community health center that provides health and human services to its patients, while specializing in the care of Native people. SIHB is recognized as a leader in the promotion of health improvement for urban American Indians and Alaska Natives, locally and nationally.
Also See Currently Funded Partners, Above
2020 Award - COVID-19 Resilience and Response: $57,000
The Statewide Poverty Action Network is an anti-poverty advocacy organization that works through in-person community organizing and online advocacy to advance equitable policy solutions for low-income people in Washington state.
2020 Award - COVID-19 Resilience and Response: $125,000
The Maternal Coaltion will support birth rights, birth advocacy, and perinatal mental health advocacy for communities of color in King County.
2020 Award - COVID-19 Resilience and Response: $83,000
Northwest Health Law Advocates (NoHLA) will support advocacy to maintain and strengthen immigrant health coverage and access beyond the COVID-19 pandemic emergency period.
2020 Award - COVID-19 Resilience and Response: $50,000
2020 Award - Policy & Systems: $180,000
Chief Seattle Club is a human service agency that provides basic needs for our members, many of whom are experiencing homelessness. Native people in urban areas face unique challenges and Chief Seattle Club embraces the cultures, languages, and traditions of American Indians and Alaska Natives as the primary method for healing and transformation.
2020 Award - Policy & Systems: $95,000.
2020 Award - COVID-19 Resilience and Response: $85,000
UTOPIA works for the health, safety, well-being, empowerment, and economic stability of Queer & Trans Pacific Islanders, for the sake of liberation for all queer and trans people of color.
2020 Award - COVID-19 Resilience and Response: $125,000
Africatown and the King County Equity Now coalition will support community priorities for effective public and private investments needed to effectively respond to COVID-19 and for greater equity for the Black King County community.
2020 Award: $200,000
The New Economy Washington Project partnership between Front and Centered, People’s Economy Lab, Washington Budget and Policy Center, and Poverty Action Network will focus on building infrastructure and supporting leaders for a more just and democratic economy.
2020 Award: $200,000
Skyway Coalition will address the historic lack of investment, inequitable policies and systems that have directly impacted our urban unincorporated King County community.
2020 Award: $100,000
Wa Na Wari will support anti-displacement organizing work with Black Homeowners in the Central District with the goal of changing land use policy and permitting processes on the city level to allow for a wider range of community use of properties zoned single family residential.
2020 Award: $100,000
Surge will establish a policy table comprising individuals and organizations that represent women of color and queer and trans people of color who will work together to establish policies that meaningfully and effectively address reproductive health injustices.
2020 Award: $100,000
Tenants Union will develop the leadership of low income tenants in King County to advocate for essential tenant protections, protecting renters from eviction, and putting the keys to housing stability back into the hands of low income communities most impacted by housing injustice. This work aims to result in a base of engaged tenant leaders and tenant councils across King County and Washington State.
2020 Award: $100,000
In 2020, Open Doors will build knowledge about advocacy and civic engagement strategies to promote meaningful communication between families and schools so that all students and families with developmental/intellectual disabilities and special health care needs have equal access to culturally and linguistically appropriate information, resources, and services.
2020 Award: $100,000
Casa Latina aims to improve economic conditions for domestic workers by advocating for improved systems and policy changes that affect their working conditions.
2020 Award: $100,000
FEEST youth leaders will continue to build a movement for better student health by organizing for increased access to fresh, free, and culturally relevant school breakfasts and lunches.
2020 Award: $100,000
Support local faith leaders to connect & mobilize their communities for housing justice in cities and across King County.
2019 Award: $75,000
WA Dream Coalition will recruit new leaders expand their work to include South Seattle Community College and Highline School District. The Coalition will continue to work with existing groups on implementation of the plans and best practices guidelines they developed in 2018.
2019 Award: 150,000
Nine racial/ethnic health boards will come together to establish the Community Health Board Coalition (CHBC) to strengthen social cohesion across groups by creating a joint policy agenda and ultimately positioning the CHBC as a powerful voice for health.
2019 Award: 25,000
EmPower will sustain a coalition in South King County to protect immigrant rights and offer legal support when needed, including exploring the role of Department of Justice (DOJ) Accredited Representatives.
2019 Award: $71,786
The Washington Bus Education Fund aims to engage young people in generating creative policy solutions and increasing voting rates. Keys issues for young people include access to post-secondary education and voting access.
2019 Award: $150,000
Puget Sound Sage and Transportation Choices Coalition aim to ensure communities of color, immigrants and refugees share in and prosper from the benefits of transit, specifically Sound Transit 3. This includes representation of marginalized communities in decisions such as station location and accessibility, equitable development and affordable housing along transit lines.
2020 Award: $200,000
The Collaborative will pursue a multi-pronged, community-driven anti-displacement strategy that unites and elevates communities’ voices for: affordable housing; economic opportunity (small business); healthful, safe communities; and community capacity to engage in equitable community development.
2020 Award: $100,000
Work to strengthen the systems and policy work to build a survivor-led movement in King County that transform the criminal legal system and promote policies that support the people most impacted by violence.
2020 Award: $100,000
Para Los Ninos (PLN) will educate and support Latinx families engagement to support students’ academic success from birth on.
2019 Award: $40,000
The WICRC will build relationships with public officials and develop leadership within the Native community through a series of advocacy and listening events with the Washington State Department of Children, Youth and Families.
2019 Award: $75,000
Civil Survival provides civic education and mobilizes formerly incarcerated individuals and their network of family and friends to advocate for greater participation and advocacy that results in better quality of life and outcomes, including in housing and employment.
2019 Award: $40,000
This coalition harnesses the voice of parents and young people to build community power and advance policy goals and strategies that end the use of discipline practices that disproportionately affect students of color in public schools.
2019 Award: $125,000
A collaborative project to increase the influence of two-spirit, gender diverse, queer, and transgender people of color to lead grassroots movements and demands for change by becoming meaningfully involved in the political process. Participants will work to address issues that are specific to these communities on a local and regional level and in the neighborhoods where they live and work.
2019 Award: $30,000
This organization will engage small family businesses to mitigate changes in the neighborhood and to strengthen Little Saigon in Seattle's International District as a cultural hub for the larger Vietnamese population.
2019 Award: $40,000
This project would increase advocacy capacity among Somali parents through practical skill building. The Task Force will advocate for policy changes to make public schools more accessible to and effective for Somali families and to use those newly developed skills to address other community needs.
2019 Award: $29,700
This project will strengthen cross-sector collaborations between neighborhood organizations and the school district to promote healthy youth development in Southeast and Central Seattle and more effectively address mental health and violence issues in the community that hamper the futures of students.
Place-based and Cultural Community Partnerships
In King County – one of the most prosperous metropolitan regions in the United States – race, income, and ZIP code are major predictors of a person’s health and life expectancy. Low-income communities and communities of color regularly experience institutional racism that leads to disparities in health and well-being. To reverse these inequities, these new partnerships are designed to support leadership and civic engagement among groups that have historically been marginalized, sharing in decision-making and power, and working together to improve outcomes for all communities in our region.
Learning Community
Capacity building and shared learning are central to the vision of the COO Learning Community and are necessary in disrupting systemic racism and building greater equity in King County. COO provides opportunities for people to learn from one another, develop tools, test models together, build skills, and strengthen relationships and networks.
Through sharing experiences and lessons, COO aims to uplift local endeavors, bring communities and leaders of change together, and build upon successes for long-term change. These aims are supported by activities under four main Learning Community strategy areas: Active Learning, Critical Connections, Capacity Building & Equity Innovations.
The outcomes of these activities create skills, tools, infrastructure and relationships needed to move King County closer to our equity goals.
Sama Praxis is a trusted consultancy that provides strategic coaching and design thinking for people working together to build a just and loving world.
Headwater People is designing and hosting a series of communications workshops for Communities of Opportunity in 2021!
Contacto Consulting is a consulting firm that brings together people and organizations to foster equitable communities and belonging, supporting COO communications capacity building.
COVID-19 Storytelling: King County Equity Now (KCEN) will focus on solutions to improve the on-the-ground, lived experiences of Black communities in King County experiencing the disproportionate impacts of the COVID-19 health and economic crisis.
COVID-19 Storytelling: Collectivo de Pueblos Orginarios will engage South King County youth and adults who are from indigenous communities of the P'urhepecha, Ñuu Savi and Kichwa Otavalo.
COVID-19 Storytelling: Washington Dream Coalition will engage members of undocumented communities throughout King County to explore research questions relevant to community needs and resilience and systemic changes for long-term impacts.
COVID-19 Storytelling: Tesfa Program will uplift experiences of Amharic-speaking Ethiopian community members throughout King County.
COVID-19 Storytelling: Centro Cultural Mexicano will focus on the direct and estimated long-term effects of COVID-19 on low-income Latino children in King County, including housing stability, education, food security, physical health, and social-emotional well-being.
The National Development Council (NDC) leads a consultant team including, BDS Planning & Urban Design, Craft3, and Moving Beyond on the COO Learning Community Commercial Affordability Pilot Project.
Cascadia Consulting Group supports the administrative and coordination of the COO Learning Community.