We envision a future where communities have the power and freedom to shape every part of how Washington works, and statewide organizations are vital to making that vision a reality. Statewide organizations work across our 39 counties, pushing forward state-level policies that ensure equity and racial justice. In April, we brought together 48 leaders of organizations working at the statewide level at our Shaping the Future gathering in Pasco. Our goals were to build and strengthen relationships, develop shared language about power building, and share our approaches to being statewide.
This Shaping the Future marked the sixth gathering since we began hosting these regional convenings in fall 2023.
Meeting the moment
Held just after the close of the state legislative session and three months into the current federal administration, the gathering provided space for leaders to debrief and plan.
“We’re just off of the legislative session, where you see familiar faces that are working on statewide measures,” said Sheley Secrest, President of NAACP Alaska Oregon Washington State Area Conference. “It’s good being able to hear some of the successes, as well as the losses. Hearing the ‘Okay, well, this is how we’re going to hit them on the next opportunity,’ or ‘they told us no, but we’ve got a backup plan.’”
For Rufina Reyes, Director of La Resistencia, a grassroots organization working to shut down the Northwest Detention Center and end all detentions and deportations in Washington state, the timing to gather was fitting.
“It is time, as we said, to be united, to connect our work,” Rufina said. “It is time to connect with more organizations around the state, to meet those we don’t know and see how we’re going to work together and make the fight stronger.”
“It is time, as we said, to be united, to connect our work,” Rufina said. “It is time to connect with more organizations around the state, to meet those we don't know and see how we're going to work together and make the fight stronger.”
— Rufina Reyes, Director of La Resistencia
“We can only achieve transformative power by organizing and working collectively in every corner of our state for racial justice and equity.”
— Steven Cole-Schwartz, Inatai Foundation Vice President of Grantmaking
“[Being statewide] means that the governing Board and the decision makers and the folks that you're accountable to are rooted all across Washington."
— Nichole June Maher, Inatai Foundation President & CEO
“When I think of statewide, I also think of beliefs rooted in values and a feminist methodology that allows us to be people centered.”
— Catalina Velsquez, Executive Director of Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network
“At my core, having been an organizer for a decade, I know that no individual, nor one organization, can do it alone and get to the scale to actually create the systemic change that is needed for our communities to thrive.”
— Cinthia Illan-Vazquez, Washington Bus Executive Director
“People were talking about policing, and talking about from a racial perspective, and I was able to connect with them and share six stories that I knew from our work [in disability justice] of situations that where the police were responsible for trauma and harm.”
— Krista Milhofer, Program Administrator of People First of Washington
“You see it in the crowd. When we're hearing one person talk about what they're doing successfully, we're like, 'Oh, snap, that worked! How can we build off of that?' So, you can see in, real time, momentum building for racial justice.”
— Sheley Secrest, President of NAACP Alaska Oregon Washington State Area Conference
Considerations for being truly statewide organizations
Over two days, the leaders in attendance discussed why investment in statewide strategies is vital to building power for equity and racial justice in Washington.
“We can only achieve transformative power by organizing and working collectively in every corner of our state for racial justice and equity,” said Inatai Foundation Vice President of Grantmaking Steven Cole-Schwartz.
Steven also shared how Inatai assesses the features of organizations that identify as having a statewide presence, not just statewide impact.
“For an organization to be authentically statewide, it must work in multiple regions of Washington,” Steven said. “Across those regions, a truly statewide organization must be 1) in mutual relationship with the people we are accountable to—community members and leaders of peer organizations; 2) governed by people from those regions where we work, at the Board level; 3) led by team members and staff working in multiple places; and 4) vouched for by other local organizations as being truly rooted in their region.”
In the opening fireside chat, Inatai Foundation President & CEO Nichole June Maher sat down with Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network Executive Director Catalina Velasquez to discuss what it means to be an authentically statewide organization.
“It means that the governing Board and the decision makers and the folks that you’re accountable to are rooted all across Washington,” Nichole said. “It means that you would never pass a policy without the people most impacted leading and designing. But it mostly means that we believe, in order to win, we need to be statewide.”
For Catalina, living into a statewide approach is means putting the focus on people. “When I think of statewide, I also think of beliefs rooted in values and a feminist methodology that allows us to be people centered,” she said. “To ground our work on an ethic that is around accountability and a culture of conflict transformation, so that we’re accountable to the people we serve as we navigate not just physical geographies, but cultural geographies.”
Statewide approaches in action
These reflections set the stage for sessions where participants could learn more deeply and share about the strategies and approaches that their organizations lead.
Washington Bus Executive Director Cinthia Illan-Vazquez says her organization developed regional-hub models to support organizing infrastructure and youth leadership. “Our work really is centered in different regions across the state, where young people have been like, ‘Hey, we’ve been in relationship with you. We’ve been walking with you all. Can you come in and really invest resources and capacity to supporting our vision and our aspirations?’” Cinthia said.
She sees this approach to being statewide as important to advancing racial justice and equity because there is power in numbers. “At my core, having been an organizer for a decade, I know that no individual, nor one organization, can do it alone and get to the scale to actually create the systemic change that is needed for our communities to thrive,” says Cinthia.
Building community power with 501(c)(4) capacity
Panelists (left to right) Keron Blair, Aretha Basu, Chetan Soni, and Alyssa Macy sit down with facilitator Gregory Allan Datu Cendana to share their experiences building community power with 501(c)(4) organizations. Credit: Uly Curry.
As leaders shared their approaches and considerations for being statewide, they heard about the ways that their strategies could be supported with a 501(c)(4) status. During a panel conversation, leaders representing three 501(c)(4) organizations shared their successes and lessons learned.
For Alyssa Macy of Native Vote Washington, their goal in operating a 501(c)(4) was clear: supporting Native candidates for public office. “Indian Country has a lot of folks that are stepping up to run, but a lot of times, there’s just not a lot of support for people out in the field,” Alyssa said. “So, we thought if we set up a (c)(4), we would actually be able to provide some support to Native people out in the field, which we were really excited about.”
Aretha Basu, Political Director of Puget Sound Sage, shared that starting a 501(c)(4) advanced her organization’s policy agenda by enabling them to support values-aligned candidates. “One thing about Sage Leaders is that we love a scrappy fight,” she said. “Sage Leaders recruits and supports people who may not be deemed the ‘perfect candidate,’ because they haven’t been in politics for forever, or they don’t have a very wealthy or large donor base. But they are leaders and organizers who have lived experience, and our (c)(4) allows us to support them in material ways.”
Chetan Soni, founder and Board President of the Washington Youth Alliance Action Fund, said his organization began as a 501(c)(4) to lead policy change addressing gun violence. His team faced many hurdles through the process, but, in the end, they were able to organize youth to move legislators. “We had a piece of legislation that the youth really wanted to bring in, which was banning guns,” Chetan said. “We had a Republican senator saying ‘my district doesn’t care about this’… We brought [20 youth from Moses Lake] to the Senator and said, ‘Hey, your community cares about this. Here are student and youth testimonials saying they care about this.’ These are some of the ways that our chapters mobilize to create change.”
Relationships for racial justice
Through all of the learning and skill-building, the biggest reward for the leaders gathered at Shaping the Future was getting to spend time with peers and colleagues, build relationships, and learn from one another.
“People were talking about policing, and talking about from a racial perspective, and I was able to connect with them and share six stories that I knew from our work [in disability justice] of situations that where the police were responsible for trauma and harm,” said Krista Milhofer, Program Administrator of People First of Washington. “Those are some of the things we could really connect on and make sure that our stories were joined, because it’s a part of all of our collective stories. And I think that’s really powerful.”
Rufina Reyes shared that she was inspired by the ways that the gathering encouraged unity and collaboration. “I am very inspired by how this event raises awareness of why we must be united… alone we cannot do anything, we must seek our allies,” Rufina said.
At the gathering, Sheley Secrest was most excited by the coalition building, and she saw it as her biggest takeaway. “You see it in the crowd. When we’re hearing one person talk about what they’re doing successfully, we’re like, ‘Oh, snap, that worked! How can we build off of that?’ So, you can see in, real time, momentum building for racial justice.”
Learn about more leaders and lessons in power building from every corner of our state by revisiting previous Shaping the Future gatherings throughout Washington:
