Moving forward, growing together.
As we seek to improve and evolve as a community partner, we’re engaged in ongoing growth to build staff awareness and competence to become a more inclusive, reliable, and trustworthy community partner. In response to community feedback and as part of our ongoing journey to live into the Equity Healing Framework, EHF is making the following organizational commitments:
Community impact by the numbers.
Waters Meet Foundation has been shifting our grant making and partnership strategies to focus on communities most impacted by health inequities. This intentional shift has been guided by community feedback and is embodied in our Equity Healing Framework adopted in Spring of 2022. We lived further into our commitment to partner with underserved communities in our region by reaching more community members and continuing to evolve our grant making approach in 2023.
community organizations supported
attendees at community outreach EHF hosted events
Waters Meet Foundation has distributed $8.8 Million total grants to local communities and organizations.
in Waters Meet funds
BIPOC communities & organizations
American Indian & Alaska Native communities
2SLGBTQIA+ organizations & communities
COMMUNITY IMPACT INITIATIVE
Foundation for Youth Resiliency and Engagement (FYRE)
FYRE is a BIPOC-led and -serving community organization in Omak that advocates for equitable opportunities that allow all youth to thrive in this rural community bordering the Colville Reservation.
We supported FYRE in sustaining this space for rural BIPOC youth through a 2023 operating grant and funding for the expansion of their center through our Capital Leverage Fund. This partnership is part of our ongoing work to develop and grow our relationships with organizations rooted in community and to live into the intentions set forward in our Equity Healing Framework.
Community Impact Initiative
Camp Hope
Camp Hope in Spokane’s East Central neighborhood became the largest encampment for unhoused people in the state during the summer of 2022. Recognizing an unmet community need, we leveraged our institutional power and financial resources to connect frontline service providers with the resources they needed to support some of the most vulnerable members of our community and address the housing insecurity crisis.
administered in state funding since 2022
unsheltered people housed through state funding & local partnerships
EHF has a big voice that they used to advocate for us small service providers to have the resources we need so that we could do the work on the ground. We wouldn’t have been able to do the work we did without EHF.
Julie Garcia
Founder and Executive Director, Jewels Helping Hands
BIPOC RESOURCES
Capital Leverage Fund
Emerging from the pandemic, we heard a clear need from community partners for access to physical space to establish their organizations and build their capacity to serve their communities. This need is most prominent in Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC)-led and -serving organizations. Based on the feedback, we developed the Capital Leverage Fund to invest in these organizations’ capital projects, including offices, gathering spaces, childcare facilities and housing.
The Capital Leverage Fund supported the construction of the Raze Early Learning Center. The childcare facility will serve up to 180 children and celebrate Black excellence.
community partners
in Waters Meet funding
in third-party funding
I’m excited for our kids to have a place where they see themselves reflected.
Kerra Bower
Founder, Raze, & Owner and Director, Little Scholars Development Center
BIPOC RESOURCES
Partnering for Indigenous birth justice.
We have been working with Spokane Tribal Network (STN) since 2019 to promote access to culturally informed and relevant reproductive healthcare options in Eastern Washington. We worked with STN to connect them with our partners at the Perigee Fund.
By leveraging their own partnership with and grant funding from Perigee, STN was able to win a Department of Health grant for a birthing center. In March 2023, STN partnered with Həłmxiłp Indigenous Birth Justice to open the Indigenous Birth Justice Center in Spokane, offering a broad range of resources to young families and expecting parents.
The networking and conversations EHF has included us in have supported the continued growth of this work.
Penny Spencer
Director, Spokane Tribal Network