Human Services Commission - Regular Meeting

Is it Ben? Can you oh, sorry. This meeting is called to order at 06:01. Live captioning is available this evening. To access this, select the show show captions button in the meeting toolbar and select your preferred language. Staff and commissioners are participating both remotely and in person. Members of public are welcome to provide public comment and listen to the meeting in person or on Zoom. I will now call the role. Commissioners, please say here after I call your name. Vice chair White.

Here.

Commissioner Fan? Commissioner Guns Gonzales? Here. Commissioner Hayes?

Here.

Commissioner Pearlman? K. And commissioner Rashid is absent. So there is one set of minutes to approve this evening. Please take a moment to review the November 17 minutes in front of you. Any discussion about the November 17 minutes? Any commissioner online? Is there a motion to approve the November 17 minutes?

Motion.

And a second? And a second?

Second.

All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. The November 17 minutes are approved. At this time, we are taking oral communication. Staff will call the names of the people in the order they have signed up, either online or in person. Members of public may speak during one of two nights oral communications or up to three minutes per person or a agency program. After everyone who has signed up to speak has been called, staff will ask if there is anyone else who would like to speak. Staff, can you please call speakers for oral communication?

Our first speaker for oral communications is Sharmila Ratinam from Eat Happy Now.

Hi, everyone. Can you guys hear me? I'm Sharmila Ratham, the CEO and founder of a nonprofit called Eat Happy Now. We're a food rescue nonprofit. But before I get in and explain what Eat Happy Now is, I basically wanted to be here to thank the commission in the City Of Bellevue to supporting Eat Happy right from the time we started.

The funding provided by the city of Bellevue has really helped scale and rescue and deliver food for the food insecure population in the City Of Bellevue and beyond. And I also am very grateful and thankful for the additional funding of 30,000 plus which came in during the SNAP benefits to really help with our work. So just wanted to take a moment to thank you all. And before I go ahead and talk about the impact numbers of what this funding has really helped achieve, for those of you in the room who don't know what Eat Happy is about, it's a food rescue nonprofit powered by technology. We use an app called Eat Happy Now, which brings in all the surplus food in our ecosystem from grocery stores, restaurants, cafes and connects it to people who need it real time within the hour.

And this kind of helps us bridge the gap and bring in the culturally relevant produce because our niche is to go after culturally relevant produce and we get it to the people who need it. The technology really helps us scale because we have over 600 volunteers on our platform who basically help in delivering the food from one end to the other, picking it up and taking it to the people who need it. 70% of the rescue is done by volunteers and about 30% by paid staff. We have over 100 plus donors who donate their surplus food and over 100 recipients who kind of receive these donations from us. And what technology is really helping us do is to really increase operational efficiency.

And the futuristic, what we are looking to do is use this technology to help build capacity in food banks probably in a year or two and how we can help technology and this particular platform help in increasing their operational efficiency. So that's the goal for Eat Happy. So the impact which has taken place with the dollars helped by the city of Bellevue, we have rescued over two and sixty one thousand pounds of food and delivered it to over 1,900 residents. And we do this every month. This is the number of residents we touch every month.

And there are over 13 organizations, all shelters, low income housing groups and food banks in the city of Bellevue who kind of benefit from these services. So I'm here today basically to give you all an update of how the dollars have been spent, and thank you all for your support.

Okay, our next speaker for oral communications is Alex Zimmerman.

My name, Alex Zimmerman. Guys, I don't come to you talking to you. You look to me like very primitive animal. You know what I mean? You cannot qualify like a Homo sapiens. It's my opinion. So I want to explain to you something but absolutely critical. It must just go for a long time. Mayor Robinson give me five transpasses. Yeah. Here. One two three four five. Yeah. Is this very interesting? You know what this mean? Because this trespass supposed to be a half five day for appeal. So I appeal this every trespass. Five trespasses, more than for one year. We got rid appeal. This my appeal.

Yeah. You know five trespasses. This copy from legal guide of handling disruption people in public meeting, US Supreme Court decision. Yeah. It's very interesting. You know what this means is all the rules here. So something happened? Tomorrow, they will be to make an order. My appeal and my appeal, never people see. Five times, never. It's a crime. It's a fraud. You understand who this is? Mayor Robinson.

Please stay to the agenda.

No. Agenda is about city business. You know this. Come on. I'm you make me sick. I never broken the rules. This trespass not trespass. This my election. They cut my 200 worth for election because I go against mayor Robinson. Question right now, why government include mayor Robinson in six council acting like a criminal. Can you explain to me? Who can explain this to me? Yeah? Yeah. I come here talking only because I want what is people listen, what is going on.

All trespasses what is make is not legal. This US Supreme Court decision, fifteen year old decision. You cannot trespass people for different opinion. It's a scare. And five trespasses here is 6,000 trespasses from another people. Why? Why mayor Robinson acting like a cheap street prostitute? You know what has been lie in cheating. Why? Why motivation? Everything what is I talking is have my opinion. Yeah. I support tribe. I'm a Jew. I'm immigrant.

I disabled, and I have opinion. I live here for forty year, and I move on from more smarter people, what is state Washington have right now. Maybe can country too. So we were Trump. We were new American revolution. Stand up. Slap in happy cow. Guys, you don't understand. You all garbage. You copy from this person, Mer Robinson. You won't be like

Thank you, Yudan.

Yeah. Thank you very much for your time. I very appreciate you. Go to Internet. Find my appeal.

Okay. That's all the people we have signed up for oral communications. If there's anyone in the room or online, please raise your hand if you would like to speak.

Yeah. You're good to go, chair.

Mayor Roberson, do you have anything to share?

I do. Thank you. First of all, I want to apologize to you, chair Singh, and the rest of the commission for having to endure that. It shouldn't be part of your job, and, actually, it has nothing to do with human services. So I'm not sure why we're allowing this person to comment at public comment at human services.

But I apologize that you were dragged into this by my affiliating with my role as mayor. So, anyway, I I do apologize. I wanted to thank you all for the incredible work that you did with the, extra funding that we were able to pull together. It was a real, happy surprise that Amazon contributed funding as well, to I think it was Recovery Food Bank. Am I right?

Renewal. Excuse me. Renewal Food Bank. And, just to clarify, they were very intent on, indicating that was not to supplant the funding that we the city provided. It was the first question I asked was, oh, well, if you're gonna do that, then can we do this? And they're like, nope. Nope. You have to, keep it quiet and operate as if we're not going to do any additional funding. And then when you're done, we will match what you did. And so, I was just really happy to get, I think, almost a million dollars of additional funding into food security and, housing and legal support.

So thank you for helping us get that out so quickly. You've made some really good decisions for the community. It's so funny. We've hardly anybody here, but I'm glad you're here. Oh, they're online? Okay. Okay. Good. I also wanted to talk a little bit about the climate that we're in right now. I know you're at the Mid Buy, and next year, we'll start a new cycle.

It's a really hard time in this country not knowing the future of our food security, our housing security, any security for so many people who, need more need security more than anything. And so if you have decisions to make, I think we need to really be thinking about the next ball that might drop and really focus on housing, food, and legal support, make sure that basic needs are being met, think about medical benefits as well because it may be that people stop receiving medical benefits. And as a physical therapist for thirty five years, working with so many different kinds of people in so many different situations. I can tell you that people with long term problems, a lot of it is derived from not getting medical care as a younger person, whether it be as a child or as a young adult throughout their lives. It creates long term chronic health problems that just really reduce the quality of life for people.

And so if there's anything we can do to offset that for families, that's part of prevention is preventing long term health problems. So reducing stress, food stability, housing stability, providing basic needs, and, general health care needs. I think that that is what council is talking about right now for priorities. So I just wanted to convey that as you make tough decisions. And, again, thank you all for the work that you do. We really appreciate it. And it was lovely to hear that public comment to hear the lives that you impacted.

Major Inman, do you have anything to share?

Just, good evening, and, wanted to let the commission know that the police department, we're partnering with Factoria Mall, specifically Target. Every year, we do an event involving children where it's used to be shop with a cop. Now it's called Heroes and Helpers, and we have at least a 100 children, sometimes more, where they're given a $100 gift card to go shop. And then we have officers and different commissioned and noncommissioned, you know, professional staff who assist them in shopping around the store. So we're doing that on December 13.

So if you're out down in Victoria at Target, you'll see a bunch of officers and employees from the police department with a bunch of children and families. It's a great time to come out and let them pick out some gifts for themselves and their families for the holiday season. And that's it. Thank you.

Yeah.

Do we have any commissioner's report? Anyone online? Any staff report?

Thank you, chair Singh. I just wanna let you know that after our panel tonight, we're gonna do a quick overview of how the voting for new, officers will happen at our first meeting in December. So I'll just there's a handout in front of you that has sort of the script for how elect the elections will work, but we'll review it really quickly after our panel tonight. Thank you, Cher Singh.

Our first and only item of business is panel presentation conveying and collective impact. I will hand it over to Sarah Hills to get us started.

Great. Thank you, chair. Before we invite our panelists to speak about convening and collective impact, I would like to offer a brief background and a shared understanding of convening. During interviews and surveys and focus groups conducted for the city of 2324 human services needs update, providers emphasized a growing need for additional convening partners, organizations that can bring people together, support collective impacts, facilitate collaboration among agencies, and strengthening, partnerships across human services networks. To continue to support the work, the city has allocated 200,000 for the twenty five twenty six biennium dedicated to convening, coordination, and collaboration.

This investment reflects our ongoing commitment to building a connected and efficient and equitable ecosystem for services for Bellevue residents. With that context, it's helpful helpful to briefly ground ourselves in what we mean by convening. Convening is the intentional act of bringing people, organizations, and stakeholders together to collaborate, share information, and strengthen relationships and work towards a shared goal. It creates the structure and space for agencies to coordinate services, reduce duplication, and advance common priorities. Importantly, convening partners do not provide direct services.

They help the broader network function more effectively and equitably. Tonight's panelists will illustrate how these convening practices show up in real time on the East Side. We'll hear how coordination, shared learning, and cross sector partnerships are strengthening the human services ecosystem and supporting agencies and the meeting community needs. So with that, I would love to invite Debbie Lacey, who is with Eisight For All, and Kalika Curry from Eisight Pathway Pathways to come up and join us.

Oh, you have the questions. Thank you. Good evening.

Thank you again for being here, both of you. And commissioners, I also invite you to stay engaged and feel free to ask questions as they come up. But before we fully jump into the questions, would you like to just provide a brief overview of who you are and, what your agency does?

Good. Yeah.

I think you bump out in, Debbie. I think you got to go first.

Appreciate it.

Debbie, will you turn on the microphone? And yeah.

Hi, everyone. Thank you very much for having us. I'm Debbie Lacey. I'm the founder and executive director of Eastside For All. Eastside For All was founded in 2019 after many years of me being in the community, but that was our early start to, building infrastructure in East King County for racial justice and social justice work. And so we're an advocacy organization primarily, just like Zada was saying. We do have a little bit of direct service, which we do, which is, to provide support for people who are experiencing hate crimes or bias motivated incidents. So we do provide direct support for those community members. Thank you.

So brief. Good evening. Kaleka Curry, executive director of Eastside Pathways, she, her pronouns. Eastside Pathways has been with the city of Bellevue, our our initial investors and partners in collective impact. We were founded in 2011 by Bill Hinningsgard, and we've continued to serve Bellevue School District, Bellevue residents, and now have expanded our programs and services with your all support to all of East King County, all school districts, all municipalities.

And I think the beauty of that is recognizing that our partners, the organizations we serve and convene, have always been working all over East King County. We just needed to shift our lens in order to support them. And so while we often only talk about the city of Bellevue, I think we also get to celebrate the regional impact that your investment has, recognizing that when an organization learns how to do their work better in Bellevue or school district, those learnings get transferred to other school districts in our region. Eastside Pathways represents over 70 organizations. About 68% of them have been partners for six years or more.

And then we also represent all sectors, so health, education, government, for profit, nonprofit, parents, families, and and and. And so we're bringing the whole community and all sectors to the table when we're convening.

Wonderful. Thank you. So the first question, how do you define collective impacts, and how does your organization approach that work? Kalika, do you want to jump in?

Yeah. I was I was

being helpful there by queuing you up first on the first one. So I think you you gave a wonderful briefing, but I think what I would say specifically about Eastside Pathways, and also touching upon something mayor Robinson spoke to was kind of like being future ready and thinking about what's coming next. And I think the most critical part when we think about collective impact is the blending and braiding and continuous improvement of what we're doing and how we're doing it. And so the fact that we can have, get organizations organizations and leaders out of silos and making sure they're having conversations about their ownership in what's happening in our community, but the intersection, the compounding impacts of what they're doing and other organizations are doing. And so now more than ever, I think collective impact is critical when you're thinking about housing, access, any basic needs, is we have to be able to work more effectively and strategically with the finite resources we have.

And the other thing I would just say about the way that we approach collective impact is when you're working in isolation, you're often solving from what are the limitations of your area of influence, what are the limitations of your organization. So the student isn't actually centered in that. Your organization's capacity is. But collective impact allows you to actually center the student because we're able to say, what are your needs? And we're going to bring everyone around the table to meet those needs. So I think that's what's really critical about collective impact and how we're bringing it to this community.

Yeah. I think maybe the slides can come up so I can just share some of that visually while we're talking about these pieces.

Just so will you get that back for us? Thank you.

So because East Side For All is primarily a systemic change organization at the hyper local level, our collective impact has to do with that change. We convene to make change. And one of our core principles of approach is that, you know, no one entity can obviously advance racial equity on their own in social justice. This is a huge issue. It involves all sectors, all hands on deck.

Right? But particularly, every thing that Eastside For All does, each initiative that we have, we have an equity lens for that particular initiative. So when we do work that involves nonprofits and we're supporting them, We are going to support those who are what we call farthest from justice. They're, least represented in decision making spaces. They have the least amount of financial resources and expertise resources, etcetera, etcetera.

Right? So we're gonna bring them together, and we're gonna listen acutely to their particular needs, and then we're gonna drive with that. And we believe that every single person that participates in that not only, is going to receive a benefit from that collective work that we hopefully will accomplish together, but also individually that each each organization is better off as a result of being part of us. And that means meaningful contributions and and gifts that they receive back that are concrete. So if we go to just a couple of quick slides, and I'll turn it to the next question.

But we assess the group of people that we've been working with. And we've worked with many more organizations than these, but the eight core that we have convened for this particular initiative that that city of Bellevue supports are these organizations here. And, again, falling under that frame of what I mentioned before. And this comes out of years, by the way, of just assessing what are these nonprofits that are that are founded by people of color and immigrants. They serve those same communities, and often they're doing A to Z for their communities, right? They're doing everything, And they have the least amount of resources. So we assess them on a a variety of things altogether, and we're partners in this. So, if we go to the next slide, you'll see some more about them.

Quick question about this.

Oh, yeah.

So what is these numbers? Like, 225%, how do you explain?

Yes. That means that two organizations indicate that they have staff in house that speak those that language. So two, of the eight have Vietnamese speakers. And it was very important for us to be able to share what the in house languages and cultures are so you can see, not just that they're providing translation interpretation, which they do for organ for languages that aren't on this list, but for you to see what they have in house because that indicates a a depth of cultural and language understanding that they can provide to their communities.

Thank you.

Yeah. And I'll just go quickly, just, like, one or two more so that I can we can move yes, please. Well, then we'll just kinda move on. So we also assessed that one back there that was just before this. You can look at this later, but it just tells that we, don't come from a deficit perspective. Yes. We're all looking at capacity. It's a big issue for all of us, but we are really understanding that we come with a wealth of resources. And like I said, because we do A to Z, these organizations and their communities have a great deal of expertise that often goes untapped by local governments and other institutions. So the next slide will tell you a little bit about their capacity as far as just funding wise.

And so you'll see none of the organizations that we work with, Eastside For All included, have revenue over $1,000,000. Six of the eight have revenue less than 250,000 that they expected for 2025. So this is what I'm talking about when we say we're really focused on the organizations that have the least amount of resources and, in many ways, are doing the most, like, with the communities that they serve. And to us, collective impact means that they're not just able to continue doing what they do so well with their communities, but that they themselves as organizations are stronger as a result of coming together and working together as a coalition.

Thank you for that. Any questions? Okay. What types of convening spaces or models are most effective in helping agencies share resources, align services, and learn from one another?

There's I'm laughing a little bit just because there has to be a willingness and an interest in doing so. And I think with I'd be remiss to not name the the reality of increased fear and increase a perception of threat and divide and conquer. There has been a decreased willingness and interest in sharing information, collaboration. Know, Eside Pathways has always integrated adaptive leadership into our work and our approach. And just because of the, I think, trauma and the secondary and primary trauma that organizational leaders and organizations are experiencing, there's a decreased willingness to share and be open and vulnerable.

Right? So I think there's a reality around that. But with regards to just from, like, a model fidelity standpoint, what we saw was COVID taught us a lot about whose voices would actually be more effectively, equitably engaged when we went fully remote. And so we saw people with disabilities have more participation because getting, quote unquote, physically in the room was no longer an issue. Participating wasn't heavily reliant on an ability to use my voice. I can use digital technology. So there was a lot more inclusion when we shifted to in person or excuse me, from fully in person to hybrid or fully remote. Also, means we were able to reduce our costs. One of our board members said, like, did you stop doing program? And we're like, actually, no.

We doubled programming. But the cost of programming was reduced because we weren't providing physical space and food at the same rate that we were when we did in person. But I do, however, think that there, to Debbie's point around the composition of people who are providing those bespoke responsive programming, we know that not having a storefront does reduce the ability for them to serve and engage families. And there's just not enough space, as we all know, and preaching the choir around the places and spaces to physically provide those services. I think one of the areas where we make that a design feature and not a design flaw is East Side Pathways.

I think one of our greatest value propositions is we are the archive of what has been done and how we've tried to approach that because we know that churn and waiting families out is one of the ways that systems don't change and aren't held accountable. And so Eastside Pathways has continued to collect and report out that information. So as leadership is changing, systems are changing, policies are changing, there's accountability for the experience of parents and families. And so I think it's less about the physical space that we're in, but rather this space where we can archive and report back the experiences of community outside of larger systems and entities that have different policies. I think the other thing from sharing information and learning from one another is the consistency that's really critical.

I'll use one brief example to say that during COVID, we had about 100 to 200 members that were coming on a weekly basis to that call. And the group self organized into five areas remote learning, mental health and well-being, housing, food security, and philanthropy. And the housing group actually decided to close its doors because what we found was that there was over five reoccurring weekly forums for housing. Right? And it was a great example of why collective impact is so important is there has to be the place you know everyone's going to be to have that conversation.

You hadn't been housing in that area, nor had I, I think, at that point, so there was all these disparate conversations. So it was a clear data point, I would say. When there is a known place, whether that's physical or virtual, where people can go to have shared interest and investment in an outcome area, it actually reduces the number of hours that are being spread all over and really centralizes that conversation, which I think goes back to question one as well. It's like the importance and the function is not only reducing the redundancies and waste within our systems, but the leadership time that gets wasted when we're running to all these different meetings because the same conversation is being had in all these rooms all over the place, all these different forums. So I know that there always is a need for physical space, but I think this is more about sustainable space.

And what does sustainable space look like, particularly if we're making the decision between basic needs and what feels like nice tos. So I just want to be of the times and recognize that that may be a difficult decision to make to invest in physical space when we're thinking about sustainable space.

Let me did you wanna jump into that?

Oh.

No worries if you don't want to. You can echo.

I just skipped right over there. Okay. Let's see. The convening spaces that we find most effective in models, with our group is that, again, because we're trying to make this meaningful, not just collectively in an outcome for our broader communities that we all serve, but also individually, we have found that a few things are very important. One is that we are very committed to compensating financially all the organizations that participate with us because we do the work together.

And so this grant is a is a great example of it. The majority of it goes to the members, not to Eastside For All. And over the course of Eastside For All's years, we've spent over $525,000 in with for other organizations. And that's not a grant to them just like a donation. That's, hey. We're asking a lot of you if you're interested in this and you wanna help us all work together on this. We're going to compensate you for that and not honorariums for you showed up for a meeting, but real compensation for the the extreme value that you're bringing to each and every one of us. So that's that's been key. And what that has done, because that was meeting one of the concrete needs that they all set. I mean, you saw the the pie chart.

They they don't have enough money. So they they really appreciate that, and that builds trust in each other. And so that would that's been a key part of our of our structure. The other thing is that when we convene, we do that in small groups. Obviously, we're small as it is.

I mean, I can probably beyond that eight, there's probably an additional additional six to 10. So less than 20 that are really on a regular basis coming together. And and you want might wanna imagine these different Venn diagrams, right, of organizations that are similarly positioned, meaning they have lower revenues. They are themselves experiencing racial discrimination and disparities, and they're serving large populations with with very little. Right?

And meant most of them don't have physical spaces to do their their work. And so and then they just differ on whatever particular area that they focus on. So anyway, bringing the small groups together and, also doing the work together. So the other convening model that works really well is, you know, we don't just talk about how we're all gonna advocate together. We say, hey.

Who's available to meet with mayor Robinson next Tuesday? And then we, as the the work that we do at Eastside For All, we're providing a lot of that administrative support. So we're we're showing up, but we're and we're working together on how that meeting is gonna go. We're doing a lot of campaigns like that, but then we're also arranging and making sure that those meetings happen. And so then, one or some other partner will facilitate, take the lead depending on the area of expertise that's required by the meeting, and we do that regularly.

We do it with planning commissioners, with, school districts, with pretty much any any entity that this group says, we need a change to happen there. We want to come together and make that happen. So those two in particular, I would say, have been most effective in the kind of convenings that we do that actually result in the accomplishments that we have.

Wonderful. Thank you. All right. You ready for the next question?

Absolutely.

Okay. Good. Good. What kinds of support do agencies, especially smaller and culturally specific need the most, and how does convening help meet those needs? You kind of already started speaking into that.

Would you like to go first, or

you can go ahead? Yeah.

Always taking a pause because, you know, speaking on behalf of a lot of people, I think, is a big ask. Right? I'm not here just to speak on behalf of our small team, but the partners we represent. We are fortunate that we recently just did our biannual partner survey, so I feel like I have fresh insights on what our partners are saying they're needing. I think the kind of, like, metaphor I might give you is to be able to be like a choir and sustain a note, knowing that you have strategic coordination so people can drop out and that note can still be sustained.

And I think that's the biggest call to action right now is how are we coordinated so well that the students and families aren't experiencing loss because I need to take a break, right? Leaning into, Debbie, what you're talking about, some of the folks who do the greatest work and have the least amount, there is absolutely a archetype of leader that shows up in those places and spaces where the magic, I will say, the magic of women of color, to say that if we have a pound of rice or a loaf of bread, everyone will eat by magic. Right? And so I think now more than ever, it's so important that we are coordinating people so well that we can sustain that note like a choir. You would never know when someone stops to take a breath.

Right? And I don't know that that's actually the experience that our families are having, but that's the goal whenever I'm thinking about how well I need to coordinate these providers. And again, it goes back to that analogy of if it's just me as an organization, that's not reasonable. Right? We're open Monday through Friday, or we don't have enough staff, or we reduce program, we reduce staff.

And that's a siloed narrative. But when we're thinking as a community, as a sector, as a type of provider, we can provide that sustainable experience for our programs and families. If I think I got specific into the types of agencies, the smaller, more bespoke organizations that are the speedboats, if you will, that are agile, responsive, I think they would honestly just say trust based, low barrier funding. Nothing new there. But I also think there's something really critical.

And as we all know, the shift in funding protocols, particularly King County funding rates. So now there's increased insurance needs. There's increased reporting needs. And so Eside Pathways has been shifting some of our services to help fill that gap. So smaller organizations, we can say to them, it's Okay. You stay focused on helping the kids. We're going to help you with the reporting. Those are technical services. We don't need these magic superhumans to be crunching numbers in a closet somewhere. We need them to be serving kids.

And so what we're really stepping into is making sure we can provide that overhead around data reporting. We're even having conversations about, do we want to support with insurance and things like that, where we can provide some reduced risk taking, shared risk taking, to blend and braid the resources and the cost because it's not necessary for some of these smaller agencies to have that level of protection and coverage, and it just doesn't financially make sense for them. I know the most recent Best Starts for Kids funds that we got, it's costing us more money to manage the funds, and the funds actually cover for the kids. And that is the current reality, is when the funding was released, the expectations looked different, and so the contract was built upon different standards. And so I think many of us are finding ourselves under contract in places and spaces where the demands of managing those funds actually cost more than the funds you were actually receiving to do the things for the kids.

So I think that's one of the areas where our board and our leadership council are thinking strategically about how do we support the direct service providers to help with some of that overhead so they can just stay focused, particularly when they have reduced staffing. And they're also not thriving because many of us come from the communities that we seek to change alongside with. So we're experiencing that secondary and primary trauma. And so again, how do we coordinate so well that we have shared risk taking, shared burden, and we can sustainably provide that consistent experience for our families? I think the last thing I would just say is and I'll be a little vulnerable here.

I think one of the greatest pain points that I see is and one of the areas where I think we've been really helpful is helping people have a systems understanding. Often, see people who come from populations where they don't have the time to sit around and study systems, and they're really frustrated because they're not making impact or progress. And I think that's where we become really responsive is because we are under contract with our partners and our partners have already pre committed to change behavior. When something comes up, we can say to the partner, now is the time to lean into that contract, that agreement. You agreed that you would change your behavior when that time came.

So whether that's pre compliance on things that have been coming out of our federal government and having communities and families coming and saying, we're closing all gender bathrooms, or we're having pre compliance here, they know they can come to Eastside Pathways because we have access to people that are going to help address those changes, whether they're policy based or practice based. And I think I'll just synthesize that to say responsiveness and account paired with accountability is really critical. And I'm proud to say that eSign Pathways' structure has pre compliance around a clear scope of what I'm willing to pre commit to changing. Often, I think we get into these change movements, and we hope someday that something's going to change versus the front end work where someone says, within this building, within this program, we're already committing to change once we figure out what that change behavior looks like. And I think that always gives me hope knowing that we have a pre commitment to change behavior, because there's that tipping point where if you don't have change, you just experience more loss.

And I think that's one of the areas where we've been really strong.

I 100% agree with everything you've said. I think also, you know, specifically to that point about how the costs of running nonprofits and keep in mind, particularly in in the groups that I focus on, the organizations, a lot of them are immigrants. They have English as a as a second language, and they know what they know, and they know that really well. But they really did not understand, and I think this is true for a lot of people who start not profits, the amount of work that you have to do that's outside of your mission to accomplish your mission. So we ask we have asked this for many years of, like, if what what if there was not not to call it a fiscal sponsor because a lot of our organizations are not comfortable with that concept and that relationship and partnership with a fiscal sponsor.

But if there was some entity that would hold the administrative, some of the back end office support for your organization, insurance, HR, accounting, you know, would you be interested in exploring those kind of pooled resources? And all the organizations that we have in our network say yes to that. And we've been, consulting with Kim Sarnecke of the Together Center because I understand she's having some conversations with the Eastside Human Services Forum and the Alliance for Eastside Agencies about really what is needed in the network of care caregivers, to really ensure that we have a strong nonprofit infrastructure. And, of course, our role role with Eastside for All in this convening org's work is on, anti displacement. I have said over and over again that I'm very worried that if we go through another COVID, we may not have the nonprofits in our community to do the response as needed, and it could be anything, substitute COVID for anything.

We're seeing that right now with the crisis around ICE. We're very fortunate that we have a handful of organizations that are on the front lines here in Bellevue throughout the East Side, literally can show up within minutes to support a family whose income earner has just been taken away. So I don't need to tell you about the trauma and the the extent of that work. But, the point is is that the anti displacement is a real priority for us to make sure that our non not only that our nonprofits that are here can stay here and serve people locally, but that we're able to grow our nonprofit infrastructure and welcome more nonprofits to meet all the needs that are here. We just like businesses are leaving by the dozens, because they can't afford to lease space here, the same thing is happening to nonprofits.

And that disparity only increases when you're talking about the ones with the fewest funds, and they're also experiencing racial discrimination and cultural problems and barriers. So I have a couple slides about their specific needs, I think, that are coming up. Yeah, Toni?

From a place of curiosity and just not knowing, you mentioned agencies have some hesitation around the fiscal sponsor concept, and I just wouldn't have insight on that. Could you just share a

little Yeah. Bit In the case of a fiscal sponsor, the fiscal sponsor organization is essentially the executive organization that has the legal responsibility of the the sponsored project, and it is a project of the fiscal sponsor. So a lot of organizations are not comfortable with giving that control and authority over to another entity, understandably. Yeah. So it requires a very closely aligned mission, mission alignment, and then lots of alignment in order to make that work well.

Can I add to that?

One of the things that was really useful in our conversation with the Best Arts for Kids representatives was that the level of top down that would so in this case, Eastside Pathways, because we are in contract doing exactly that, is where we have some that we're passing through funding to that are for profits and some that are nonprofit. Best Starts for Kids, if we are acting as a fiduciary sponsor, would require the same level of detailed reporting and oversight that they require of us. And that is not a financially sustainable model. All of the funds then go towards the collection of data and not actually doing the work. And so this is where we get into nuanced language.

And so their guidance for us is that you have consultants that you're paying for projects, not that you have subcontractors that are doing the work, right? And so these are all these workarounds that, to your point one, has that information been shared effectively so that everybody in these situations knows how to reword their work. But then also, how are we just strategically positioning organizations to do that? Right? And that's the area where last year, we were fortunate to invest reinvest 175,000.

And due to reduced funding, we've had to reduce how much we passed through as well, not only because of the amount of money that was coming in, but then the cost of providing that support. And then lastly, I think we all know that there is a lot of risk taking that comes into providing employment for different types of employees. And so I hope that that's an area where we can be thoughtful about how we're investing in community in a way that really does fund different types of employees organizations and employers. So thank you for naming and asking that follow-up question. Yeah.

Yeah. So just a couple of slides on this. I think that'll help with the particular group that we work with and some of their needs that have come up. Course, Clique already mentioned funding. We can say that till we're blue in the face.

Space, we we have that as well. And yes. So we asked them to, rank their top three needs, and you'll see there's a lot of consistency there with what we've been saying. And interestingly, when we ask these questions, again, people are they understand that there's obviously lots of needs, but when they're triaging them, it just makes a lot of sense that these come up. And they go hand in hand because we know that when organizations have physical space, they are more visible in the community.

It's easier for them to fundraise. They're it's easier for them to do their work because they're more visible to their own community that needs them, etcetera, etcetera. So so it it really is hard to separate these out one from another sometimes, and people really talk about that in our groups about the overlap of all of these. How well, you need that one because if you don't have that, then the other so it's a little bit hard. But it hopefully, that's that's helpful. And I think there's one more slide about, space potentially. No. This is just what we've accomplished. That might be helpful. Go go back to that one just real quick, and I'll say, so everyone that we've worked with has received newer additional funding since, being part of this collective.

The majority report that they've they've gotten more confidence in their fundraising, skills and their ability to fund raise. And of the six organizations of the eight that need space, three have found space that they can use on occasion or when needed, and two have found space for regular use. We've also had success in their joint advocacy, bringing in extra dollars for the response to the ICE activity that's been happening, specifically from Kirkland and and Redmond with designated funding. And then you heard at the beginning of this meeting about the investment from Bellevue, of which I believe that the 200,000 for legal will help support the organizations that are working on that particular crisis situation. So so that's been really, good to see.

And and the organizations that we work with, I mean, Khalika knows this. It's heartbreaking to have to call on each other and say, I know you're exhausted. I know you just helped a family that had this awful thing happen this week. And, we have an opportunity, if you can show up, to potentially get some city investments specifically to support what you're doing. But time and again, I mean, that's just what we do.

We just roll up our sleeves, and we show up, and it's it is exhausting. But I think there was so much pride and just, a great feeling of camaraderie and solidarity that people from different cultural and racial backgrounds came together to make that funding happen. And I think we're just all really proud of that. And so that keeps us going, keeps us going. And thank you all for all your work to help make that happen too.

It looks like we have a question online as well.

Hi. Quick question about physical spaces. What's what kind of square footage would be an ideal space for for a group?

Oh, I can't really answer that very well because it really varies by organization, the type of work that they do. Some of them, and in fact, most of the ones that we work with in particular, need larger spaces, not because their staff is so large. It's less for office space. It's more for the community gathering spaces. You know, like I said, these organizations are lifelines, and they're also doing A to Z.

So in addition to the crisis response and all the direct services that they're providing, they're also the convener and the the community builder for their particular communities. And so if they can't gather, it is just devastating. They need that in order to do their to do everything that they do well. So sometimes that ends up being large square footage that's required beyond just a little office space of 200 to 500 square feet. We're talking about well over 1,000 square feet.

Thank you.

I can say that we do have data on square foot, and I don't want to not represent my operation director's work well. We can definitely follow-up with the research that we've done, because that is an area where we've significant research. As many of you know, our previous contract with the city of Bellevue included, collaboration in the execution of the contract that we had. So in that contract said, you're gonna have eight racial equity council meetings. You're gonna have two all partner meetings, and the city was collaborating in the execution of that.

So we had access to city of Bellevue facilities, which we no longer have. And so not only did we see a $100,000 decrease in our funding, but we saw a significant increase of the cost of programming because now we have to pay for facilities that used to be a part of our contract with the city of Bellevue. So that $100,000 we were receiving, we spent this year probably $76,000 just on spaces to bring people together. So that investment went towards a space to be in versus providing the convening support and refunding into paying for program strategies and services that families needed. We do have data on space just to avoid giving you the hard numbers.

What I would say to you is that on average, East Side Pathways meetings are each of our collaborative action networks have anywhere between 15 to 30 organizations that participate in them. Those organizations tend to send one to three employees. So on average, our monthly meetings tend to have anywhere between twenty and forty five people. Can house that within St. Andrew's Lutheran Church where we're housed out of, but then our other meetings where we're looking at, you know, 150 to 200 people coming four to five times a year, that's where we get into having to pay for the Maiden Bauer. We've outgrown the Crossroads Community Center. We've outgrown North Bellevue Community Center. And also, I think Libraries. The other real oh, we can't fit in the library. The other reality is we're we're in competition, if you will.

I hate to use that word, but we are often competition for space. My operations director starts in January trying to book spaces for the next year because and it's really hard, which is also why we just do a lot of things remotely. So we do have some great research that we can share with you on actual square footage needs. But I would say it is it is an urgent need because our money has gone from providing the convening support and and reinvesting to literally just paying to have a roof over our head so that we can bring people together. Lastly, I would say our experience with our partners is we used to share our office.

We only use our office one day a week as staff, and so we do have our office open for our partners to use, those who do not have storefronts, if you will. And our insurance is set up in such a way that if they need smaller, more intimate convening, that they have access. So big shout out to St. Andrew Lutheran for their generosity. They have several small spaces that are available to Eside Pathways partners. So just want to name that we do have that physical space if there's smaller spaces that are needed.

Thank you.

You had a question, Delfina?

Yeah. I have a question. How a family is having a hard time right now with the ICE detention can reach out to this organization? Like, which one are the one who are working in this program Yeah. On this budget?

We have several that there's if you want to contact me, I'd be happy to share. It depends on the city and the cultural language group that you need, and then I can connect you up.

Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. And

I would say for us, we have very similar partners. We work with some of the same organizations. I think one of the things we've been really working with our school districts on is making sure they're working really well with other organizations. And so that's been a big part of our focus is making sure that we aren't losing families in between agencies. We also have our parent caregiver council, which is a place and space for parents to be empowered to have access to elected officials, have access to CEOs.

And that's been a place that isn't just a react space, but a place that you can always call home to be empowered in your leadership. So I'd say any of our councils are really and there is no cost to being a partner. There's no paperwork. You just show up. You can go onto our website and join any of those meetings if you like. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you. I will say Debbie has far more language access than we do given the composition of our partners, but yeah.

And there's a whole group. So I talked about that then that the cons the circles. So there's another convening space that's called Safe Haven that's been going on since 2019. And if you look up our our website, Eastside For All, there's a Safe Haven tab. And that there's a group that meets monthly, and you can actually connect with the organization.

I received the invitation every month, but I haven't been able to kick it out.

Yeah. I really

I haven't been able

to The next month's in person. This month's is is in person. Yeah. At the Together Center in Edmond.

I think I already registered with Mercedes.

Perfect. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

So I will be there. That's awesome. Yeah.

Thank you. My second go to that meeting. Yeah. And really, I'm like, Debbie's got that.

That's a lot. That's a lot. I love this that we're presenting jointly because it really is, I mean, the education focus that Eastside Pathways has had is, it's just an enormous asset to the community. And you can see, right, that there's the need for the convening around different populations and different topic areas, too. So I think for a healthy infrastructure in a community, you really want to no one entity can do all of these things.

So I do want to say that to the point about the space, because it is such a big issue, and it has been for many years, that that's part of why Eastside for All, one of our core initiatives from the beginning was called Build for Belonging. So we do equitable development work. And right now, we're poised, if knock on wood, if the comp plans actually get implemented. There are thousands of units of affordable housing that are going be built on the East Side in the next twenty years. Now, some of those spaces are very appropriate for mixed use, including nonprofit and community space, within the developments.

And so what this group that I've convened has been doing is going to the city councils, going to the planning commissioners, going to the, developers, building relationships with nonprofit housing developers, and talking about the ways in which our community based organizations can partner with those housing developers and the cities to ensure that those community spaces are there, not just to provide affordable nonprofit space, but also affordable retail. And so we're working on that, and there's a couple of slides here about the work that's evolved, thanks in large part to your support. So the collective impact work that we're doing, in addition to focusing on funding and you can go back one slide really quick. Thank you so much. I wish I had a button.

I could do it instead of you having to do it for me. So the collective impact work beyond funding and space needs is also about this visibility and leadership. It's about how do we transform systems. Right? And so this summer, we were after two years of bringing many of these organizations that I'm talking about with you today plus others, we were able to provide a shift in a new model of doing community engagement for urban planning on the East Side.

And so this is this is us presenting that collective effort, and there's a bunch of people online that you can't see. We couldn't all be there in person that day. But I believe there were 30 some staff from the city of Redmond across all departments. And what they're doing is they're taking what we did with their planning team, and they're putting it in all the departments because they all have a charge to do community engagement at some point or another. So they're taking the the model that we developed together with our partners.

When I say we, I don't mean East Side for all. I mean this collective. And so the next slide is presenting that model to the American Planning Association conference that took place in Seattle this fall. And you'll see miss Adam Deeba there with my team member Guillermo. And so they were on the panel to teach planners about this model and it can work on a variety of topics with a variety of different municipalities. So that was pretty exciting. And then we go to the next slide. And, again, this is what I'm talking about, the tangible concrete things that we need to have happen. So we got tired of knocking on the library's door and trying to get there. What is it?

A month you have you can't sign up for a library space more than a month out. I mean, it's just ridiculous. So all the things that Kalica said. And and, yes, we have had strides in putting plugging nonprofits, small nonprofits into spaces that they need. But ultimately, need to develop our own spaces.

So there is an initiative happening that's going to be announced in the early part of the coming year when the groundbreaking takes place. But the Redmond Overlake Village is going to have a development built by Bellwether Housing, which is the largest non profit affordable housing developer in Puget Sound. This will be the first East King County one that they're doing. You may recognize the name if you've been following other news in Bellevue because they're also going to develop the Wilburton site, which I believe will have the Boys and Girls Club there. So, a large organization having access to a space, which is great.

They need it. They're large and they serve a lot of kids. But we're talking about the smaller organizations that don't have that kind of visibility or fundraising and partnerships. But we've brought everybody together and we said together we're stronger, right? So we're going to have a 10,000 square foot facility in this building that will open in early twenty twenty eight.

And the next couple of slides just tell you a little bit about that if you're interested. But the point is that that now all the organizations that have been in our collective that have don't have space or access to their own space will be able to have their own office space there and event space for community gatherings. So the next slide talks a little bit about this is a rendering of the commercial kitchen that would be there because we know that that's been a top priority in so many of our BIPOC and immigrant communities on the East Side is access to incubator spaces for food businesses. And then the next slide is the rendering of the event space. And so we're very, very excited about that.

We're going to continue to knock on the doors and ensure that our city facilities are open and inclusive, that other people are rolling up their sleeves, that corporations that have empty office buildings are doing what they they can to open up their doors and make that easy for nonprofits to access. But in the end, I think it's also gonna take us having our own facilities, and this will be something that that we own. So in January, we'll be signing our purchase and sale agreement for for this facility that will open in 2028. So we're really excited about that, and we believe that this model can be replicated. And more organizations that need this, if they are willing to work together, and that takes a lot, but if they are, there's

a

lot that could come to them as a group and individually in the end.

Good job, Debbie.

Yes. So happy for you, Debbie. Thank you for sharing. As we've been doing monitoring visits with our agencies, that has been very consistent around needing space or outgrowing their space, feeling like they're being displaced, and being pushed out is some of the language that we've been hearing. So it's just encouraging to hear about the work that you're all doing. My next question for you all, you kind of already started talking about it, is how do you ensure that equity, community voice, and culturally responsive practices remain central within your work?

This is one of the things I'm actually most proud of of my career at Eastside Pathways. I can't believe it's coming up on ten years. Catch me on a sabbatical hopefully soon soon, please. But one of the things that I'm really proud of about Eastside Pathways infrastructure is our model is centrifugal circles. It's not a hierarchical model. It's a hierarchical model. Often, we're saying community's at the center. Community is leading the way, where our structure actually is built that way. So we have a three layered system, and at the center is community. We're the focus population.

And really, they are empowered systemically to help us set priorities. We had a meeting with our leadership council this morning and our board. And I want to share that I think that's one of the things I'm most proud of Eastside Pathways model because our board takes all of the fiduciary responsibility of the organization, but they don't have any of the decision making power over the what. And I think it is a beautiful systems example of empowering people and also mitigating the risk that comes with being from community. And it also means that our model isn't relying on you having a CEO title to have influence.

It means you don't have to have money. You don't have to have an education. I don't want to minimize our leadership council members. They are powerful, influential leaders in this community in their own right. But the fact that our model has built so that community sets the priorities, community helps us understand what the issues are, and they have full autonomy over what is happening in our rooms, period. I don't make those decisions. My staff don't make those decisions. The community does. The COVID can was a great example of that. We had all this programming.

My predecessor, Stephanie Charrington, got a phone call, and they said, we need COVID support. And we put everything down and popped that up. So community, first and foremost, makes all the decisions on behalf of the what in our partnership. The next layer of our partnership framework is the how. So this is leaders who are experts in their areas of influence, whether you are a police officer or a lifeguard or a doctor or a a parent or a teacher.

You are the experts in how the system currently works. It is your job to then help us understand what the current state is and then figure help us figure out how to change it. And then lastly, that traditional layer where decisions get made, your board, your staff, your CEO, your ED, our answer our, our charge isn't what or how. Our charge is asking the question, what do you need to get that done? That is always our answer.

And so I'm really proud of our model to say that it is completely inverted, and we have almost 15 of evidence of what that looks like. I think the other thing that's really important, as I mentioned earlier, is our partnership agreements have the authority and the scope of authority influence already pre outlined. Right? So there's no question about what the scope of my impact is going to be, one of our maroons. We're not asking you to hope and pray that things might look different.

We're saying we have pre compliance, pre agreement that in this classroom, we have the authority and influence to make change. And I think that's a really critical piece. I don't like setting people up to fail, and I don't like setting people up to bear their trauma and their vulnerability in public without promise of change. And that's a difficult line to walk, but I think it's something that we've walked really well because we have the relationships. And I think the legacy, right, the fact that we've been around long enough.

One of the most powerful moments I ever saw with my predecessor was her meeting with the CEO and them saying, oh, this has never happened before, I'm new to my role. And she opened her laptop and pulled up the last six years of strategic plans and said, let's just review these. And if you haven't done any of the things on these lists, then maybe we don't need to do another strategic plan. Maybe we need to do some strategic action. Right? And so I think it's that the fact that we've been around long enough to know hyper locally where, I almost use, where the dead bodies are buried. I don't know another phrase for that. That's a common corporate term. I apologize. I don't actually know where any bodies are buried.

But, you know, the the of, like, being around long enough to know where where the sticky spots are or where you could actually have some flow and some and some headway. I think the other thing that is really beautiful about collective impact agencies like ours that are working from the outside, if you will, of systems is that, and I'll say this as a previous large youth provider, service program provider, to be a change agent and at the same time expect to continue to get your paycheck from that is a really risky place to be. And it was a strategic decision in my leadership, and I was very fortunate that Eastside Pathways existed when I wanted to be a change agent, and I wanted to work upstream, and I wanted to do systems change, a policy change. There was an organization that would pay me to be a a good troublemaker versus, a manager. Right?

Managing is about managing the status quo. And when you have agencies like ours that are influencing or holding accountability and change from the outside, it's a safer, more sustainable place as an employee and as a change agent. And I think that's a unique piece about collective impact organizations as well, is asking people to change within the systems. And then I'll say as mother of three, worry about whether or not I'll be able to have a job next week because I pushed a little too hard on the system that day is not a tenable thing. So I think that's another piece around the day to day experiences of someone who chooses to be a change agent.

I think both of our agencies provide safe harbor and compensation and support so that people can be change leaders and change agents in their own respect. I'm gonna decline to answer the other questions because I think they're built into the model. And I know all of us do that work unless there is a specific question around cultural responsiveness or linguistic responsiveness. I think when your model is built the way that it is, that that is just inherently a part of it. Like, our staff is 100% people of color.

Half of them are immigrants. Half of them are queer identifying. I mean, we just we are of the community that we're seeking change for. And then I think the other thing is our organization, none of us are coming in on a horse with a cape, right? We're of the communities that we're seeking change for and with. And I think that inherently means we're operating through our own cultural consciousness. And of course, using the adaptive leadership model means change happens through multiple perspectives. So I'll just leave it at that.

Zoe, want to go?

That one or no? No. I think I've shared. I think it might be helpful to share a concrete example of how equity shows up in our work. And and it's it's really difficult.

When you have a cross racial coalition, and and it's all people of color, but they have different experiences. They experience different levels of disparities depending on, you know, what's going on. All of those things are at play all the time. And yet, you've decided together that you're going to stand with each other. And to that, development, I'll I'll give you a very specific example that we were in a position early on in partnering with Bellwether Housing where it become became clear that the city of Redmond and the Redmond Police Department wanted a substation in that building, the Prisma affordable housing complex with our community space on the Ground Floor.

And, at some point, we were not consulted about that. We, the collective, that's going to run the nonprofit space. And, when we found out about it, we collectively put a pause on the partnership, which, put a pause on the whole project because it can't move forward without us. And we had some really good conversations with city of Redmond, with Bellwether Housing, with Redmond Police chief, with Redmond Police Leadership. And ultimately, there was a minority of our organizations that were concerned about that.

And they had very intense and persuasive arguments for why we should not have a police substation at that particular building. In the neighborhood, sure. City of Redmond's growing. They need it they need to have access to policing services throughout the city. But in that particular building where we were going to do what we were going to do there, a few of us said no, and we were in the minority.

That's equity because everybody said, that's a big deal to you because of all those things that you just said, and not just you as an individual, but your entire community feels that way too. We all are with you. And we would not move forward on that even though so much was at stake, even though, you know, seven of the organizations could have moved forward and said, basically, forget you all. We have a good space coming. We need office space and community space, so we're gonna move forward.

Of course, they would have done it more diplomatically, but this happens all the time in communities. It happens here all the time too. That's equity, is when you listen to the voices that may be the fewest, but they are farthest from justice. They have the most to lose or the most to gain, and you have to balance all of that. And in the end, you have to say, Yes, we hear you. We're going to go with that, even though that's the minority view. Why? Because equity. Yeah.

Thank you. Before we move into our last question, do you all have any questions or comments? Alright. Okay. Our last question for you all today is where do you see opportunities for a deeper partnership with the city of Bellevue to strengthen the human services ecosystem?

So Eastside Pathways has been a partner of the Strive Together National Network since our inception. And it's interesting to me that every year when I participate in their gatherings, they have an award called the Bill Hinningsgard Award.

Mhmm.

And it is a recognition of phenomenal collective impact leadership that's given out at the national level. Our organization has not received that award, And we are not mentioned when it's given. And I would share that with you all to say, how are we Thank you. But I'm sharing this vulnerably to say, when we do our annual infrastructure assessment on our theory of action, all of their language, and measuring how effective are we as an organization, when I look at our place based partnership, East Side Pathway serving East King County, started and founded in partnership with the city of Bellevue and leaders in the city of Bellevue, And I compare us to other collective impact organizations across the country. The biggest difference is their cities are at the table as partners, not just investors, but collaborators, coconspirators.

And those are organizations that have $40,000,000 operating budgets, that are building buildings, that are building classrooms, that are building early learning facilities, that are providing programs and services that really enrich the basic needs of organizations so that they can stay focused on doing great work. It's not the framework that's different. It's not our approach that different. It's the involvement of their cities. And the ability for our cities when I and I know I'm preaching to the choir, but I'm gonna say it anyway since we're on record here.

You know, every year when I go to our state capital and I meet with our representatives, I do so in partnership with Graduate Tacoma and the Center for Childhood Education Results. They're the other regional collective impact organizations in our area. We go on behalf of the region because regionally, we represent half of the students in the state of Washington. 536,000 plus or minus students. We represent half of the kids in the state of Washington when you put these three backbone organizations together. That is a powerful ask. We go together. We meet with our electeds. And what they say to us is we give the state the money. We ask them to figure it out.

Right? And then we know what happens from there. It goes to the county level, and then the county says, you don't have enough of those kids, and those kids don't have it bad enough. And I know all of our partners in East King County would echo the exact same thing. We don't have enough of those kids. Pick a demographic. Black kids, queer kids, immigrant kids, intersectionality kids. And they don't have it bad enough because the student to counselor student ratio is higher than it is in other school districts. You have higher high school graduation rates at the student population. You have less of a housing issue.

You have less of a house issue. So every time we go to get funding, whether that's from the federal government to the state level to the county level, East King County kids and East King County providers are consistently struggling because we don't have enough of those kids, and they don't have it bad enough. And so my sense is that the only way this is going to change is if our cities work with us to do that advocacy work. How would it change the narrative if when I went to the state's capital, I wasn't just saying we're coming as backbone organizations, but we're coming on behalf of our cities and we're coming on behalf of our counties because you cannot continue to dismiss East King County kids because you don't think they have it bad enough. And I'll stop there so I don't start crying because I'm a public crier, but I think we all live here and we know the reality.

And my predecessor was saying the same thing, and I'm sick of repeating it. And so my challenge to you all is how are you working with us, not just funding with us, but collaborating? And that, for those of you who've met with me, has been my greatest complaint, is the reduction of collaboration. Right? We appreciate the continued funding, but the fact that you're not collaborating with us to deliver program.

The simple example is no longer having access to city of Bellevue facilities to provide our programming, also not having access to printing services, technical costs that are really, really miniscule for the city in comparison to the burden of cost on us. For example, our annual community report used to be a part of the contract in funding with Bellevue. It costs about $5,000 for us to print that. Now we have to pay for that cost. We're very fortunate that a local bank covered the cost this year, but that allows us to empower community with the data that they need to advocate for their kid.

Parents knowing they're not the only parent who's struggling with their IEP plans. They're not the only parent who's struggling with their high school graduation. These data pieces are the ways in which we empower community, and we're now doing those things without the support of our cities. So I'd say not just funding us, but co conspiring and helping advocate for our kids from a funding lens and a policy package or policy advocacy lens. And then I think the other thing is to be really thoughtful partners with organizations like ours to get into some of the cultural nuances of the deep, deep, deep wounds that are caused by the divide and conquer that funding impacts have.

The amount of cross organizational, inter personal relationship repair that I do and my staff do because people don't want to work with her anymore, work with that person anymore, work with that organization before. And usually somewhere in that origin story had something to do with the shift in funding Because we're fighting for each other. We're fighting for dollars so we can continue to serve our community. And I think that's some of the things that you spoke to. A part of what our organizations do is build a container where people can work through some of that pain and hurt and say, we need to look past that because because our kids are suffering when we don't work well together.

And this is also where I would say, how are you working with us with regards to investment? Because when Eastside Pathways distributes funds, I'll use a concrete example to say our pizza with the purpose model, That product was funded initially back in 2017 through the city of Belvieu's funds. We piloted it at Inner Lake High School, thanks to Doctor. And other BSD leadership, is now expanded to three high schools within Belvieu School District. And what's beautiful about it is with the small investment, we're able to ensure that all of the Black students in those three high schools receive comprehensive care to help them be on a path to high school graduation.

So what we did is we were able to use data to determine that the key service points are career investigation so seeing someone who looks like me, helping me believe that I can be something more than fill in the blank mentorship, financial planning, postsecondary enrollment planning, listening circles to me and my parents so that there's a feedback loop, right, and then that ongoing support. And so what we're doing is we're working with Africans on the East Side, East Side Youth Coalition, Big Brothers Big Sisters, the Bellevue School District, the YMCA or Bellevue Y, VITASE, Roots Roots of Include Roots of Us, all of those organizations are being coordinated and providing multi touch points to those students. So to be able to take $80,000 and coordinate seven different organizations and make sure that this one student has eight organizations wrapping services around them is a game changer. And that's very different than just saying, we're going to give this one organization money. When you invest in collective impact, you invest in collective impact.

Right? You're investing in multiple touch points and services that aren't just being made accessible to kids but being coordinated for those kids. We spend an inordinate amount of time in our office saying, what day are you gonna be there? And why couldn't you get into the building? And did you have access to the Wi Fi? And were the kids there? And did the parents know that? And was it translated? Was it trans created? So it's all the coordination, not only the technical things around timing and calendaring.

And also, one of the other wins that I would celebrate, thanks to the funding of the Bellevue Human Services, back in 2017, I did a research project that was funded by trauma informed restorative practices funded by Best Starts for Kids. There was 35 providers that participated in this research project. And I think, Tony, you were a part of this and some other Debbie, I think you were in the room. And what we found was majority of those providers couldn't do their jobs because they didn't have MOUs with the school district. And it seems really simple, but the reality was an MOU activated a whole host of things that made it easier for someone to come and provide services to that student.

Just last year, we had three organizations, East Side for All excuse me, Africans on the East Side, East Side Youth Coalition, another organization, get their MOUs so that they could be in the schools providing those programs and services. Your funding allowed us to do that advocacy work, and now it's allowing us to coordinate all those services for those students. And it took two full time staff members to stay on top of these things to make sure they were actually happening and to take it from one high school to three high schools for one population. The other thing is because now we also have Best Starts for Kids funds, we've included MCNA in that, and we're doing knowledge transfer to see how do we take this model from serving black focus on black students to how do we also expand it to supporting Muslim students. And we're also working with and the NISO programs to think about how do we expand that to the Spanish speaking community as well.

So it's not only scaling, sustaining, and coordinating, but also always thinking about how are we expanding and sharing these wins with other focused populations. So I just wanna name that your dollars go really, really far. And I see, Olga, you have your hand raised. Ever the facilitator, I'll stop talking.

Hey. Thank you. I guess I'm trying to as I'm listening to trying to balance between having a lot of small organizations do a lot of great work versus potentially pulling it under a larger organization that may have a need for a few fewer administrative or, I guess, overhead than if you have so many small ones. Like, what are what are your thoughts in regards to that? Because having initial organizations that support different community members is great, but what about sometimes having that under one umbrella?

I think one of you touched on that maybe having that back office centralized. But what about, like, completely centralizing? And do you ever go and tell some of your nonprofits that you work with to say, like, do you know there's another organization already does this? Maybe you shouldn't.

Okay. Let me try hopefully, I can hit all the things that I heard you say. And and if I don't, please let me know. We'll have some shared accountability on your question. The current reality, and I think I'll credit Adam Adam Diba. This is, like, one of her key talking points, is there's a lot of risk and trouble when we try to be everything to everyone. I think one of the beauties, again, about collective impact is this intentionality and consciousness and accountability to say, I am designing within the limitations of my organization and my leadership. And I don't think anyone on this face of this earth could say that they can be everything to everyone. And I think there's a lot of trouble in that. Right?

And I want to credit Adam because I think Adam Deebit does a phenomenal job of championing that issue. And so for us, recognizing when we center a family and we center that student and we really clearly hear what they need, there's never been a solution where we're like, oh, they got you. They can handle that. Absolutely not. That has never been the case.

That has never been the case. The case is is that it takes Michelle Williams Clark, whose program has a hundred percent success rate in getting kids out of high school into college of their choosing and graduating and entering career of choice. It takes her calling them phenomenal and incredible and meeting with their families and meeting them wherever they need in bright spits and critical days. It takes an Adam Diba to come in and say, and I want to make sure you feel confident in your beautiful self as a black identifying African identifying immigrant or first gen or the descendant of those who are enslaved. It takes Karen and Adam being there to support those students and hold that circle with them and hold cloth and food with them and song and movement.

It takes a Steve Lozano with Vites to say, here's my online library of all these careers and see that it wasn't just I was a straight A student and now I'm a doctor. That's not my story. So it's all of these providers who are meeting these each unique bespoke needs. I think where it goes sour and doesn't work well is when it's not coordinated. When the students are like, wait. What are all the services? And what do I need to do? And and where do I do that thing? That's where collective impact comes in in this instance to say, we've talked to your doctor. We've talked to your dentist. We've talked to your coach. We've talked to your mentor, and we're making sure they're coordinating. You don't put that burden on the family to have to coordinate all of those. We have a backbone agency that's making sure those organizations are playing well together. I have yet to see one organization that can be everything to everyone.

And I also think it's where we get into this competitiveness where we try to, like, go be bigger, better than we actually are and don't do a great job. And the last thing I think I didn't hit on was the do I ever go tell people to not go do the thing? Absolutely all the time. That's already happening. Can we get you in the same room together?

And not because I'm discouraging someone from doing a thing, but rather making sure that they don't waste their time. So with our NOTESIS program, when we have the funding, we pay them to teach other people how to do their communication, their transcreation model. When we have funded NISO to help them do knowledge transfer, we funded MCNA to do knowledge transfer, we pay organizations to help teach other organizations their wins. And often, it has nothing to do with their approach, but more how did you handle the politics? How did you handle the paperwork?

How did you handle the systems thinking behind it so that you could do your job better? So we absolutely are helping people make sure that they're being mindful of their resources and learning from each other as partners and organizations. And I think the cool thing I would because size of organization has been named. I really wanna celebrate that most of the East King County leaders, whether that's the east side executive director forum that happens at Liz Swanson hosts or meetings that Debbie hosts or I host, I think executive directors in East King County work really well together. It's been beautiful to get on calls with fellow EDs and CEOs and say, we don't wanna lose the talent we have here.

I can't afford to keep them, but, you know, would they be helpful to work for you? It's been really cool to see how even things like retire retaining really great staff when people are experiencing cuts is some of the ways that local executive directors are working well to maintain talent and maintain, again, that consistent experience for our students and families. So hopefully that answered or kind of touched some of the things, Olga, that I was hearing you ruminate on.

Curious if Debbie has thoughts on that question as well.

Yeah. Thank you. Really, really

great response, Keleka, but I wonder if Debbie has a response on that.

Well, Olga, I think I heard a few different things in your question. I think on the one hand, there's the collective impact that we're talking about that where you have our organizations that then are touching multiple organizations. But I think you were also asking about, in that question that that Kalica addressed about, well, what about when there might be the opportunity to merge, to, to not duplicate, or to have a an organization that, for lack of a better term, is like an umbrella. Because I mentioned that that there was some interest in people exploring. Well, can we just all have a shared pooled resource of these, you know, various expertise that are needed by all of our nonprofits.

So all of those conversations are going on all the time. And I, led the Eastside Human Services Forum for almost ten years starting in 2005. And believe me, we were talking about this way back then twenty years ago. So it keeps coming up. But one of the things that we have found is that, yes, sometimes there are opportunities for organizations to not just collaborate, but for one of them to take a lead. And we've done this in our network too. Indian American Community Services is another great example of this. They are somewhat larger. They're still small compared to some of the large organizations, but they're larger in our little network. And they've been able to get larger grants that they then, distribute those funds amongst smaller organizations.

And they take on that role of doing all of the accounting, all the things that Eastside Pathways does too for some of their organizations. I mean, yes, and efforts that they that they have too. So that happens. But one of the things that's not helpful, and we've seen this happen before, and I I have several community Adam Deeb is one of them. There's others who have said, Oh, this city staff person asked me if I knew about such and such organization, and don't we just do the same thing? Please don't do that. And like Kalica said, it takes multiple we we don't say that to white community led organizations. We don't say, well, why are there 18 organizations that are led by white people? And don't you just talk no. We it's because we need all of the things.

We need the large HOPE links. Thank you, HOPE link. We need the large YMCAs. Thank you, YMCA. But we also need these smaller organizations that do very specific things with groups that otherwise have no place to go. And doing so requires them to do that in a very culturally focused way for them. That means that they do everything A to Z. They don't do things in silos. So if you put them under an umbrella where that organization runs things like you have to decide, are you going to do food services? Are you going to do mental health? They're going say, No, we're out because that's not how we do things. We covered all the things in one three hour conversation

with our community

members. Right? So that that would be a little bit more that I would say about that one. I think it's a great question, and it does speak to some of the systemic issues and some of the things that we like talking about so much and that we engage the community on. And I think to Kalica's point that we would like to have the cities involved more into those discussions.

You know, for the that question, opportunities for deep for partnership, we we I would say Eastside For All and our partners, we kind of force parts of Bellevue to collaborate with us. And we've seen that happen more on the urban urban planning side, right, for housing, particularly. And we could have that same kind of partnership and engagement around human services, around small businesses, economic development, so many things in the city. So I think the policy advocacy that you mentioned, there's a there's a last slide up here, if you wouldn't mind that part, that just kind of gives you a little summary about some of the things that we find really helpful and that we need from the the institutions and the governments and the systems as well as funders. And that will if if we're all coming together, we have the nonprofits doing their part and everybody else is also meeting us halfway, then I think we can we can make some real strides here together.

So the co creation, right, that's that's about leading together, not doing things on behalf of of organizations or communities, shared leadership models, amplifying that, not always thinking that larger is better. Some of our organizations have no desire. I'm one of them. I'm fighting against being larger than my four full time employees right now. I really don't want more than that. Unrestricted general operating, we've talked about that before. And also for capacity building, not just direct services. We have to think longer term. And I really respect and appreciate what Mayor Robinson was saying. And there are a lot of crisis situations.

The thing is, we're going to be on the other side of this crisis one way or the other. And together as a community, we are going to respond to this crisis. But what if we're not also planning for the long term, if we're not also building infrastructure for longer term sustainability, keeping our nonprofits here, helping them be as strong as they can be, and we're not doing that preventative and wraparound work that's required, then we're just gonna be on the other side of a crisis, less prepared for the next crisis that comes along. So unfortunately, I'm sorry to say this, but we do have to do it all, all at once. And we can.

It's not going to be easy, but I really believe that that is what we're being called to. Because if we, in the moment of crisis, only respond to the most, you know, urgent needs of the moment and we lose sight of the vision, we're going to find ourselves in a really a place of real deficit and exhaustion and depletion, and probably some of us won't be around. And I don't mean that to be macabre. I mean, like, won't be here in the community to serve our community.

If I could just circle back as well to thanks for that question, commissioner Perelman. I'm glad you're able to join. I think an added point in addition to the great insight from these experts that I would add is we are very, very, very far away in the Bellevue community from having all of our community members be able to access the services that they need. So the thought of duplication equaling excess services is just not data supported. In our most recent needs update, I was just inquiring with our human services manager, Ruth Baugh, because she can remember the numbers and I can't.

And only 49% of our residents could get help when they needed it, in our most recent needs update. And in every single service area, if you dig into the data, you see people say, Well, I wanted that, and I couldn't get it, or The wait list was too long, or they couldn't provide me with care in my language, or I couldn't get there because of transportation gaps. So I appreciate the lens towards, like, how are we investing in ways that advance stability and thriving for our community. But we are a very, very long ways away before providing duplicitous services to the level that they wouldn't be needed.

Thank you for that data point. If I may, I think one of the things that's coming up for me, as you shared that, Tony, is one of the the themes that we're hearing two two different themes, I'd say, around funding. If were I to advocate on behalf of the partners that we're working with that are, the community based or nonprofit, we have for profits, and they're fine from all I know. But the larger foundations that tend to fund in our region have made it very clear that they will not be filling the gap that was created by our federal government, period. End of conversation.

No discussion. Not our problem. Talk to the president. And then the trickle down is your larger and we are very blessed that in our region, we have a lot of that have the financial liquidity and the heart for philanthropy. But what they're saying is now that burden has fallen on our shoulders, and we're not financially positioned to handle that.

And so again, this brings me back to why I think collective impact right now is so important is because the system wasn't set up, the nonprofit industry complex and how it was set up, particularly in our region, is not built for this. I started earlier by saying that our kids, we don't have enough of those kids, and they don't don't have it bad enough. So we were already struggling to get funding to the organizations that do this critical work, which is why we get to the point you're talking about. My question is, when was that data captured, and does it capture the current reality of exactly? So that's where your nodding no for those of us who didn't see that physical, that nonverbal cue, is so the thing that we're hearing and seeing with our partners, and this is to your point around, I'll speak for myself, my own, you know, I'm good at keeping my game face on, but I don't think any of us are thriving, particularly us BIPOC leaders who are doing response work every single day.

The amount of people that are dying, that are experiencing extreme trauma, and yet we still up and get up into our jobs every single day with less resources. East Side Pathways started this year with 7.25 staff members. We are down to five, and we're probably going to come in next year with even less, right? But yet the demands for our services have increased. And not only from our partners, but from donors, because they want they're shifting from trust based philanthropy to we want concrete, street level data that's connected and analyzed to satellite data.

So demands on our community leaders aren't just about their hard work and their time and their ability to run on fumes, but also the technical services as well that are required just to run an organization. And in fact, I've been coaching some of our clients to leave the nonprofit and go for profit because you don't have to worry about managing a board. You don't have to worry about an audit. Like, some of that some of the coaching conversations I've been having with them is it's not financially tenable for you to continue to operate as a nonprofit. Why?

Right? And so I just I appreciate you needing that data point. And I think I don't I don't think we've realized just how bad because I think many women of color and leaders of color and CBOs, Canadian based organizations, are continuing to move as if we haven't hit this financial and we have. We have hit that. It hit early, and we I think East King County last thing I'll just say, it's been ironic to me as I've been going into Seattle more to be a part of King County and not just East King County, is I tell people, I know because they're like, oh, you're from Bellevue.

You don't have problems. And I'm like, our school district was taken over by the state. So if you think having money or proximity to money is the solution, you'd be wrong. And while I'm very I think all of us have lots of feelings about that reality, I think it is a powerful data point that we needed to show that we have to invest in systems because this is not just a program solution. This is a system solution.

The reason that the funding looks the way that it does for a district is not a programs issue. It's a systems issue. And so I think we have to, to Merrick Robinson's point, invest in those critical basic services but through a systems lens. Because if we keep just throwing money down programs as they currently exist, the numbers are going to get worse. Our recent projections on enrollment numbers without any interventions show that we're going to have even less funding in our schools.

I know that the district is reporting an increase, a phenomenal increase, but the current projections still show that our districts in East King County writ large, particularly Bellevue School District, will continue to have funding issues unless we use a systems approach to addressing the infrastructure that supports our students and families. So I just wanted to add that too around how we're going to fix these issues. I don't think it's just a programs and services issue. It's going to be an infrastructure and policy issue as well.

All right. Well, thank you so much. I want to honor y'all's time. And, thank you again, Kalika and Debbie, for coming and informing us. And I hope that you're both taking care of yourselves. Any closing thoughts before we transition? Alright. I will hand it back to you, chair.

Okay. Thank you to the panelists for taking the time to educate us and share your work. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

As a reminder, our next meeting is on January 4. I will hand it over to Ruth for an overview of officer elections.

Thank you, chair Singh. I will make this brief, but I do wanna be sure that we're ready for the election of officers that will happen at our next meeting, which is the first met meeting of twenty twenty six coming up on Monday, January 4. You have a handout that has some of the guidelines for the election, and then it actually has a bit of a script for how it works. Let me just give you a couple of the highlights. A member can nominate themselves or someone else can nominate you.

It's permissible for a nominee to speak or to be asked questions. A member can decline a nomination. So if you nominate someone to be the vice chair, and they they can decline that if they don't want to. And the election of the chair will be immediate in that meeting. So we're gonna elect the chair first, and then whoever's elected chair will immediately be the chair and will conduct the rest of the meeting.

The other thing I wanna tell you in preparation is that for every nominee, their names will be brought up in the order they were nominated. So if I nominate major Inman first, then we're gonna vote on her first. And the votes will be who is in favor of major Inman being chair. Say aye. Who is if you are opposed to major Inman being chair, say nay.

And you have to vote. If you don't vote, it's counted as a yay. So you're gonna either vote for major Inman or against major Inman. And then then if major Inman gets the majority of votes, then we're done, and she's the chair. If she didn't get the majority, then we'll go to the next nominee. Delfina was also nominated. How many people would like until we get a majority? So prepare yourself for the next meeting, and we will do this first thing when we arrive. Any questions before we wrap that up?

No. It's very clear. Thank you. I

think we all I needed it for sure. Great. Thank you, chair Singh.

Sure.

Oh, and I do have one more reminder. I'm realizing next week, December, there is the parliamentary training. I'll send you all a reminder, but I just wanted to put that on your radar now.

So what time it is?

I believe it's at six. I'll have to double check the

oh, is it? Okay.

I will send you the reminder and Okay. You know.

Thank you.

It's lovely. Yeah.

So this concludes our meeting, and we are adjourning at 07:45. I hope we all enjoy the winter break.

Thank you.

Thank you. Have a

good evening.

Happy New Year.