I’ve long believed that everyone can be a philanthropist. Whether your donation is $5 or $5M, what matters is the spirit of generosity and the act of lifting up and acknowledging the people and organizations that are doing good work. To that end, when informed that Camber Collective had decided to walk our Equity talk, by donating 1% of our 2021 revenue to Equity giving, it was only natural that as the Director of Impact and Equity, I wanted to bring the entire team into the spirit of giving.

Each team member was allotted a portion of the year-end total to designate to an organization of their choice, or split the total among two nonprofits. Together, we surprised 40 nonprofits in the U.S., France, and even Bhutan—and others working with populations across the globe. For many, this was a sizable donation, and for all, a delightful surprise. For us, it was a moving representation of the wide array of causes that are dear to Camber team members’ hearts.

Here is the list of donations we supported this year; check them out and see if you’d like to also uplift their work!

• Black Voters Matter Capacity Building Institute increases the power of historically marginalized, predominantly Black communities seeking suffrage equity
• Black Mamas Matter focuses on reproductive and birth justice and addressing the maternal health disparities for Black women in the US
• Community Partners International carries out community health programming in South/Southeast Asia, including Myanmar community health, MNCH, and refugee health (including among the Rohingya in Bangladesh). It focuses on serving Myanmar’s ethnic minorities who have been traditionally excluded by the “national” system
• Dream Defenders based in Florida, fights for the future of Black and Brown youth, particularly to mitigate the unjust carceral system
• Front and Centered is the largest coalition of communities of color-led groups in the Pacific Northwest working at the intersection of equity, environmental and climate justice
• GotGreen works to foster and support climate resilient and healthy communities in South Seattle
• iMentor helps first-gen students not only access college but also graduate
• Innocence Project New Orleans provides essential legal counsel to individuals who have been wrongly, or dubiously, convicted and given life sentences or death sentences in Louisiana — the state with the highest incarceration rate, in the country that has the highest incarceration rate
• Justice Outside advances racial justice and equity in the outdoor and environmental movement
• Live Free is a national coalition of clergy working at the grass roots community level to end gun violence and mass incarceration.
• Lives in the Balance which provides free resources, training, outreach, and advocacy for vulnerable kids and caregivers in Seattle
• Low Income Housing Initiatives was supported by several team members towards the goal of building a tiny house in Seattle that would help alleviate some of the city’s housing crisis.
• Ma’o Organic Farms is based in Hawai’i and builds a future of māʻona, (plenty) through aloha ʻāina: connecting youth and land, empowering youth to succeed in college and secure sustaining careers, and growing organic produce that yields individual and communal vitality
• Make a Wish AK and WA Chapter provides moments of hope and joy to children in the region who are undergoing tough moments and battles with cancer
• Mamatoto Village which provide maternal healthcare to Black women in Washington, D.C.
• Miracle Messages is an award-winning national nonprofit that helps people experiencing homelessness rebuild their social support systems and financial security, through family reunification services, a phone buddy program
• Puget Sound Sage is an organization focused on addressing climate, racial, and economic justice in the greater Seattle area through policy-focused partnerships with communities
• Rainforest Foundation US works to protect the rainforests of Central and South America by partnering directly with folks on the front lines: indigenous people in Brazil, Peru, Panama, and Guyana, who are deeply motivated to protect their lands
• Rainier Valley Food Bank serves one of the US’s most diverse zip codes with some of the worst health outcomes and struggles with income inequality
• Real Rent Duwamish enabled us to make our 2021 real rent payment to the Duwamish Tribe
• RepresentUs works across parties to pass powerful state and local laws that fix our broken elections, dismantling the root causes of inequities in our democracy, and challenging political corruption, extremism, and gridlock
• Roots Young Adult Shelter helps young Seattle adults experiencing temporary homelessness
• Seattle Parks Foundation Community Land Conservancy teaching programs for children and educators
• Secours Populaire Francais supports people in difficult life situations with food, housing, employment assistance, legal support and much more
• SOS Mediteranée is a humanitarian organization engage in direct rescue of and advocacy for refugees and others crossing the Mediterranean
• Technology Access Foundation works to inject equity into the work the STEM education in the Puget Sound area, running multiple high schools using project-based learning and sponsoring a cohort-based program for teachers of color to foster ongoing learning support and drive increased retention
• The Urban Resource Institute which provides shelter and resources to domestic abuse survivors and unhouse people, with a focus on communities of color
• The Innocence Project works to exonerate wrongly convicted individuals and reform the criminal justice system, with a particular focus on injustice towards the BIPOC population
• The Bhutan Foundation is an established non-profit working on environmental conservation, sustainable development, cultural preservation and good governance. We supported their STEM work with students
• The Northwest Community Bail Fund minimizes the harm of the cash bail system by paying bail for people who would otherwise spend the pre-trial time in jail
• The Lavender Rights Project supports Queer and Trans community members across the state of Washington
• The Floating Hospital is a longstanding ship based in NYC harbor which provides exceptional, compassionate healthcare to local families in need
• The WA Therapy Fund Foundation increases access to mental health services for the Black community in Washington by fully subsidizing therapy costs for eligible individuals
• The Renton Innovation Zone Partnership works to drive systemic change at the local level for children living in the south King County (Seattle) are, focusing on inequity in education, housing, nutrition, and more
• The Coalition for Rainforest Nations championed the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) mechanism. It ensures developing countries get paid if they can show that they’ve been preventing deforestation
• The Sogorea Te Land Trust is an urban Indigenous women-led land trust based in the San Francisco Bay Area that facilitates the return of Indigenous land to Indigenous people. Camber donated to this organization to pay our Bay Area land tax
• Utopia 56 distributes food and other essential items and provides legal support to refugees and unaccompanied minors in Northern France and Paris
• Wild Montana creates public wildlands with a focus on restorative justice and partnerships with local tribes
• Wild Orca protects and saves the Southern Resident Orcas from extinction

We also made a donation to the Team Western Kentucky Tornado Relief Fund in response to the devastating tornado which hit one of our team member’s hometown on December 10, 2021.

May the spirit of this season encourage you, regardless of if or how you celebrate, and here is wishing a for a safe and happy new year, imbued with a sense of abundance, justice, purpose, and power!

As Camber Collective’s Director of Impact and Equity Rozella Kennedy develops, curates, and disseminates information, resources and events that: support team competency in intersectional equity and anti-racism; build internal team belonging, ways of working; bolster the culture of learning and celebration (in which team members feel seen, supported, connected, and galvanized); and connect these values to the firm’s external work, influence, and impact through equitable project design methodologies at the intersection of U.S. paradigms and the global contexts within which we work. Rozella is also the creator of Brave Sis Project, a lifestyle brand using narrative and social engagement to uplift BIPOC women in U.S. history as a tool for learning, growth, celebration, and equity allyship; her book “Our Brave Foremothers: Celebrating 100 Black, Brown, Asian, and Indigenous Women Who Changed the Course of History” was published by Workman Press in Spring, 2023