Puget Sound Sage

Equitable development our equitable development work focused on 2 campaigns in 2023. Our first campaign, king county equitable development initiative, led our crest coalition members in advocating to build regional infrastructure for community-driven projects outside of seattle city limits. Through advocacy at the county level, this group won 1,000,000 of dedicated funding in 2024 to launch future initiatives. Our other campaigns included working in partnership with the cid coalition to mobilize the chinatown/international district community in working with Sound transit to develop transit station alternatives and fight for culturally relevant development options and neighborhood investments. As a result of our advocacy, the Sound transit board voted in favor of the cid community's anti-displacement proposal, placing stations north and south of the cid.

Leadership institute the community leadership institute (cli) is an 6-month fellowship that trains emerging leaders in issues such as housing, land use, transit, climate and economic development. Graduates learn the nuts and bolts of local government processes such as municipal budgeting, parliamentary procedures, and lawmaking, as well as advocacy, storytelling and communication skills. In 2023, we awarded Sage leaders, our sister organization who runs cli, with 201,500 to support 28 fellows from the four counties in Washington. We graduated 16 fellows from our inaugural clark county program in spring 2023, 83% of whom are currently on public facing boards and commissions.

Climate as part of our climate work, we sit on seattle's green new deal (gnd) board to participate in crafting and funding a regional carbon-reduction strategy. In 2023, our gnd board representative was nominated as co-chair of the board. Under her leadership, the gnd board developed policy for climate resilience hubs which will help the city of seattle prepare, adapt and recover from climate/environmental crises. Outside of the board, we convened the environmental justice kitchen coalition, where 14 community members met to identify environmental justice priorities and strategies to present to the gnd board. Lastly, our staff worked with earthlabs to survey utility benefits gaps and created visual maps to show vulnerability and gaps in access in king county and Puget Sound urban areas.

All other programs