cameron green

August 23, 2021 Greetings WESTAF community: It’s Sunday evening and I’m vanning back to Denver, having just emerged from the woods (glorious weekend camping near Cottonwood Lake in Colorado’s San Isabel National Forest). That adventure was the perfect end to this past week’s energizing and inspiring retreat with the leadership team in Colorado Springs. The retreat gave us much to process, and generated some potent ideas and concepts to bring into our upcoming RAO retreat, September BOT executive committee meeting and October staff and trustees meeting — more to come there. As we barrel towards the end of FY21 WESTAF…

August 9, 2021 Greetings WESTAF community: So much activity in all corners of the organization these past few weeks! A warm welcome to Ashanti McGee…the registration launch of WESTAF’s Creative Vitality Summit has already attracted over 120 registrants in just the early days of registration…the herculean launch of the new CaFE admin User Interface…panelists getting lined up for the ARP Fund for Organizations…a busy executive committee meeting…planning for several key in-person meetings happening in the coming months…settling in over at the Alliance Center…read on below for updates on those items and a whole lot of other important stuff, too! WESTAF…

July 26, 2021 Greetings WESTAF Community: Wowza — already time for another biweekly! So much outstanding activity in all corners of the organization these past few weeks. This time of the year, we’re deep in planning for FY22, and the Mackenzie Scott gift we received recently has added a wonderful, if complex, dimension to our thinking. In addition to the planning that we’ll be doing in various upcoming meetings and retreats (see below), this article in the Chronicle of Philanthropy by Bianca Casanova Anderson has also kept us grounded and inspired. Additionally, we’ve been thinking a lot about mission-aligned investing…

July 12, 2021 Dear WESTAF team and trustees: Hope everyone has been able to find some shade or otherwise beat the heat in the sweltering west this summer. Before I go ahead and jump right in, I just want to convey continuing appreciation to my WESTAF colleagues who regularly contribute to this update — thanks, guys! Here we go: WESTAF ENDORSES CREATIVE ECONOMY REVITALIZATION ACT TO BE INTRODUCED IN CONGRESS (DH) WESTAF has endorsed a piece of legislation, the Creative Economy Revitalization Act, which is due to be introduced by U.S. Representative Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-NM). The bill seeks $300m…

Dear WESTAF community: Oh my gosh! We’re just a few days out from the beginning of Q4! Where did the year go?! If you feel like I do, you are bubbling over with pride about the superb work that WESTAF is doing right now in granting and advocacy, as well as across our business platforms. If you read on below, you’ll learn more about our real-world impact as an essential regional and federal advocate as we secure and distribute funds across the western states while making sure our collective voices are heard in Washington DC, as well. On the business…

  Greetings WESTAF trustees and staffers: It’s hard to believe that we are heading into the home stretch of the third quarter of FY21. Holy Moly — where does the time go?! At WESTAF, FY22 budget planning is already well underway, and in Denver, after a soggy May, the June heat has been merciless! Before we jump into this biweekly, I wanted to give a big “thank you” to the celebration committee for organizing a WESTAF summer staff party last week — a virtual paint n’ sip. Masterpieces were produced, libations were imbibed, and by all accounts, loads of fun…