Attention: Ballard High School Science Teachers!

We have launched our 2021 microgrant program with a special focus on education.  Thanks to the generosity of donors, Groundswell NW will be awarding up to $500 each to support educational groups and classes that are starting projects that support Groundswell NW’s mission – creating community, parks, and habitat.  Proposals for a new project in NW Seattle are preferred.  

The simple application is found at www.GroundswellNW.org/microgrants.  We anticipate awarding monies by March 15.  Funded projects would need to be started before the end of this academic year, but completion dates are flexible.  

Please feel free to forward this invitation to other teachers who might be doing something related to our mission – particularly those in the social science area.

The Sustainable Ballard DEI Taskforce needs you!

Sustainable Ballard is forming a DEI (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion) Taskforce to identify ways that we can incorporate more BIPOC supports and ally activities into the organization. We expect this group to meet monthly over Zoom and would love some more members!
Some ideas that have been proposed for this group to address are:

  • Research BLM organizations and determine which ones to support and back: Black Lives Matter Seattle King County, WA BLM Alliance, King County Equity Now

  • Look internally to see if there are ways to better welcome Black Ballardites into the organization and leadership

  • Review Sustainable Ballard’s By-Laws for discriminatory language and policies and propose changes and new pro-active inclusion language.

  • Post more social media articles supporting local efforts and speak out against instances of local racism.

  • Consider if there are ways to integrate racial justice into existing Sustainable Ballard projects and/or to create policies for new projects that account for this.

  • Identify advocacy that we can promote to Ballard neighbors. Create Community Bulletin Board for things to be aware of?

We have information from the NEO Law Group available at http://nonprofitlawblog.com/governance-documents-diversity-equity-inclusion-nonprofits/ that will be helpful, but first we have a lot of listening to do!

If you are interested in being part of this Taskforce, please reply to jodytgrage@gmail.com and she will set up an email list and get out a Doodle poll for our first call.

If you’d like to meet in person – masked and social distanced, of course – or by phone, Jody is available and would love to hear your thoughts and ideas about this project.  Her time is quite flexible so please let her know where and when in the next couple weeks would work best for you.