Jessica Green
Announcing PPF’s Fall 2023 Small Grant ...
Announcing PPF’s Fall 2023 Small Grant Recipients
Leadership
Jessica Green
Announcing PPF’s 2023 Joey Pope Nominees and ...
Announcing PPF’s 2023 Joey Pope Nominees and the 2023 Honoree!
Jessica Green
Announcing PPF’s Fall 2022 Small Grants ...
Announcing PPF’s Fall 2022 Small Grants Recipients
Jessica Green
Announcing PPF’s Spring 2022 Small Grants ...
Announcing PPF’s Spring 2022 Small Grants Recipients
Community, Small Grants Program
Jessica Green
Announcing the Fall 2021 Small Grant Recipients
Announcing the Fall 2021 Small Grant Recipients

Welcoming our new Executive Director

Dear PPF Community,

We are excited to announce Jessica Green as PPF's next executive director! Jessica is an ardent parks advocate with deep relationships in the city and parks community, a seven-year veteran of the organization, and our former deputy director. 

Jessica joined PPF in 2017. During her time here, she has proven herself as a steady leader of PPF operations, governance and finance. Through collaborative partnerships Jessica envisioned and inaugurated PPF’s Friends & Allies initiatives that continue to deepen PPF’s connection to emerging and seasoned leaders in our community. Her commitment to bringing meaningful resources to our community partners has led to raising the profile of our Small Grants Program and increasing our reach and diversity in giving. Additionally, she has played key roles in many of our major projects including the Barbara Walker Crossing campaign, downtown-centered Summer Paseo Festivals, and the Rose City Park Playground replacement project.

"Our organization and community of park advocates continue to celebrate the more than 20-year impact we have all made working together for our outdoor and green spaces. In that time, Jessica has been instrumental to move our mission forward and elevate our organizational operations to the professional level that it is today,” says PPF Board chair JR Lilly. “As Jessica moves now to take the helm, we look forward to expanding our broad range of public/private partnerships, and to continue building on our success of reimagining the role parks can play in civic health, especially in historically disadvantaged communities." 

"I am honored by this opportunity,” says Green. “PPF has a dedicated team of staff and board members who are passionate advocates for helping people help parks. I look forward to leading PPF’s efforts to help our city live up to the challenge of a parks system that is inclusive to all communities.”

Jessica studied geology at Hamilton College and environmental policy at Lewis and Clark Law School. An accomplished runner, Green partners with The Michael J. Fox Foundation's endurance arm, Team Fox, to provide nationwide year-round coaching services to all of Team Fox's long distance athletes. She’s also the board chair at Friends of Tryon Creek, and a proud mom of three young children who love to explore our city’s parks.  

"I am thrilled to congratulate Jessica Green on her appointment as the executive director of the Portland Parks Foundation,” says Vibrant Communities Commissioner Dan Ryan. “With her extensive experience and deep commitment to our parks and community, Jessica is well-poised to lead the foundation. Her proven leadership during her tenure as deputy director and interim executive director demonstrates her capability to steer the organization toward continued success. I am confident that the Portland Parks Foundation will thrive under Jessica's guidance."

Considering Jessica’s leadership over the last several years, her commitment to advancing PPF’s Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion values within PPF’s operations and programs, and her strong relationships to the parks community, PPF’s board of directors is excited to welcome Jessica Green as the next executive director of the Portland Parks Foundation.

In partnership, 

Portland Parks Foundation Board of Directors

Announcing PPF’s Fall 2023 Small Grant Recipients

The Portland Parks Foundation mobilizes support to improve Portland’s system of parks, natural areas, and public spaces. One of the ways we do this is through our small grants program. PPF’s offers small grants of $2,000 each to support programs, projects, and general operations of local organizations who foster equitable access to our urban parks, natural areas, community gardens and community recreation centers.

This fall, PPF is able to support 13 organizations whose work spans the city and creatively addresses various gaps in current programming and services found in our communities thanks to partial funding from PP&R’s Community Partnership Program and a generous bequest from Nancy Hebb Freeman.

We encourage you to learn more about each of these organizations and their diverse approaches to making Portland thrive. You can find them in activating and cleaning up neighborhood parks, distributing food through community gardens and orchards, educating youth on trails and in natural areas, and team building on and off the basketball court and soccer field.

Congratulations to all of our recipients!

We’re excited to partner with you and make Portland’s parks and green spaces more accessible, more exciting, and more deeply appreciated. 

The Fall 2023 Small Grant recipients are:

Read about each of the organizations
and the work they are doing to help our parks!

Executive Transition

The Portland Parks Foundation announced today that Executive Director Randy Gragg will retire from his role effective September 30 of this year. 

“It’s been almost five years,” Gragg said. “During that time, we’ve made huge strides remaking the organization to be more diverse, equitable, and inclusive both in its programming and in all of its relationships with the wide range of communities we serve. We’ve done, and are still doing, some great projects. We survived a pandemic . . . and we grew.”

Gragg will return to writing and to producing independent creative projects in the fields of architecture and urban design.

The foundation’s Deputy Director Jessica Green, a seven-year veteran of the organization, will serve as Interim Executive Director until Gragg’s successor is chosen. 

During the past two months, the Portland Parks Foundation board has worked closely with both Gragg and Green to ensure a smooth transition. Going forward, Gragg will work on an as-needed basis to complete important projects in progress such as PPF’s development of design and engineering contract documents for the restoration of the Thompson Elk Fountain. 

"When Randy joined us, he quickly raised the visibility of the organization and enriched its value to Portlanders,” said Board Chair Kia Selley. “He jumped into the middle of a complex construction project connecting Portland’s Wildwood Trail across West Burnside with the Barbara Walker Crossing. This summer, we celebrated the completion of the new playground in Rose City Park. Under Randy’s leadership, we’ve harnessed the power of parks to strengthen communities and create a more powerful sense of belonging for everyone.” 

During his tenure, working collaboratively with Green, Gragg shepherded an impressive list of key projects and initiatives:

  • Completing the construction of the Barbara Walker Crossing. 

  • Producing “Green Dreams,” a compelling series of conversations with thought leaders and elected officials about the future of Portland’s parks system. 

  • Developing “Friends & Allies” initiatives supporting the city’s 200+ parks-related organizations with an expanded grants program, technical assistance, and summits.

  • Curating PPF’s parks posters, a series of collaborations with local designers to celebrate parks with a series, now 10 and counting, of collectible silkscreens and lithographs. 

  • Overseeing the 2020 Parks Levy campaign that now provides over $50 million per year to support PP&R’s programs, parks maintenance, and tree stewardship.

  • Launching Paseo, an annual festival animating the South Park Blocks with the art and culture of communities that all too often have felt excluded from downtown.

  • Piloting The Joey Pope Fund for Parks Leadership — an endowment of $590,000 and growing — that supports emerging leaders with grants technical assistance. 

  • Crafting a private/public partnership to build a new playground in Rose City Park. 

  • "Reimagining O’Bryant Square,” a major public outreach effort to redevelop the square recently renamed Darcelle XV Plaza.

  • And most recently, spurring a private/public partnership developed with City Commissioners Carmen Rubio, Dan Ryan, and Mingus Mapps to restore Portland’s landmark David P. Thompson Elk Fountain and return it to its historic home downtown.

 

Jessica Green has run operations for PPF since joining the organization in 2016. In 2019, she took over PPF programming overseeing the development of the Friends & Allies grants, awards and summit programs and all of PPF’s initiatives in diversity, equity and inclusion. She also serves as board chair for Friends of Tryon Creek and provides year-round coaching to athletes across the country running races and raising money for the Michael J. Fox Foundation. 

Announcing PPF’s Spring 2023 Small Grant Recipients

This Spring, PPF received over 20 applications for our Small Grants, a grant program aimed at benefiting programs, projects, and general operations of local organizations bringing communities to parks and improving our parks. This cycle 12 organizations each received a $2,000 grant thanks to partial funding from Portland Parks & Recreation’s Community Partnership Fund and a generous bequest from Nancy Hebb Freeman. You can read more about our Small Grants program here.

With our small grants, PPF focuses on the people and organizations working to fill gaps in access to parks, so everyone can benefit from the healing and transformative nature of parks. We intentionally prioritize organizations supporting low-income populations, communities of color, and other historically marginalized groups.

Congratulations to all of our recipients! We’re excited to partner with you and make Portland’s parks and green spaces more accessible, more exciting, and more deeply appreciated.

The Spring 2023 Small Grant recipients are:

Read about each of the organizations
and the work they are doing to help our parks!

Announcing PPF’s 2023 Joey Pope Nominees and the 2023 Honoree!

The Portland Parks Foundation is excited to announce its second-ever Joey Pope Award for Parks Leadership nominees and honoree!

Guided by her belief that parks and the outdoors are for everyone and an essential part of Oregon life, Josephine “Joey” Pope has devoted over four decades of her life to activism, philanthropy, and leadership in making Portland’s parks system more accessible to all.

In the spirit of Joey’s legacy, The Portland Parks Foundation, in partnership with the Pope family, has established an endowment fund to support emerging leaders advancing accessibility and innovation in Portland’s parks system.

This award includes a $10,000 grant plus wrap-around support from PPF to advance the goals of the recipient and their organization.

Joey Pope out in the field.

This year, we received 11 nominees highlighting the work of leaders in Portland. These leaders were nominated for their work to make parks and green spaces more equitable, more inviting, and more responsive to the communities that utilize them.

We celebrate and acknowledge the work of all of our nominees:

  • Black Futures Farm

  • Brent Atchley, Push Movement

  • Dean Dickinson, Skaters for Portland Skateparks

  • Green Lents

  • Jayanika Lawrence, Friends of Zenger Farm

  • Juntu Capistrano Oberg, Northwest Trail Alliance

  • Maritza Oropeza Kritz

  • Peter Johnson, Portland Waterfront Pavilion

  • Prashant Kakad, Dance United

  • Rain Pollock, Ladies of the Rose

  • Urban Nature Partners, PDX

Read more about the nominees here.

PPF is excited to announce this year’s
Joey Pope Award recipient is
Black Futures Farm!

Black Futures Farm (BFF) is a food-growing, community-building farm working off of 1.15 acres of park land in the Brentwood-Darlington Neighborhood, unceded Clackamas and Multnomah First Nations Territory. Alongside their stewardship of various fruit trees, vegetables, flowers, medicinal and cooking herbs, their deeper work is creating a gathering place for the Black community to gather, connect to the land, and support one another. At Black Futures Farm, every Sunday from May to October, is Black Sunday, a day for Black-identified folks to gather, celebrate, learn, and grow together. 

BFF’s paired devotion to equity and care for the land make them leaders in our community, and help us have a broader vision for how our parks, green spaces, and natural areas can be better shared and stewarded. Their programming centers Black voices, as well as women, LGBTQUIA+ folks, neurodivergent people, people with different abilities, and youth - those whose agency has historically been marginalized. 

They state, “We unite as a collective to uplift our community on their journey of autonomy and being leaders within spaces they have been excluded from. We focus on equity in the communities we serve and in the way we approach our relationship with the land through decolonizing the dominant culture’s way of being and knowing.” To deepen its vision, the farm is currently innovating programming based in wellness, clean energy and culturally affirming practices. These programs center the land as the source of knowledge, healing, and hope, and challenge white-centered and conservationist ideals around the environment.

This work is vital to bringing the community together while uplifting distinct community needs, practices, and histories connected to the land. We are thrilled to celebrate the Black Futures Farm as this year’s Joey Pope Award for Parks Leadership recipient. Along with receiving a $10,000 award from the Joey Pope Fund, PPF will work with BFF over the next year to advance their work through technical assistance and partnership. 

Thank you for your dedication, deep labor, and inspirational leadership, Black Futures Farm team!

Learn more about Black Futures Farm here.

Learn more about the Joey Pope Award here.

Announcing PPF's 2023 Park Champions!

PPF’s annual Parks Champion Award recognizes individuals who provide outstanding volunteer service to a park, community center, natural area or community garden. The two winners each receive the opportunity to direct a $1,500 grant from PPF to a community organization that aligns with our vision: to help Portland communities create more equitable access to nature, play, health, and places of connection.

This year, we received nominations for 19 people and groups across Portland, and they are involved in some impressive work!

Some of the nomination highlights include:

  • Hauling thousands of pounds of trash from the Columbia Slough, even balancing tires on the fronts of kayaks

  • Devoting decades to a neighborhood garden patch, tended to it with the help of friendly neighbors

  • Establishing new educational opportunities for community youth to support the native ecosystem

  • Near-daily attendance to Forest Park trails’ maintenance, dangers, and repairs

  • Advocacy in parks areas for increased resources and infrastructure to support recycling, waste reduction, and accessibility

  • Creative pathways to recovery and to community activity through skateboarding and skate park access

  • Sharing expertise and scientific knowledge with the community to improve green space and wetlands stewardship

  • Activating (and re-activating after COVID!) parks for community events, play days, and work days

Our 2023 Parks Champions are…

Stephanie LaMonica

Friends Pier Park

Paul Taylor

Columbia Slough, Whitaker Ponds

Zora Hess

Columbia Slough,
Kelley Point Park

Stephanie LaMonica | Friends of Pier Park

Stephanie is a Board Member of Friends of Pier Park and an enthusiastic member of her community. She has started two programs with Friends of Pier Park since 2021. Next-Door Nature, which aims to empower local underserved youth as community green-space and earth champions through education and parks engagement, and Pier Park Understory Establishment, which is restoring large, formerly mowed areas of Douglas fir understory with native plants. Through her work, over 1000 small trees, shrubs, ferns, perennials, and ground cover have been planted in the park - 100s of those carefully planted by Pier Park’s youngest, newest community stewards: students from Sitton Elementary.

 

Zora Hess and Paul Taylor | Columbia River Slough

Paul Taylor is an adoptive caretaker of the Columbia Slough, and a meticulous one at that! He has removed over 500 bags, 674 needles, 114 quarts of oil, and over 120 tires from the natural area since becoming involved with SOLVE in 2020. Paul is known to have a particular skill of balancing oddly shaped and heavy trash objects on his kayak as he cleans the water in an area which unfortunately faces a lot of dangerous dumping. His work and enthusiasm have positioned him as a Columbia Slough ambassador, greatly improving the natural area and getting more people involved in its health and beauty. 

Zora Hess is a volunteer on multiple projects across north and northeast Portland. She has negotiated to get support from City, Metro, and State governments to get fishing line recycling stations set up around the Columbia Slough, decreasing harmful waste and improving the ecosystem. Zora is known as an advocate for the houseless community and for getting creative solutions for excess trash and advocating for better dumpster access. You can find her cleaning the Slough and surrounding areas, lugging tons of trash by kayak even with a broken wrist!

Learn more and support work in
the Columbia Slough here:

Read about each of the nominees and the amazing volunteer work they are doing in our city!

Our 2023 Parks Champion Nominees include:

  • Allio O'Sullivan, Zenger Farm  

  • Bill Bannister, Forest Park, Forest park Conservancy, Soft-Surface Trails 

  • Bill Bradford and Kathy Olliver, Johnson Lake natural area

  • Bill Dudeiros, Clear Creek Middle School Eco Student Field Study Restoration Site

  • Darrick Stiers, Push Movement

  • Daveed Fleischer, Powell Butte

  • Ginger Edwards, Arbor Lodge, Hoyt Arboretum, PPF Friends & Allies Summit steering 
    committee, North Portland Parks Friends Group

  • Jane Roffey Berry, Argay Park

  • Javier Puga-Phillips, Community Leader for Concordia Neighborhood Association 

  • Mackenzie Dunn, The Wetlands Conservancy

  • Paul Taylor, Columbia Slough, Whitaker Ponds

  • Robin Jensen, Friends of Marquam Nature Park

  • Malden Court Community Orchard Volunteers 

  • Sarah Farahat, Black Futures Farm

  • Shaun Sullens, Piedmont Neighborhood Association, Peninsula Park

  • Sheina Posner, The Fields Park, Tanner Springs Park and Wallace Park

  • Stephanie LaMonica, Friends of Pier Park

  • Tim Copeman, Gateway Green

  • Zora Hess, Kelley Point Park, the Columbia Slough, Columbia Slough Trail

Learn more about out PPF’s Park Champion Award

The Difference You Make: A Special Year-End Message from Our Executive Director

As we look back at 2022 and ahead to 2023, we have a lot to celebrate, and none of it could have happened without you! Read Executive Director Randy Gragg’s year-end letter to learn more about the difference we’ve made—and can continue to make—together.

Hello, friends, and happy holidays. Thank you for taking a few minutes to read this note at such a busy time of year. Even more importantly, thank you for making 2022 an incredible year for Portland’s parks, and for Portland Parks Foundation.

Here at PPF, our mission is to help people help parks. Whether you’ve given your time, your treasure, or your talent—or maybe even all three—your exceptional generosity in 2022 has empowered us to provide that help in so many ways.

This year, we expanded key programs like Green Dreams lectures, our Friends & Allies Summits, and our Small Grants. We started new traditions with the Joey Pope Award for Parks Leadership and Paseo, our first festival. And we started new projects like the Rose City Park Playground and critical design work for the Thompson Elk Fountain restoration.

The most important ingredient in our work is partnerships. Your support allowed us to build and strengthen them with dozens of Portland communities, volunteer groups, organizations, and leaders that Portland Parks Foundation collaborates with year-round. In short, your support makes an immediate difference, not only for Portland Parks Foundation, but for all our partners, as well as the millions of people who benefit from their work in Portland’s parks every year.

Portland’s parks are places of beauty, and of potential.

The last three years of constant challenges and uncertainties have taught us that Portland’s parks are critical infrastructure for our physical, mental, and cultural well-being. By listening to communities and by elevating the voices of partners across the city, the Portland Parks Foundation works every day to make sure Portland’s parks can serve all our communities.

That’s why, as we wrap up the year, I want to share a few more details about the successes of 2022:

●     Honoring Pamela Slaughter with our first-ever Joey Pope Award for Parks Leadership: a $10,000 grant and technical assistance for the next year. Pamela is the founder and Executive Director of People of Color in the Outdoors (POCO). In her own words: “The Joey Pope Award means a lot to us. The most important thing is that it is a recognition of our work, that we should keep going and doing things the way we’re doing them because it’s making a difference.” 

●     Reaching our fundraising goal for a new Rose City Park Playground. Our collaboration with Rose City Park Playground Project, Parks Commissioner Carmen Rubio’s office, and Portland Parks & Recreation, raised $260,000 to install a new playground spring, 2023 that will serve more than 1,200 Portland children, 53% of whom come from families of color.

●     Rewarding the work of dozens of grassroots volunteers and leaders. From 28 fantastic nominees, our community-led committees selected Bookmobile Babe’s Christie Quinn as well as Native American Elder, tribal activist, and community organizer Laura Campos for this year’s Parks Champions Awards. From 45 applications—each an inspiration and, again, selected by a community-led committee—we supported new and ongoing work by 13 organizations this spring with our Small Grants Program. Our fall awardees were announced earlier this month.

●      Going live with Green Dreams lectures and Friends & Allies Summits. After two years of canceled, postponed, and online events, we re-introduced in-person and hybrid programming in 2022, reaching a combined total audience of nearly 1000 people, including more than 80 partner organizations. You can even watch some of the recordings on our YouTube channel.

●     Bringing together 4,000 people for the inaugural year of Paseo. For three days in the South Park Blocks and Director Park, this BIPOC-led festival—produced by Portland Parks Foundation—brought out the best in our city, our communities, and our parks. One hundred percent of those surveyed said we should do it again, and so we are!

Those are five big examples of the difference you’ve already made with your donations to Portland Parks Foundation. Again, thank you. Because of these successes, we’re already poised for another great year.

These are some highlights of projects and programs we’ll be working on through 2023 that your contributions can support:

●     Continuing our work to fully restore and reinstall the Thompson Elk Fountain to its home on SW Main.

●     Following the Rose City Park Playground’s completion with more new playgrounds.

●     Completing the $500,000 campaign to endow the Joey Pope Award for Parks Leadership in perpetuity.

●     Selecting the next recipients of the Joey Pope Award and the US Bank Parks Champions Awards.

●     Holding our spring and fall Friends & Allies Summits and the adjacent Volunteer Days of Service in Portland parks.

●     Expanding our Small Grants Program to assist even more community groups and organizations.

●     Planning and hosting the second year of Paseo.

●     Presenting partners and thought leaders for Green Dreams and Friends & Allies Summits.

●     Convening national experts and local stakeholders to reopen—and rethink—the long-fenced downtown plaza known as O’Bryant Square.

●     Growing our staff and board to build even more partnerships and work for Portland’s parks.

●     Creating impact in our parks that can continue to be experienced and enjoyed by millions of people every year.

Portland has long been a leader when it comes to parks and public spaces. For more than two decades, the Portland Parks Foundation has provided pathways for individuals and community groups to be part of that that leadership by building a movement of donors, sponsors, and doers to realize new possibilities in our parks system.

As Joey Pope, who chaired our first board of directors twenty-one years ago, once put it: “The privilege of being outside in the air is all part of being human.”

Joey worked to expand that privilege to everyone. She saw the beauty of our parks and the potential. So do we. And I’m betting you do, too.

Let’s work together to transform the countless potentials of our parks into realities. You helped us make a difference in 2022. Click the button below to help make a difference in 2023, too!

On behalf of the staff and the board of the Portland Parks Foundation, of our parks system, and of the millions of people who enjoy our parks every year, thank you for your support.

With gratitude and best wishes for the very happiest of holidays,

Randy Gragg

Executive Director

Portland Parks Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Donations are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. Our EIN is 93-1319970.

Images courtesy Celeste Noches, Cacophany, and Portland Parks Foundation staff. Thank you, photographers and photo participants!

Announcing PPF’s Fall 2022 Small Grants Recipients

PPF’s Small Grants Program recognizes organizations who are dedicated to increasing the accessibility of our urban parks and nature areas. The Portland Parks Foundation provides support to these organizations who embody our mission; here at PPF “we help people help parks.”

With our small grants, PPF focuses on the people and organizations working to fill gaps in access to parks, so everyone can benefit from the healing and transformative nature of parks. We intentionally prioritize organizations supporting low-income populations, communities of color, and other historically marginalized groups.

This fall, PPF was able to partner with 12 organizations awarding at total of $24,000.

A big thank you to Portland Parks & Recreation Community Partnership Program and U.S. Bank for helping to support PPF’s Small Grants Program this year.

Fall 2022 Small Grants Recipients:

Read about each of the organizations and the work they are doing to help our parks!

Say Hello to Kate Bemesderfer, Portland Parks Foundation’s New Development & Communications Director

Kate joined Portland Parks Foundation in October 2022. Originally from the East Coast—she grew up mainly in Pennsylvania, lived in New York City for many years, and is a graduate of NYU—Kate has lived west of the Rockies for fifteen years. She has more than 20 years of experience working with nonprofits of all shapes and sizes, from education to community to environment to the arts. Her career originally focused on teaching young adults with autism-spectrum diagnoses, first in New York and then in California, where she eventually helped to found a nonprofit school serving that demographic. Over time, she took advantage of opportunities to gain experience not just with creating and running nonprofit programs, but with the administrative and fundraising side of nonprofits, and made the leap into full-time nonprofit development work a decade ago.

A Portlander for seven years, she has worked with 1000 Friends of Oregon, Willamette Riverkeeper, EarthShare Oregon, and many others to raise millions of dollars for nonprofits that believe in the power of the connection between people and place. Five years ago, she also began collaborating with Wendy Mitchell (who is now our Major Gifts Officer) to provide nonprofits with deeper development services, and to provide development professionals with opportunities to connect with and learn from one another. It was easy to say yes when the opportunity to work with Wendy and the team at Portland Parks Foundation arose!

As our Development and Communications Director, Kate's focus is threefold: stewarding our current donors, expanding our various audiences to bring in more (and more diverse) support, and cultivating new business and foundation support. She also works closely with Wendy, the staff, and the board to continue to develop our major and planned giving program, and to build out our philanthropy program overall.

Away from work, Kate is a Community Council member and active participant at Arcosanti, where she currently resides, and where she previously served as both a staff member and a board member. A project of The Cosanti Foundation (also a nonprofit), Arcosanti is a world-renowned design-build project in the high desert of central Arizona that combines architecture and ecology in pursuit of more equitable, resilient, and sustainable urban design–something Portland knows a thing or two about, too. Kate’s love of city-building and community-building is what drew her to both Portland and Arcosanti, so she is excited to be able to play a role in both places at once, and to have such a great reason to be spending more time in Oregon again.

Meet Portland Parks Foundation's New Development Team

This month, Portland Parks Foundation is excited to announce the growth of its philanthropy program with the hire of Wendy Mitchell (left) as our first-ever Major Gifts Officer and Kate Bemesderfer (right) as our Development & Communications Director. Wendy and Kate are longtime development professionals with decades of nonprofit fundraising experience and many years in Portland, including working together for several years to deepen the philanthropy program at 1000 Friends of Oregon. 

A major goal of their work with PPF will be to expand and diversify our base of support while providing an enhanced donor experience at every level. Wendy's official first day was October 1st, so we're featuring her story this month. Kate's official first day with PPF will be October 17th, so look for a feature in our November newsletter to get to know her better, too!

Meet Wendy Mitchell, Major Gifts Officer