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.
To connect with Kate, email her at kate.bemesderfer [at] portlandpf.org.