Discover our partners and the meaningful impact they make every day.
Communities of Opportunity has launched a new, six-part “Cultivating Community” Speaker Series! Designed to amplify and learn from the efforts of our community-driven partners the series explores the community-led transformations that are cultivating abundance, healing, and new possibilities.
Students, graduates, and staff gathered outdoors at YouthSource in Tukwila at the end of June to celebrate the end of the academic year and recognize students who had received their GED or high school diploma, completed internships, or made...
We found that three themes — equity, co-creation, and responsive adaptation — are key values held by each Innovation Fund team, spanning across all 18 partnerships. Here’s how they put these values into action while implementing new approaches to support the health and well-being of our communities.
Over the past 3 years, Best Starts has partnered with communities across King County to establish 22 Kaleidoscope Play and Learn groups to promote positive and healthy outcomes for our youngest children and support parents and caregivers as they prepare their young ones for kindergarten.
COO partners are among those leading the region towards a more just and person-centered economic system that supports inclusive and thriving communities. Learn more about the work, and opportunities to learn and connect on new models for equity and economic thriving.
In February 2020, the Best Starts for Kids Out-of-School Time Initiative (BSK OST) was heading into its final year of implementation. Then COVID hit, and communities across King County (and the world) were left scrambling to support each other through unimaginable challenges.
How can community-centered data and storytelling support the success of our children and families? Hear directly from The Capacity Collective and 4 Best Starts partners who discuss their data capacity-building journeys and partnerships in our Q&A conversations.
Young people, especially youth of color, bring energy, passion, and wisdom to our civic process. Today, we share a poem by Rahel Ambachew whose words ground us in the power of centering youth in our collective journey towards a more equitable and just democracy.
Over the coming weeks, we will be sharing and celebrating beautiful and bold artwork and stories from young Black leaders across King County with the Best Starts community. Today, we are grateful to share a poem by Nikai Mackie, who originally shared her piece with our community partner, Young-Women Empowered (Y-WE), in June 2020. We hope you intentionally sit and reckon with Nikai’s words.
To create more safe, welcoming spaces for LGBTQIA+ youth across King County, Lambert House partnered with Best Starts to establish 9 peer support groups where participants can find community and form lasting relationships. During the pandemic, Lambert House has expanded their services and currently offer 19 weekly online opportunities for LGBTQIA+ youth to connect.
We offer equity-centered workshops for King County early childhood providers.
This dashboard shows the impact of Best Starts funding across its eight investment areas: Child Care, Investing Early, Sustain the Gain, Youth and Family Homelessness Prevention Initiative, Communities of Opportunity, Capital Projects, Technical Assistance and Capacity Building, and Data and Evaluation.