2021 End of Year Letter
December 16, 2021
Hello everyone!
It’s been another interesting year causing a rollercoaster of actions and emotions. While we experienced more COVID restrictions and anxiety, we also saw amazing examples of resilience. All of you have worked so hard to serve so many more people in need – we are grateful for your incredible efforts!
The Katz Amsterdam Foundation (KAF) has experienced much transition this year, and we are excited about new focus areas, new team members, lots of grants, and new efforts for the organization. In June, we announced an additional key focus area for the Foundation – racial justice. We’ve spent several months in a strategic planning process and will now begin our work to advance just and equitable approaches to accessing mental and behavioral health care for BIPOC communities in the Western U.S. We also believe that we cannot address behavioral health challenges without systemic policy and legislative changes – and that will not be possible without ensuring that all communities are fully engaged in our democratic process. As such, we will also focus our grantmaking on increasing civic engagement and participation to realize and ensure a multiracial democracy. This work will sit side-by-side the mental and behavioral health efforts focused in our current mountain communities. We look forward to partnering with community non-profits leading the charge on these efforts.
While we were not able to meet in person, the KAF Convening in May had a great turnout of over 70 behavioral health professionals from 11 different mountain communities. And many in the mountain network connected around different topics throughout the year – peer support programs, innovative mental health treatments, and culturally responsive services and programs. Right now, we are planning to host our third-ish KAF Convening with the mountain behavioral health network in Boulder, Colorado from May 10th-12th, 2022. Save the date!
We’ve made three rounds of grants this year, including just this week. In total, we’ve granted over $7.4M to community non-profits – and we are excited to learn from the innovative programs so many are putting into place. Collectively in 2021, Katz Amsterdam grants include:
- Mental and behavioral health in mountain communities = $2.3M
- Racial Justice = $4.5M
- Youth Access to Winter Sports = $560,000
But the biggest news is that we’ve just added three new team members at the Foundation! We were sorry to see Betsy Casey leave in July and are immensely grateful for her contribution in building the mountain behavioral health network. Our new team will be fully in place in January and we could not be more thrilled to introduce you! Each new member brings a wealth of experience in their field – we are excited about how they will help create, build and strengthen our efforts and work together with community partners.
The New KAF Team
We are thrilled to welcome Ain Bailey to The Katz Amsterdam Foundation as the Program Director, Racial Justice.
Most recently, Ain has been with Borealis Philanthropy as a Program Officer on their Racial Equity to Accelerate Change (REACH) Fund. In this role, she developed grantmaking and learning strategies, supported a grantee community of practice of 19 organizations, a donor circle of over 10 foundations and facilitated trust – based and participatory grantmaking practices.
Ain brings tremendous skill and expertise to design and implement the new Racial Justice work focused on mental and behavioral health and civic engagement. Her extensive work in racial justice and strategic planning in municipal government, foundations, and with nonprofits will be essential as we work to build a theory of change and a strategy for the racial justice efforts.
In the spirit of advancing mental health and well-being, Ain is also the founder of New Seneca Village, a restorative retreat space for women of color social justice leaders. Ain holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from Spelman College and a Master of Public Administration from Baruch College.
I am excited to be joining the Katz Amsterdam Foundation at this pivotal time and very much look forward to supporting community – designed and driven interventions in the mental health and civic engagement space. I truly believe that transformation is possible when the people most impacted, or most ignored, by our systems are resourced to implement solutions and initiatives born from their own lived experience and agency.
We’re looking forward to welcoming Heather Trish who will join the team as Mountain Behavioral Health Network Director!
A lifelong outdoor enthusiast and avid skier, Heather hails from the Roaring Fork Valley and has called the mountains of Colorado her home since childhood. After completing her undergraduate degree in Upstate New York and living in the New York City area for several years and working at Safe Horizon, Heather returned to her beloved Colorado to work as a crisis and trauma counselor at the Aspen Youth Center and as an independent professional counselor. Most recently, Heather served as a Clinical Director at Jefferson Center for Mental Health providing organizational clinical training, development, and consultation for staff and where she dramatically expanded trauma and suicide prevention services for community members and veteran and military families in three diverse urban and rural counties. Heather holds an Ed.M. in Psychological Counseling and an M.A. in Organizational Psychology from Columbia University, has a Certificate in Conflict Resolution from the International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution, is an EMDR Approved Consultant, a Question, Persuade, Refer (QPR) trainer, and has been the organizational lead for Trauma Informed Care, Zero Suicide, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Initiatives. Heather writes:
I’m so excited to be joining the Katz Amsterdam Foundation, where I’ll be able to combine my professional clinical mental health experience with my personal passion for the outdoors in mountain communities that I love. I cannot imagine a more perfect fit and I look forward to getting started!
We were delighted last month to welcome Jina Song Freiberg to the team as a Senior Grants Manager.
Most recently, Jina was a Grants Manager at the Public Welfare Foundation, and also co-chairs the AAPI Affinity Group at PEAK Grantmaking. Jina brings her expertise in Grants Management in a federal and foundation setting and will support the team, grantees, and partners across the grants process to ensure excellence, consistency, clear communication, and strategic focus. She is already off to a great start assessing and building new systems and practices in service of our work! Jina holds a Bachelor of Science from Syracuse University.
I’m thrilled to join the Katz Amsterdam Foundation to advance the work in mental and behavioral health as well as racial justice. I’m especially excited for the opportunity to work on grantmaking processes and strategies from an equity lens to support the work of our grantee partners.
Welcome Ain, Heather and Jina! I look forward to seeing KAF grow with your contributions. We wish everyone a happy holiday season, which we hope can bring some warm time with family and friends, and at least a little relaxation.
Thanks for all you do,
Beth Ganz
Executive Director