David U. Email & Phone Number

Greater Seattle Area

I lead the statewide association of Feeding America food banks. Our members, Food Lifeline, based in Seattle and serving Western Washington, and Second Harvest, based in Spokane and serving Eastern Washington, serve over 1,000,000 fellow Washingtonians by distributing over 100,000,000 pounds of food to 575 organizations throughout the state every year.My focus has been launching the Boundless Collaboration - an initiative bringing together my members and their network of Regional Distribution Organizations (often distributing food to agencies within a county) to focus on how we can source food more effectively statewide and distribute it more efficiently to agencies and people facing hunger. Early focus has been on getting more fresh produce to the regional distribution organizations directly to distribute to agencies, rescuing more food that would otherwise go to waste, accessing Medicaid funding through the Food is Medicine framework, and increasing the capacity to extend the life of produce by processing it into products with a longer shelf life.Advocacy is also a big part of my work. Alongside strong coalition partners in our state, we have increased funding for hunger relief organizations across our state, encouraged programs that increase food donations, and pressed for policies that get at the root causes of hunger.

Greater Seattle Area

I led Recovery Café Network's (RCN) efforts to support groups replicating the Recovery Café model in their communities across the United States. During my time as Director, RCN grew from its original location in Seattle to 23 cities in 10 states, one Canadian province, and the District of Columbia serving thousands of individuals a year recovering from addition, other mental health challenges and/or homelessness.Establishing RCN was hard work, required creative thinking, and most importantly was a lot of fun! My focus was providing technical assistance around the areas of fundraising, strategic planning, staffing, etc.; improving recruiting and evaluating new organizations across the country; and our delivery of trainings and ongoing capacity building. I developed and maintained network-wide process standards, helped build a database to track the progress of RCN member organizations, and grew our cross-functional RCN team to nine staff members.

Greater Seattle Area

Focusing on building the community's buy-in of Recovery Cafe's mission, I raised over $2.5 million from four fundraising breakfasts, secured over $1.5 million in grants including Recovery Cafe's first federal grant, and implemented new funding avenues around faith communities, corporations and Seattle's GiveBIG Day.I also led Recovery Cafe's team to redesign the website, launched the Young Professional board to engage young adults in our programming, and expanded communications strategy to include a more active social media presence.

Greater Seattle Area

I was Recovery Cafe's first full time fundraiser. In my first year, I raised close to half a million dollars at our fundraising breakfast, revived our external communications strategy, and began implementing our major donors "moves management" fundraising approach.

Washington D.C. Metro Area

ZERO is a prostate cancer advocacy organization. In this role, I created a program to empower volunteer Regional Coordinators to become exceptional advocates in their community, spearheaded an organization-wide social media strategy across multiple platforms, and designed in-person and online training for advocates and community partners.

Washington, Dc

I engaged in various fundraising strategies. This included working with local partners to raise over $500,000 for local programming in 2011, launching a direct mail program, expanding online giving and peer to peer fundraising to over $200,000, and securing new corporate sponsorships totaling over $200,000.

L'Arche is a community of individuals living together with and without developmental disabilities. In my first fundraising role, I came to lead six-person team that implemented a new event-based fundraising program raising $600,000. I raised over $100,000 in grants, overhauled the website and launched an e-newsletter, among other fun accomplishments.

Ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, I was part of the team that reestablished the Harry Tompson Center as a day center for the homeless, providing visitors with essentials items and daily lunch. I aided returning neighborhood residents in rebuilding homes with financial aid and food.

University Ministry provided a place for both spirituality and service. In my role, I led two service trips to Katrina affected Biloxi, Mississippi, spiritual retreat for students, and organized peace vigil trip from Detroit Columbus, Georgia.

Ba, Political Science

I focused on building social capital to equip communities to solve the toughest issues they are facing today. This included courses.

Masters Of Public Administration, Nonprofit Management

I focused on nonprofit management best practices so that I could help organizations be effective in strengthening the communities they are.

Contemplative Leaders In Action