As Capital Campaign Director for Street Roots, Cody worked alongside Executive Director Kaia Sand, the board, staff, volunteers, and community to raise over $7M in private foundation grants, government funding, and major gifts for a new building serving houseless entrepreneurs in Portland, Oregon.
Kaia came in with a clear vision and a deep connection to the community Street Roots served. What she needed was someone to help build the infrastructure around that vision, manage the donor pipeline, help write and win grants, facilitate major donor conversations, and keep the campaign moving through three years of complexity without losing the soul of what they were building.
The campaign included dozens of grants and letters of intent, wealth screening that revealed major donor prospects the organization had never formally cultivated, and donor conversations that centered the community over the donor at every turn. The groundbreaking celebration was not a hard hat ceremony. A piano rolled through the streets of Old Town with foundations, neighbors, and people experiencing houselessness side by side. Nobody could tell who had written the largest checks.
For executive directors like Kaia, the campaign is never just about the money. It is about proving that the organization is here to stay, that the community it serves deserves something permanent, and that the people closest to the problem deserve to be in the room when the celebration happens.
The project received the Portland Historic Landmarks Commission Project of the Year in 2023 and opened in 2024.
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