Pioneering Public Spaces: The Formation of Seattle Parks Foundation

Mayor Schell was a former attorney, developer, port commissioner, and urban planner. Before his time with the city, he was the president of Allied Arts. Mayor Schell’s extensive experience in civic engagement and advocacy through Allied Arts captured the attention of Seattle’s mayor at the time, Wes Uhlman. Mayor Uhlman appointed him director of the Seattle Department of Community Development in 1973. A little over two decades later, he successfully ran for mayor in 1997. Mayor Schell’s interests and values were closely aligned with the mission of SPF’s founders, leading him to support them in navigating the Foundation’s relationship with the city.

Prior to Mayor Schell taking office, the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation commissioned a study evaluating the best private non-profit option to assist the Department and growing number of neighborhood organizations advocating for more parks. The result was a recommendation to create a park foundation that could harness philanthropic and community energy to support the City’s need for new and improved parks. As the Seattle Parks and Recreation Superintendent at the time, Ken Bounds collaborated closely with Mayor Schell to identify civic leaders who shared their vision. In his capacity as Parks Superintendent, Bounds oversaw approximately 11% of Seattle’s landscape including 400 parks, 974 employees, 26 community centers, 10 pools, four golf courses, the Woodland Park Zoo and Seattle Aquarium. Throughout his career, including time as Budget Director, he supported the city in securing more than $230 million in levies for new public parks, community centers, swimming pools, and over 350 acres of public open space.

Mayor Schell and Bounds invited Barbara Feasey, a critical leader of the Committee for the Seattle Commons nonprofit organization, to join them in creating a plan for a philanthropic foundation focused on Seattle’s city parks. Recognizing the need for noted community leaders to add credibility and expertise to the effort, Schell invited Barbee Crutcher, Doug Raff and Phyllis Lamphere to be among the founders. Further discussions led to invitations to noted parks advocate Doug Walker, quietly generous philanthropist Gretchen Hull, Scott Oki, Dr. Lee Hartwell (then President and Director of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center) and former Seattle Parks Superintendent and Bounds’ predecessor, Holly Miller.

Feasey played a key role in recruiting these leaders and spearheaded outreach efforts encouraging the numerous small neighborhood parks organizations throughout the city to support the concept of a new foundation. Described as an “volunteer CEO,” Feasey dedicated hours of her free time to help establish SPF as a nonprofit. She reported the experience of collaborating with former Commons’ leaders to turn their deeply disappointing loss into something positive for the city as both cathartic and transformative.

Crutcher was another founding member who agreed to be involved with the Seattle Parks Foundation after being disappointed with the defeat of the Seattle Commons levies. She was an important bridge to many of the major donors and well-connected Commons’ supporters. Her involvement served to reassure them a new parks foundation was poised to be successful where the Commons had not.

Now that the founding board members had agreed to form a foundation, their first matter of business was finding a Board Chair and President so they could work with Feasey to file for non-profit and charitable status with the IRS and the state. Walker, an entrepreneur, avid cyclist, mountain climber and philanthropist, agreed to accept this very important role. As an outdoors enthusiast, Walker dedicated his life to making recreational activities and public land accessible to everyone around him. His leadership was instrumental in facilitating important conversations and decisions to determine Seattle Parks Foundation’s mission and priorities, and he served as board President for most of the foundation’s first decade.