The Emerald Alliance aims to improve how conservation funding entities engage with historically underserved and marginalized communities. Historically white-led organizations and institutions that demonstrate their commitment to addressing institutional racism by meeting specific criteria and dedicate the resources, time and staff to participate in the initiative will be invited to join a working group (in the spirit of a learning cohort) focused on laying the groundwork for a truly multicultural coalition, paving the way for a new approach to investing in natural infrastructure in historically-marginalized communities across Puget Sound. Through the working group’s endeavors, participants will learn how to avoid pitfalls like tokenization, microaggressions, urgency culture and more. They will have access to a peer network for accountability, ongoing learning and mutual support. They will learn by doing; developing a series of tools directly aimed at benefiting communities of color.