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Tree Willard (they/them)
Helping nonprofit leaders navigate identity, intersectionality, and trauma to step fully into their power as change makers. Founding Director at Finding Resonance: Heart-Centered Leadership for Conscious, Social Change.
Tree Willard is a MultiCultural Community Builder and Systems Change Leader with a focus on justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI). They bring personal experiences as an Indigenous, Two Spirit individual with invisible disabilities to their work, which they are deeply passionate about.
With years of professional experience, Tree excels in creating communities across different cultures, languages, and backgrounds. They possess a keen sense of critical analysis and have been facilitating team and group processes since 2001, all aimed at dismantling oppressive structures and fostering a more peaceful society.
Their work involves designing and leading community advisory councils, driving social and organizational change initiatives, and advocating for rewriting legislation and policies to center around the diverse people that service and government organizations aim to support. Additionally, they have provided executive coaching, personnel training, and created performance measures to foster integrity in equity and inclusion work.
While their resume speaks of their professional achievements, Tree's ultimate goal is building Beloved Community. Drawing wisdom from elders, mentors, and personal experiences, they emphasize the importance of prioritizing relationships for collective healing and cultural restoration.
Tree holds two Bachelor's degrees in Human Development & Learning and Music from Antioch University Seattle. They also have certifications in Parent Coaching from the Parent Coaching Institute and in Birth and Postpartum Doula services from the Seattle Midwifery School.
Throughout their career, Tree has held various leadership roles in organizations such as Finding Resonance, Youth Passageways, Seattle Human Services Coalition, Public Health Seattle King County, and more, showcasing their versatility and expertise in community building and strategic leadership.
Highlights
I’m co-facilitating a training on Cross Cultural Protocols, Cultural Humility and Relationship with Place, with my friend and colleague, Sobey Wing, next Tuesday! Please register if you’d like to attend. Keep shining!!
There are a lot of classes and coaches for learning about DEI and JEDI work, a lot of GREAT approaches to understanding the field and doing better in our jobs. When I was leading nonprofits, I noticed that there wasn't nearly enough support for the deep healing work that we need to do as humans who have been miseducated and socialized to participate in the oppressive systems we inherited. Whether we are benefitting from them or being oppressed, we are all harmed by the loss of our humanity and sometimes, our lives. Are you ready to do the deep work? To unearth the internalized oppression, whether it be superiority or inferiority, that keeps you stuck in scarcity and fear? Are you ready to look at how your own sense of urgency and fear keeps your organization stuck in scarcity? Are you ready to face the pain and grief and frustration of admitting that the nonprofit industrial complex perpetuates the very problems we got into the work to eliminate?
