Q&A with Michael Alexander, NWHF’s 2020 Board Chair

Q. What attracted you to join Northwest Health Foundation’s board of directors?

A. I had an opportunity to be introduced to the Northwest Health Foundation board when I was working at Regence Blue Cross Blue Shield, and I thought, this is an impressive group of people. This is a foundation involved in transformative work. Thomas Aschenbrener was still the president, and Reverend Mark Knutson, Phil Wu and Nichole Maher were all on the board.

Three to four years later, while serving as CEO of the Urban League of Portland, after Nichole became president, she began carefully cultivating me. I realized NWHF might be thinking about asking me to join the board. 

Every time I visit the office and see my name and photo on the wall, I have a sense of being so honored to be part of this work.

Q. What have you been most excited to be a part of at NWHF?

A. The Healthy Beginnings+Healthy Communities initiative has been a wonderful way to gain a sense of emerging and compelling issues beyond the Portland corridor. The question of how we serve the needs of our greater service area has been a prime one for the board and for me. People throughout Oregon and Southwest Washington face the same challenges we do in Portland, but with fewer resources and often less focus from foundations. 

Learning is ongoing at Northwest Health Foundation. I admire the degree of self-reflection the staff engages in around who is missing and who needs to be brought to the table. We don’t try to find a comfortable place to ground ourselves, because it isn’t about our voice. It’s about providing a platform of self-determination for marginalized communities.

Q. Is there anything in particular you hope to accomplish as board chair?

A. I want to continue the emphasis on addressing issues of equity related to geography and disability rights. It’s important to look at each of these through the lenses of communities of color. In addressing these foci, the overlay of race is a primary consideration for the Foundation. We’re missing an opportunity to optimize our impact if we don’t include the voices of isolated and disabled BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color).

Q. What do you see as Oregon and Southwest Washington’s greatest opportunity? Our greatest challenge?

A. I think our greatest challenge and greatest opportunity are the same thing. Increasingly it’s become important to enable and empower communities not just to find their voice, but to lead solutions. This includes running candidates for office, as well as increasing the degree of representative democracy across the region in getting community members on policy panels, boards and committees. NWHF’s Civic Health initiative, with its commitment of both 501(c)3 and 501(c)4 resources, encourages and allows BIPOC communities to take advocacy to the next step, to create strategies that will best address issues.

Q. What do you do outside of chairing NWHF’s board?

A. I spend a lot of time looking at pictures of my seven grandchildren on Facebook, six of whom are  on the East Coast. They range from 13 months to six years old. 

I serve on the Port of Portland Commission, which deals with large and emerging issues around our local waterways and Portland International airport. I also contribute a significant amount of time to serving on the board of the Black United Fund of Oregon, which is a wonderful complement to my work at NWHF.

Twice a week I go to what I call my humbling exercise: a yoga class. I’ve been going for two years, and I never get better. I also cycle to many of my meetings at the Foundation from Sellwood. 

Northwest Health Foundation and the Black United Fund are particularly close to my heart. I can’t think of a better way to spend my disposable time. 

Q. Is there anything else you want to share?

A.  Northwest Health Foundation is so fortunate to have a tremendous staff. We transitioned very thoughtfully from the skilled and enlightened leadership of Nichole June Maher to the timely and strategic leadership of Jesse Beason. He, and the rest of the staff, are the right people to guide us through the strategic pivot point of Civic Health.