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Oct
12

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  2. King County Executive
  3. Dow Constantine
  4. What we're working on
  5. Racism as a Public Health Crisis
  6. Ambassadors and Amplifiers

Ambassadors and Amplifiers 

“Ambassadors & Amplifiers” are community leaders trusted from communities most harmed by systemic racism and colonialism, brought together by Abigail Echo-Hawk, Ben Danielson and King County Executive Dow Constantine (the co-chairs) to ensure that this process and the Gathering Collaborative is being done in a trustworthy way.

The Co-Chairs and Ambassadors and Amplifiers have been meeting since late 2021 to authentically create a vision for this work to be more community driven and to build trustworthiness between community and King County. Learn more about their Guiding Principles below.

Ambassadors and Amplifiers are tasked with: 

  • Creating spaces for success 

  • Set standards to continue this effort in an authentic way 

  • Setting up collaborative community dialogue  

  • Co-creating a collaborative that emphasizes communities most harmed by systemic racism 

  • Taking affirming, abundant, & multigenerational approach 

  • Remaining vigilant for unintended consequences. 

Ambassadors and Amplifiers and the Co-Chairs are currently standing up the Gathering Collaborative, which will create a community-led process to equitably spend the $25 million, and longer-term to influence the next budget cycles and establish a longer-term vision for King County’s efforts to become an anti-racist/pro-equity government. Learn more about the Gathering Collaborative.  

RPHC Guiding Principles:

We exercise interconnected Black, Indigenous and Brown power and hold King County accountable, with an understanding of processes, barriers and historic practices in order to change them. 

The LONG-TERM goal of the gathering collaborative must be to dismantle racism and other related abuses and replace with equitable systems that protect and promote the health and well-being of Black and Indigenous People, so that all King County communities thrive. 

We center those most harmed by racism, to lift all communities. This includes a deep understanding, acknowledgement and commitment to end anti-Blackness and the intentional erasure of Indigenous communities.
We uphold a gathering collaborative without guarding information and believe those directly harmed by racism and furthest from opportunity in community, know best.

$25 million is both ‘budget dust’ and seed money. It must be shared immediately to provide short term help for those most harmed by racism and COVID.  

The seed money needs to shape long term, antiracist work that impacts and overhauls how the county prioritizes its budget. 

We and our communities are the truthtellers and owners of the legacy, not the county or any other institution.

We face the truth that Black and Indigenous communities are most harmed by systemic racism. 

King County and other local governments have done harm. Community leaders and partners know that there are risks to partnering with King County government. The county understands and commits to change this dynamic. 

We will hold King County accountable to act on the recommendations from the gathering collaborative by disrupting business as usual and making pathways to racial equity. 

We must have commitment to systemwide change, transparency, honesty, and accountability between this gathering collaborative and King County government. 

Executive Office

401 5th Ave. Suite 800
Seattle, WA 98104

Main phone: 206-263-9600
TTY: Relay: 711
FAX: 206-296-0194

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King County Executive
Dow Constantine		 Dow constantine portrait

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