Meet Our 2024 Conference
Keynote Speakers
Se-ah-dom Edmo, Executive Director at Seeding Justice
Se-ah-dom (Shoshone-Bannock, Nez Perce and Yakama) brings deep experience in community organizing for racial and social justice work across the nation. Prior to joining Seeding Justice, Se-ah-dom served as the Sovereignty Program Director at Western States Center where she was the coalition convener of Tribal History: Shared History (Senate Bill 13, 2017) in Oregon, which established and funded the teaching of Indian History and Sovereignty in K – 12 schools across the state. Se-ah-dom is also the co-editor of the Tribal Equity Toolkit 3.0: Tribal Resolutions and Codes for Two Spirit and LGBT Justice in Indian Country and American Indian Identity: Citizenship, Membership & Blood. A hallmark of her career has been fostering relationships and collaborations between tribes and organizations doing social, racial, environmental, and economic justice work across the region. She is an ALF Senior Fellow and a member of the Steering Committee of Oregon Recovers and the chair of the board of Oregon Consumer Justice.
Se-ah-dom’s ancestors are from Celilo, a fishing village along the Columbia River and one of the oldest known settlements in the West. She lives in Gresham with her husband James and their children Siale, Imasees and Miyosiwin, as well as her parents, Ed and Carol Edmo. Se-ah-dom joined Seeding Justice in December 2018.
Rhea Wong, Founder of Rhea Wong Consulting and host of the Nonprofit Lowdown Podcast
Rhea helps nonprofits raise more money. Though she has deep experience with institutional, corporate and event fund-raising, she is passionate about major individual donors and helping organizations to establish individual giving programs. She has raised millions of dollars in private philanthropy and is passionate about building the next generation of fundraising leaders.
She has become a leader in the New York nonprofit community and is a frequent educational commentator in the media. She has been recognized with the SmartCEO Brava Award in 2015 and NY Nonprofit Media’s 40 under 40 in 2017. For more information about Rhea, please see her LinkedIn Profile here.
Rhea lives in Brooklyn with her husband. When she is not raising money for causes she loves, she can be found hosting her podcast Nonprofit Lowdown(this link opens in a new window), promoting her newest book Get that Money, Honey(this link opens in a new window)! or onstage as a newbie stand-up comedian in downtown Brooklyn. For more information, check out rheawong.com(this link opens in a new window).
Nancy Bales, Executive Director of the Gray Family Foundation
Nancy Bales brings a passion for reimaging the role philanthropy can play in building more equitable and just communities by building trust, listening, and actively working to shift power through her leadership at the Gray Family Foundation, a supporting organization of Oregon Community Foundation (OCF). Nancy came to this role after more than a decade with the Portland-based conservation organization Ecotrust, supporting their work to build a resilient economy as the Vice President of Development. Leading Gray Family Foundation since 2014, Nancy champions opportunities to help restore and deepen connections for all people in Oregon to our communities and the natural world. She believes that youth deserve the opportunity to learn in, thrive and appreciate the outdoors so they can grow to become informed and engaged champions for our natural environments.
In 2015, she advocated for the successful passage of the bill creating a statewide outdoor school education program for Oregon’s 5th/6th grade students and worked to secure public funding for the program through a ballot initiative in 2016. She continues to be an active champion of this program at the state and national level.
She was a founding board member of Blue Sky Funders Forum and currently chairs the Blue Sky Program Committee. She also served on the Governor’s Environmental Equity Committee of the Racial Justice Council and as the inaugural chair of the Oregon Outdoor School Advisory Committee at Oregon State University.