Kirkland Community Giving and Community Leadership

Spring is here, and we are about to be very busy from mid-May into early June! We have young leaders directing real dollars on the 19th. A permanent tribute to our Founders on the 27th. And then, on June 1, a city-wide invitation to join our efforts for Ignite 2026!

Three weeks. Three generations of investment. One city showing up for itself. 

Youth Leadership 

Next week, on May 19th, more than a dozen young people will do something most adults never get to do: direct real money into their community.

Through our Ignite Youth Task Force, these students will use genuine leadership and collaboration skills to decide where those dollars go, funding things like swim lessons, food resources, and community connections for their neighbors. 

The decisions they make will land close to home, reaching kids who sit next to them in class, or families who live down the street. That’s a quiet kind of impact, but it’s real. And we know what will stay with them: the experience of knowing their voice moved resources, and that is a leadership lesson no classroom can teach.

A Lasting Symbol of Community Spirit 

Then, on May 27th, we mark a once-in-a-decade moment. A public art unveiling — permanent, visible, and rooted in the story of how this community chose to invest in itself. 

The piece, called Windward, honors the Founders of our Foundation — the people who decided to go first. Who believed Kirkland deserved better access to food, housing, learning, innovation, and the kind of public life that makes a city worth living in. But their vision didn’t stay a vision. 

Their resources became programs. They helped develop a community spirit that shows up for its neighbors.

And now, their ideals become art, something anyone walking by can encounter, long after those first checks were written and those first meetings were convened. 

And it’s very fitting to place Windward in David E. Brink Park. We started as a Parks Foundation, and the park itself is already a statement about long-term thinking. How Kirkland chooses to invest in assets that pay off slowly, in quality of life, in gathering, in joy. 

This sculpture makes those ideas real. Our Foundation now has a touchpoint where anyone passing through can engage, whether they know the history or not. The sculpture may be new, but what it represents has been there all along. 

Neighbors helping Neighbors

Finally, the first week of June, Ignite Kirkland 2026, our annual community giving campaign, launches across all of Kirkland. 

Banners will appear in downtown, Juanita, Totem Lake, Lakeview, and Bridle Trails — a visible, neighborhood-by-neighborhood signal that this year’s spring community giving season has begun. 

And it starts with banners, but moves with people. 

To celebrate the launch on June 1st, we’re convening at Moss Bay Hall, bringing together nonprofit leaders, board members, and community champions to mark what Ignite has built and what we can make possible together. It’s a moment to connect the people who fund this work with the people and services who roll it forward.

The Founders went first. 

Young leaders are going next.

 And now, the whole city is invited.

This is what community engagement looks like when it works! Mark your calendars to join in! 

Founded in 2014, the Kirkland Community Foundation is a local community foundation supporting nonprofits across Kirkland and the Eastside. We connect donors, nonprofits, and community priorities through grants, partnerships, and local giving that strengthen our parks, people, and shared future. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit (EIN 46‑4931717), we invest in thriving nonprofits, visible community impact, and trusted local leadership.