Reflections from WDN Action’s Outgoing and Incoming Board Chairs
It’s hard to believe how much WDN Action has accomplished during the time that I have served on the board; and when I look back on the past year, I am reflecting on the years of visioning that led to significant milestones in 2025. We hired a full-time staff member who could focus entirely on WDNA and were over the moon when Hillary Holley agreed to come aboard as our brilliant managing director. Hillary has been instrumental in elevating our strategy of harmonizing grantmaking with advocacy work in a way that reflects WDN’s core values and priorities.
Additionally, this year we recruited our first cohort of movement leaders to join our board, and we are eager to expand our board’s expertise across multiple sectors in the ecosystem. I have no doubt that you will be blown away by what they bring to WDNA.
I can’t think of anyone better to lead this next phase of the WDNA board’s evolution than our incoming board chair Sharon Chen. Sharon’s time on the c3 board will strengthen the alignment between our c3 and c4 work and her wise, grounded insights are so needed at this critical time. We are so incredibly fortunate!
–Cynthia Beard
Outgoing Board Chair
As we step into 2026, I want to acknowledge all of us have been struggling with a deep sense of unease about the times we are in. We have anxiety for tomorrow while still reeling from yesterday. AND YET.
Taking a look at this from another perspective—times of stability benefit from predictability but they also are stuck with not enough dynamism in the system to rebuild better. Any change is incremental and systems have a way of snapping back to the status quo. Is that predictability really what we want? Perhaps these times are a massive opportunity we GET to experience.
Another world is possible. Let’s not waste a good crisis.
When I think of what I’d like people to say about WDNA someday, it’s that we had a voice and weren’t afraid to use it. Further, we spread that confidence to our grantees. It wasn’t just dollars that we were sharing, but also heart and our sense of possibility and belief in all voices.
The distinction of a 501c4 from a c3 is simply that the organization can speak and advocate without a limit on how much it can work to advance a point of view in our government’s decision making bodies. Putting some power behind this use of voice is so necessary in this time. Among the ways we will be advancing this voice this year is getting better at aligning grantmaking with our sister c3 WDN and we will also be trying new operational mechanisms to reduce the time between raising money and deploying it in the field.
Finally I would like to express my thanks to Cynthia, our outgoing chair of WDNA. The work of founding this part of our beloved network has set us up to meet the moment and I am grateful. Suhad, your unflappable clarity is something I want when I grow up. Zoe, thrilled to be in this with you in 2026!
Shift power to build power.
–Sharon Chen
Incoming Board Chair