Introducing Breeanna Decker, Partnership for HOPE SF Associate Director
The San Francisco Foundation is excited to welcome Ms. Breeanna Decker to the HOPE SF team, stepping into her role as the Associate Director for the Partnership for HOPE SF Initiative. We sat down with Ms. Decker to learn more about what brought her to this position and share her hopes for the future.
Welcome Breeanna! Can you tell us a little about yourself and your history in the Bay Area?
“One of the things I enjoy most about being from the Bay is that I’m born, raised, and educated here. I am a 4th generation Oaklander with deep roots in Oakland and San Francisco. My mom, aunts, and uncles went to school with the Black Panthers. I have a host of cousins and extended family who live in Bayview Hunter’s Point. Every school I have ever attended, including undergrad and graduate school, is within 1 hour from my house. It is such an honor to be from here and serve my community, my home.”
How has your experience prepared you for your new role on the HOPE SF team?
“I have had the honor to serve community in a variety of different capacities. I have been a basketball coach, an educator, and a liaison, working for various nonprofits and elected officials. I have studied and experienced how to understand and work to meet the needs of community. I have served in multiple capacities in cross-sector collective impact initiatives that have shown me key elements of strategic partnership, fundraising, collaboration, and program development. As a graduate student, working for Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson, I focused my capstone on what makes a successful private-public partnership as Supervisor Carson’s office played a key role in the Oakland-Alameda County My Brother’s Keeper Initiative of the Obama Administration and the Obama Foundation. I continued working and leading private-public, collective impact initiatives at Oakland-based Urban Strategies Council.”
What are you looking forward to as the incoming Associate Director?
“I’m looking forward to building on the foundation and work of HOPE SF. I want to amplify our work in creating equitable economic opportunities for people who have, for generations, lived in working poverty. I’m looking forward to opportunities for communities that have been marginalized for decades to have a driver’s seat in rebuilding a healthier neighborhood.”
What about the HOPE SF mission and values do you connect with most?
“Residents’ voice is so important when we talk about rebuilding and reshaping a community. Often, we don’t ask people what they want to see, we make the changes we think are best. HOPE SF is driven by community and resident voices. Experiential knowledge is valued here just as much as scholastic and professional experience.”
As Associate Director, Ms. Decker will manage a robust grantmaking portfolio, engage community partners to help shape strategy, and work closely with HOPE SF residents, the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development, and anchoring community organizations. The San Francisco Foundation welcomes Ms. Decker as she steps into the Associate Director position, and looks forward to continuing the work of the Partnership for HOPE SF Initiative.