Please welcome Chelsea Allinger, GGWash’s new executive director

GGWash chose not to endorse Chelsea Allinger when she ran for ANC 1D05 in 2018. We’ve taken a second look, and today we are thrilled to announce that she will become our new executive director.

Who is Chelsea?

Chelsea is a uniquely qualified, energetic, and experienced nonprofit leader who is well-equipped to navigate GGWash into its next chapter. Born in Rochester, New York, Chelsea has spent nearly fifteen years working nationally and locally on the front lines of urbanism. This includes a policy stint at our fiscal sponsor Smart Growth America, development work at Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation in Brooklyn, and most recently a senior role at the Center for Community Progress. Chelsea is also a part-time doctoral student in public policy and public administration at George Washington University, focusing her research on racial equity in land and housing policy. Throughout her career she has demonstrated repeatedly her commitment to strengthening systematically marginalized and underinvested communities.

Chelsea did eventually become the Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner for 1D05 in 2019, where she has focused on, among other needs, Vision Zero transportation advocacy and a neighborhood-based COVID-19 response, administering grants and helping to found a network of nearly 200 volunteers working on food aid, vaccine outreach, and other issues.

The GGWash board was most impressed with Chelsea’s personal commitment to our mission of bringing people together online and offline to discuss, organize, and advocate for an inclusive, diverse, growing Washington, DC region where all people can choose to live in walkable urban communities. However, we will also be relying on her years of experience in nonprofit management, fundraising, and strategic planning.

Why does this matter?

The GGWash family, Neighborhood, and readership have been very patient with us while we figured out how to carry on without our one-of-a-kind founder. In Chelsea, we recognized part of the answer, because she personally embodies a theory of change that resonated with both the board and staff. Chelsea started as an avid reader of the GGWash publication, was inspired by our work with ANCs to successfully run for ANC, and now her commitment to the wider mission plus her skills and background mean she’s well-positioned to take this new journey as our executive director with a strong existing team. Her appointment demonstrates how the GGWash community interacts with our issues and our organization over time.

This is a big moment for us. We’re excited at the potential we hope will be realized through the combination of her skills and capabilities, our staff and volunteers, and our beloved city and region.

What’s next?

Chelsea starts as Executive Director in early May. In the meantime, as board chair I would like to take a moment to recognize the invaluable leadership of Caitlin Rogger, our interim executive director, in bridging GGWash between David Alpert’s departure and Chelsea’s arrival. In a time of organizational flux and global crisis, things easily could have fallen apart. Caitlin instead created for each and all of us a way to to get our work done and school ourselves on how to be GGWash without our founder. Caitlin will remain with us as our deputy director, working directly with our editorial and policy teams and building partnerships to help our work grow.

Many of the changes we’re making to the organization may seem opaque or navel-gazing from the perspective of readers and Neighbors, because it’s the same content, mission, and staff you know and love. However, without our irreplaceable founder personally providing much of that content and helming the strategic direction of the mission and staff, we’ve spent this transition time creating new ways to work together and building more leadership and responsibility into all our roles. George, for example, has demonstrated this shift on the publication, and Alex has ably led on policy advocacy. On behalf of the whole board, I thank the staff for their tenacity, honesty, patience, and commitment to the mission. Much like our city and region, you are great.

As far as the board of directors goes, I would also like to recognize the hundreds of hours of Zoom calls, tough questions, close listening, and persistence the transition committee invested in this mission and organization we all continue to find compelling and necessary: Adam Weers, Stan Wall, Payton Chung, Nick Sementelli, Caitlin Rogger, and George Kevin Jordan. And finally, I am grateful to David Alpert for trusting us with his brainchild and the chance to raise it up.

Hiring Chelsea is just the first step, and we have lots more to do in 2021 to demonstrate the expanded potential impact of our restructured and empowered team and sustain it. I thank the whole GGWash community for supporting us this far, and we’re ready to do even more.

Help us give Chelsea a warm welcome! Donate Today!