Leadership Transition

Dear AAoC Community,

As many of you may know, after 4.5 years of fearlessly leading AAoC, Fox Hampton will be stepping down as Co-Director at the end of December 2024. Fox has been dreaming for years about flying out of the nest of Seattle, where he was born and raised, and is so excited to be joining his Dab Boiz brothers in a Chicago suburb come the new year. He can’t wait to learn about organizing in a different region, and to spend some time incubating in the suburbs before moving even further east in a few years. Though we are, of course, so sad to see Fox leave our team, we are sure it will be like many a queer relationship deescalation—Fox won’t be a stranger and plans to crash many a meeting once he gets himself settled! 

We are also excited about what this change brings for AAoC. We have never formally hired for a Co-Director before, and doing so has made us look long and hard at what Farissa (Fox and Karissa’s joint name, for those of you not in the know) do, what roles and strengths they bring to this work, and what we need to move forward as an organization. Since Fox and Karissa came on as part-time contractors in summer 2020 (along with Ebo who only stayed on that summer!) and became Co-Directors in fall 2021, they have created and expanded the Alphabet Institute, re-launched and onboarded a Core Team, transitioned the organization to a new fiscal sponsor, and created all of the programs you know and love! Our budget, infrastructure, and community have all grown so much. 

With this in mind, we are changing things up a bit - while the Co-Directors will continue to share responsibility over leadership and core team collaboration, programming, operations, and grant writing, we are differentiating the roles a bit to reflect AAoC’s current needs and skills. Karissa has taken on more of AAoC’s financial management and grant reporting, and is hoping to take on supervision of a UW MSW practicum student to support with programming. The incoming Co-Director will take the lead on fundraising and development, including implementing a fundraising plan to support our organization. However, whoever takes on this position does not have to be an expert - we are open to applicants with a wide variety of experiences, both personal and professional, and value passion and drive for achieving our goals.

So, without further ado, between now and June 30th, we are accepting applications for AAoC’s new Co-Director! Please check out our job description here, and share it with folks in our communities who you think might be a good fit! We need your help to find the perfect person to help co-steer this ship, so please get the word out!

And as many of y’all know, transitioning is a costly endeavor. So, if you or anyone you know, has some extra funds to share, we would appreciate anything you have to offer that will support us with being able to onboard our new staff with the gentleness and expansiveness that we are known for. You can donate here!

Our Hiring Committee includes Farissa, Core Team members Luzviminda Lulu Uzuri Carpenter and Tracey Fugami, Alliance Members Brandi Li and Alphonse/Lain Littlejohn, community partners Amaryah Wolf and Evana Enabulele, and RVC Seattle staff Michel Baños García, and Shalom Cook will be supported by the current Core Team to find the right fit. We are so grateful for all of their support, especially to Lulu, our founder (who also hired Fox many moons ago)! 

Please let us know if you have any questions at all by emailing us at hiring@alphabetalliance.org.

Thank you so, so much for your unwavering support of our team,

Farissa