ACF Announces New Executive Director
The Appalachian Community Fund is excited to announce Garrett Blaize (he or they pronouns) as ACF's new Executive Director! This marks the beginning of an exhilarating chapter. Previously our Grantmaking and Philanthropic Partnerships Manager, Garrett embodies the spirit of youthful dynamism. In elevating him to this role, we are reaffirming our commitment to championing the leadership of the younger generation, especially LGBTQ youth and others from marginalized backgrounds and identities.
Garrett's appointment comes at a crucial moment for Appalachian communities. As economic precarity and social divides grow, ACF recognizes the need for dynamic, unifying leadership that can champion marginalized voices. Garrett has demonstrated a keen understanding of the issues facing ACF's grantee partners and allies. His role in bridging these spaces makes him uniquely equipped to guide ACF in addressing the complex, intersectional challenges of the present while building a more just future. In his various roles and capacities, Garrett has a proven track record of working across divides to cultivate the types of broad-based coalitions needed to drive meaningful progress. His commitment to uplifting young, queer, and diverse regional leaders also signals ACF’s longstanding commitment to supporting the voices of frontline community leaders across Central Appalachia. Given Garrett's proven organizing, administrative, and movement-building talents, it is clear that ACF is in good hands as we move into the next season of our work.
Garrett has served for the last two years as the primary representative of ACF both to our grantee partners and our partners in philanthropy. His work has included representing ACF in the Appalachian Funders Network where he currently serves as Co-Chair, supporting ACF and our partner funds like Waymakers Collective in the design and implementation of their grantmaking processes, holding support spaces for LGBTQ organizations across the region, and reinvigorating ACF’s technical assistance and peer learning offerings. Outside of in and intersecting with his work within ACF Garrett has worked as a cultural and community organizer in networks across Appalachia and the South such as Alternate Roots, the Alliance for Appalachia, and Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards.
In reflecting on his newfound appointment, Garrett notes:
“I have always considered myself an ‘organizer-administrator’, someone who straddles the fields of institutional philanthropy and movement organizing. This skill set has prepared me to carry out the important work ACF does at this intersection.”
“I think it is so important that during a time of increased tension and division within our movements and communities the ACF Board has made an investment in the leadership of queer youth in the region through my appointment. I firmly believe that if we want to build a region where our young people ‘can and want to stay’, in the words of our friends at the STAY Project, we must invest in young people. This includes making space for them within our organizations and providing them with positions of trust and responsibility. I intend to honor the trust that has been placed in me, and also make a firm commitment to building youth power and voice within ACF and across our region, while bridging differences and building solidarity to enable the type of multi-racial, multi-class, intergenerational leadership structures that are vitally needed across our communities, organizations, and our movement to meet the needs of our present moment.”
he concluded.
Garrett's wide reaching connections and trusted relationships in regional organizing and philanthropy promise to bring innovative and forward-thinking strategies to ACF.
We extend our deepest gratitude for your unwavering support throughout the years, and we humbly ask you, our biggest supporters, to consider making a contribution to ACF as an investment in the many generations to come. Support our work by donating today. Your investment in our work is an investment in the resilience, strength, and transformative power of the Appalachian communities we serve.
In Solidarity,
Garrett Blaize + The ACF Board of Directors
