Alice Ito

Alice Ito has staffed and consulted to community-based nonprofits and philanthropic organizations for more than 30 years, and has served on numerous boards including Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy, Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees, Social Justice Fund Northwest, The Women’s Foundation of California, and founding board of the Asian Women’s Shelter.

Alice served as Executive in Residence for Racial Equity & Inclusion at the Seattle Foundation, as strategic partner to the President & CEO, championing racial equity, social justice, and inclusion, and informed the Foundation’s strategy, operations, and board governance. She led an unprecedented stakeholder engagement and grantmaking policy review process, to address concerns about grants for organizations conducting discriminatory or hateful activities. This resulted in trustees’ approval of revised policy which no longer allows donor advised, donor designated, or discretionary grant support for such organizations.  Alice  advised and supported the Foundation’s work to reimagine community philanthropy through an intersectional racial equity, anti-racism, and justice lens both locally and nationally. Serving on staff from 2014- 2023, she previously served as Director, Community Programs. In that role, she led the build-out of the Foundation’s first grantmaking programs with the explicit purpose of advancing economic and racial equity in the region.

Prior to joining Seattle Foundation, Alice served as Distinguished Fellow at Community Change, a national organization building power among people most marginalized by injustice, to change policies and institutions, in order to achieve a society where all communities thrive. Alice also previously served for eight years as a program officer at Marguerite Casey Foundation, responsible for Midwest and Washington State funding regions, with portfolios totaling more than $7 million.

Alice has conducted research on history, policies, and practices of racially discriminatory exclusion in the U.S. with a focus on the suspension of rights, displacement, and mass incarceration of people of Japanese ancestry during World War II. At Densho, Alice managed the oral history program, conducted interviews, and documented American history through first person narratives. She developed educational materials which, together with oral histories and multimedia resources, are accessible to the public at www.densho.org.

As an independent consultant, Alice’s past clients include philanthropic and community-based organizations addressing a range of issues, including Asian Counseling & Referral Service, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Black Education Strategies Roundtable, and numerous others.

Alice holds a Bachelor of Arts in Human Biology from Stanford University, attended the Public Policy program at Claremont Graduate University, and is an alum of the Coro Fellowship in Public Affairs.