Kristen Kerr

I started my career seeking opportunities to build resiliency within communities through local government. I really loved the opportunity to see things from a big scope within my community. However, the more I started studying resiliency, I realized that I felt like there was a need at a very personal level, like neighborhood and community level, which brought me to starting my nonprofit at the beginning of 2021, which is called Cultivate the Creative. Now I'm running my nonprofit where we bring expressive arts to youth in the foster care system, as well as underserved communities in St. Petersburg, Florida. I also support as an independent consultant to other larger projects related to disaster management, helping communities across the country after the pandemic and helping them kind of restore back to a new state of being. More recently, I've been working with projects within the state of Washington, helping tribal communities and nonprofits and small businesses apply for funding related to clean energy and climate resiliency. Throughout my day, I spend a lot of my workday helping communities in Washington write grants, federal grant applications, understanding their needs, priorities, and how we can make it make sense to federal agencies. My day kind of looks very untraditional - while I'm on the computer, I'm also out in the community a lot as well, so it kind of ebbs and flows week over week.