By Katie Foy, communications associate

Prior to working at the Bush Foundation, I worked with two nonprofits and helped the grant writing/advancement teams secure funding from foundations. One of the challenges we faced was reaching funders, understanding their funding priorities, and getting a clear sense of how they operated.

Since joining Bush in 2024, I’m seeing the other side of that equation, and I’m learning a lot. What I’ve been inspired by is Bush’s commitment to being radically open as a funder. And in my role as communications associate, I get to make an impact by coordinating the work of our contact hub.

Contact hub was launched in 2021 by my cool colleagues (yes, I am biased). It serves as the universal front door to the Bush Foundation—it’s just one phone number, one email or one link to schedule a call with our staff.

I work closely with our grantmaking team to coordinate calls, help with responses and handle basic email inquiries. It’s been a great way to dig deeper into the why behind our work, learn about all the great things happening in our region and help us continually think about ways to make the experience better—for both our staff and the people reaching out to us.

Since its launch, we’ve received thousands of inquiries! We’ve learned a lot in the process so far, and we shared some of that in a learning paper, Radically Open: Contact Hub. We hope it inspires other funders to find more ways to be more open and responsive.

Thanks for reading! If it sparks any ideas or feedback, we’d love to hear from you. You know how to get in touch!