Spokane Trends Focus

Trends In The News

COVID-19 Vulnerability of Washington Cities

Helping cities quickly assess vulnerabilities of residents

As you can imagine, there are countless data interactives on COVID-19 – we’ve shared them as well and will continue to do so only if we believe they are helpful to spreading the facts to help you make informed decisions. Why are data interactives so helpful?

U.S. Census: Young Adults and Higher Education

Exploring higher education trends and employment prospects

Every aspect of life revolves around the act of learning. First, we learn to walk, then we learn to read. Eventually, between the ages of 18 and 34, young adults often choose to take an additional step to further their education. This higher education visualization ...

Urban Institute: Mapping America's Futures

Test different scenarios to see the effect on population changes

One thing we can likely all agree on halfway through the year 2020 is very little appears average. Population growth or contraction are estimated using a variety of predictable variables so from one year to the next, there are not a lot of surprises. From decade to...

Free & Reduced-Price School Lunches

Stabilizing and adapting to COVID-19 school closures

The average cost difference between a full and reduced-price lunch is about $3.00. While this may not seem like much on the surface, for some students this could be the difference between going hungry or having proper nutrition for their studies. Especially in a time with school closures and where health is at the forefront of our thoughts, schools’ ability to provide meals to children has acted as a...

Internet in the home is now for work and school too

Who in Spokane ever anticipated the daunting challenges the corona virus has posed? A few of course, among them our hospitals. By and large, we have all been cast into new worlds of individual and collective behavior since mid-March. One of those worlds is the conversion of our lives to virtual interactions. This applies to many in business, certainly most of the educational institutions and a good part of...

After release from prison for a felony conviction?

Reforming the criminal justice system is more than a catch phrase and the demand to do so has intensified exponentially with recent high-profile events. But criminal justice reform is a large umbrella capturing many different areas, including police reform, prison reform, sentence reform, solitary confinement reform, death penalty reform, and criminal law reform – just to name a few. In the 1970s and 1980s, sentence...

Heather Hamlin

Executive Director, Women Helping Women Fund (WHWF) of Spokane

Q1) First, can you tell us what the priorities of WHWF in Spokane are for 2020? Have they shifted due to the pandemic?

A1) Women Helping Women Fund is committed to building a large community of educated, strategic givers who are inspired to make lasting change. With donor support, we awards grants for local programs, scholarships to young mothers and provide research to inform and affect policy impacting women and children in Spokane County.

Both fundraising and grantmaking look different during the pandemic. The goal this year was to allocate more funds to few nonprofits to make a bigger impact in the community.

Q2) How does WHWF use data? What are the key measures you are now tracking?

A2) We focus on issues that empower women and children to create healthy families and vibrant communities. Last year, we released a landmark collaborative report on the State of Women and Children in Spokane County. This report signified a shift in focus for...