A national network of funders supporting strategic, innovative, and effective solutions to homelessness

Elisa Harrigan

Policy Strategist, Funders for Housing and Opportunity

Funders Together Board Member

Image of Elisa Harrigan

Elisa is a disrupter, change agent, and bridge-builder in the philanthropic space. She has an extensive track record centering impacted communities and applying an intersectional equity lens to her work. Elisa brings almost 20 years of experience and expertise to FHO as an influential voice for housing justice in governmental, philanthropic, and nonprofit arenas. She is a visionary and big-picture thinker who uses a restorative and regenerative philosophy to problem-solving for community change. Prior to FHO, Elisa was the Executive Director of the Community Alliance of Tenants in Oregon, where she was named “Best Low-Income Tenant Advocate” by the Willamette Week for her work on renter organizing related to displacement and substandard housing issues. Most recently, she was a housing opportunities program officer, co-leading advocacy and racial justice housing strategies, and supported the investment programs for the Meyer Memorial Trust, one of the largest private foundations in Oregon.

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  • Alexis Perlmutter
    published this page in Board 2023-06-26 09:59:33 -0400

We joined Funders Together because we believe in the power of philanthropy to play a major role in ending homelessness, and we know we have much to learn from funders across the country.

-Christine Marge, Director of Housing and Financial Stability at United Way of Greater Los Angeles

I am thankful for the local partnerships here in the Pacific Northwest that we’ve been able to create and nurture thanks to the work of Funders Together. Having so many of the right players at the table makes our conversations – and all of our efforts – all the richer and more effective.

-David Wertheimer, Deputy Director at Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Very often a lack of jobs and money is not the cause of poverty, but the symptom. The cause may lie deeper in our failure to give our fellow citizens a fair chance to develop their own capacities, in a lack of education and training, in a lack of medical care and housing, in a lack of decent communities in which to live and bring up their children.

-President Lyndon B. Johnson, 1964 State of the Union Address

Funders Together has given me a platform to engage the other funders in my community. Our local funding community has improved greatly to support housing first models and align of resources towards ending homelessness.

-Leslie Strnisha, Vice President at Sisters of Charity Foundation of Cleveland

Our family foundation convenes local funders and key community stakeholders around strategies to end homelessness in Houston. Funders Together members have been invaluable mentors to us in this effort, traveling to our community to share their expertise and examples of best practices from around the nation.

-Nancy Frees Fountain, Managing Director at The Frees Foundation


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