Beckie Masaki | Case Statement | Budget | Donate Now | Campaign Advisory Team | Campaign Donors | Share your Beckie Masaki Story

Introduction

To honor Beckie Masaki, founding Executive Director and her 21 years of commitment and leadership in growing and building the Asian Women’s Shelter (AWS), we created a special campaign called the Dandelion Campaign.

The goal of the Dandelion Campaign is to raise $400,000 by January 2010 from long-time supporters and community members, as well as foundations and corporations committed to ending domestic violence. By supporting The Dandelion Campaign, you contribute to a movement to end violence that is larger than all of us alone.

Beckie Masaki, founding Executive Director

Beckie Masaki is a Sansei, a third generation Japanese-American who grew up in Sacramento, California. She came to the Bay Area and received her BA (1980) and MSW (1983) at the University of California, Berkeley. Beckie’s first job out of graduate school was at a domestic violence shelter where she was the first and only Asian person to work at that shelter. No Asians used the services. There was a pervasive myth that DV did not happen in the Asian community, or that Asians did not need shelter because they stayed within their families. Later, Beckie joined together with a group of Asian women in the community and founded the Asian Women’s Shelter in 1988.

At AWS, Beckie developed extensive experience in providing multilingual, multicultural direct services to domestic violence and trafficking survivors, innovative program development, prevention, community building, policy-making and institutional advocacy. She provided peer-based training and technical assistance to a wide range of groups on local, state, national and international levels, including work through AWS’s national Peer-to-Peer technical assistance and training program, and in partnership with the Family Violence Prevention Fund to provide consultation and training to community-based organizations in the Pacific Territories of Guam, Saipan, and American Samoa. Beckie has been active in the San Francisco Domestic Violence Consortium for the past 21 years. On the statewide level, Beckie is an appointed representative of the California Domestic Violence Advisory Committee and is active in the statewide coalition, the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence. On the national level she is one of the founding members of the Asian & Pacific Islander Institute on Domestic Violence and also serves on the steering committee of the National Judicial Institute on Domestic Violence.

In 2009, Beckie decided that it was the right time for her to transition from executive director and open the next era of shared leadership and vision for AWS. On a personal note, as AWS turned twenty, Beckie turned fifty, and decided that this milestone was her opportunity to embark upon a new phase in her work life, to make a contribution to a new career path and to her own personal growth.

“In being part of founding Asian Women’s Shelter, I found a home too. A place where I was no longer “the only”, but one of many in a great movement to end violence against women and to promote equality, justice, and peace. My proudest life achievement has been my role as founding executive director of the Asian Women’s Shelter.” –Beckie Masaki, founding Executive Director.

Share with Us

After 21 years as founding executive director of AWS, Beckie Masaki has announced that she will be transitioning from AWS. The Board of Directors and Staff of AWS would like to encourage donors, former staff and board, colleagues and supporters toplease share your stories of AWS or of Beckie Masaki here!

These stories and testimonials will be collected and given to Beckie next year at a special good-bye party that you will be invited to as a special gift for her 21 years of leadership and commitment. Due to space constraints, we may have to edit your comments down to 300 words.

Thank you so much for participating!

Dandelion Campaign Case Statement

The AWS Dandelion Campaign is a one-year fundraising campaign to strengthen and propel our unique model of culturally competent programs to a new level of visibility and leadership. For AWS, a dandelion’s ability to spread far and wide, illustrates our own goal to grow a shared vision of peace that is far-reaching and lasting.

Since our beginning, AWS has worked to break isolation, not only in the lives of survivors of violence, but also in our work to build a greater community movement to end violence. Like a dandelion, AWS’s community-based and collaborative approach has fostered many seeds of peace to take root locally, nationally and internationally.

Now more than ever, we need the support of our community to usher forth a courageous and collective vision for peace. We are surrounded by an unprecedented economic crisis, war, violence at home and in our communities, and a culture of fear. Research has shown that during difficult economic periods, the need for domestic violence prevention and services increases. Unemployment, poverty and stressors associated with a poor economy have shown to impact the rate of domestic violence, and many news reports today show a sharp increase in domestic violence crisis calls across the country in the past year. When comparing the number of crisis calls received in early 2006 to today, AWS has experienced a 41% increase from people seeking support, information or shelter due to domestic violence or human trafficking.

The constituency that AWS has dedicated our work to—immigrant survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking—are among those on the frontlines of poverty, violence, and despair. Instead of shrinking back amidst the chaos and uncertainty, at Asian Women’s Shelter we have committed to move forward; to support, inspire, and promote the leadership potential of our people.

How the Dandelion Campaign will Grow Peace

• We will house our Community Building Program in a public space to build stronger community connections and community visibility.
• Our Community Building Program will undergo program development and strategic planning to create a solid foundation for our on-going and future violence prevention work.

AWS’s Community Building Program is dedicated to changing values, practices, systems, and policies to promote peaceful, healthy families and communities, free from violence, injustice and oppression. AWS’s approach to community-building and prevention work reflects our understanding of the need for broad community awareness and a movement to end violence that is inclusive of the experiences of non-English speaking, immigrant communities.

While our Community Building Program was formalized in 2000, it continues to be housed at the confidential shelter location where women have recently escaped violence. This non-public location requires a level of secrecy that has made it difficult to grow our important community-based prevention work and has become a barrier to building stronger community connections. Our Community Building programs require convening meetings with community members, partner agencies and those in search of more education about violence prevention. A separate, dedicated, and public space will allow us to increase our visibility, expand our reach, and more successfully implement our projects.

At this stage of our program development, we will emphasize grassroots organizing, capacity building and leadership development to engage diverse individuals who comprise AWS, as well as to further our organizational goal of eradicating violence against women in all of our communities.

How the Dandelion Campaign will Strengthen Our Roots

• We will create a multi-tiered transition plan for the new Executive Director and all staff to pave the way to implement a new organizational era.
• We will document AWS’s transition in a manual to be shared as a leadership model for other non-profit organizations.

The core of AWS’s work is rooted in values of non-violence and anti-oppression. AWS recognizes that violence is caused by the abuse of power. Since our beginning, we have promoted an anti-oppression framework by addressing domestic violence and its interconnection to other forms of violence and oppression such as homophobia, racism, classism and sexism, and by putting anti-oppression values into practice in all areas of the organization. AWS operates through a non-hierarchical, shared leadership, consensus-decision making structure. We believe that connecting our work to a larger anti-violence, anti-oppression movement requires upholding peace, dignity and empowerment with our clients and co-workers every day.

After over 20 years of working at AWS, our founding Executive Director, Beckie Masaki, is planning her transition in 2010. The ED transition opens an opportunity to foster and build upon leadership and program development throughout the organization. AWS will focus on organizational transition to build staff capacity for increased leadership within their core work, as well as build staff capacity and structures for increased organization-wide leadership. This will allow the new ED to integrate into a sustainable shared leadership structure, which will position the organization for a smooth transition into a new era of leadership and programs.

For 21 years, AWS has grown both in size and capacity to meet the growing needs of our communities. In 1988, AWS started with only two staff. Today, we have 11 full-time and 7 part-time staff with three comprehensive program components: Direct Services, Support of Services, and Community Building. AWS is one of the few shelters to have a well-developed anti-oppression framework and seen as a model within the anti-violence movement.

Flowering Our Future

To make 2009 a year of positive transformation, we hope you will support the AWS Dandelion Campaign.

The goal of the AWS Dandelion Campaign is to raise $400,000 by January 2010. Please join us in this important next phase of community building, leadership development and capacity building for AWS. It is an investment in our greatest asset—the people of AWS—and in broadening the movement to end violence against women.

By supporting The Dandelion Campaign, you contribute to a movement to end violence that is larger than all of us alone. Thank you for your consideration.

Dandelion Campaign Budget

Growing Peace

Strengthening Our Roots

Donate Now

Thank you for your support! To make a donation now, please click the “DONATE” Button below:

If you would like to mail your donation, please send your donation along with the form below to:

Asian Women’s Shelter
3543 18th Street, #19
San Francisco, CA 94110

For more information please call (415) 751-7110 ext. 307

Dandelion Campaign Pledge Form

Please click the link below to download the Pledge Form in PDF:

Dandelion Campaign Pledge Form

DANDELION CAMPAIGN STEERING COMMITTEE

Yuri Futamura, Board/Campaign Chair
Vanessa Flores, Staff
Tina Kim, Staff
Janice Lee
Beckie Masaki, Executive Director
Nancy Otto, Consultant

DANDELION CAMPAIGN ADVISORY TEAM

Patty Nishimura Dingle
Anna dos Ramos
Joyce Fung
Alice Ito
Kathy Lim Ko
Mimi Kwan
Huong Le
Debbie Lee
Janice Lee
Ai Mori
Linda Okahara
Aiko Pandorf
Peggy Saika
Lia Shigemura
Jee Suthamwanthanee
Celine Takatsuno
Hediana Utarti
June Woo Wong
Robin Wu

DANDELION CAMPAIGN DONORS

AAA Northern California, Nevada, Utah on behalf of Patty Nishimura Dingle
AAA Northern California, Nevada, Utah on behalf of Anna dos Ramos
Asian American/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy
Blue Shield of California Foundation
Lisa Chan
Zesara Chan
Joyce Fung
Yuri Futamura & Jonah Sheridan
Jennifer Gee & Michael Matsumoto
Dipti Ghosh & Meggy Gotuaco
Alice Ito
Kazan, McClain, Abrams, Fernandez, Lyons, Greenwood, Harley & Oberman Foundation, Inc.
Tina Kim
Janice Lee & Wayne Barcelon
Kathy Lim Ko
Mimi Kwan & Chris Kennedy
Beckie Masaki
Ai Mori & Dale Minami
Linda Okahara & Balaram Puligandla
Aiko Pandorf
Orchid Pusey
Kit Quan
Peggy Saika & Arthur Chen
Jee Suthamwanthanee
Adelle Trotta
June Woo Wong & Family
Robin Wu

21st ANNUAL EVENT MATCH FUND DONOR

Anonymous

Donations and pledges received as of May 22, 2009. We apologize for any inadvertent omission of volunteer and donor names.