BY MATT KITE for WEEKLY VOLCANO 11/14/25 |
On Friday, Nov. 14, Emily Happy is slated to accept the Heart of Gold Award from the South Sound Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals for her work in the local community. The awards banquet will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. at Tacoma Community House. Emily is one of six local philanthropists being recognized for their contributions to Tacoma.
Community work comes naturally to Emily, who comes from a long line of altruists.
“My family showed by example that service to others and community is simply what we do,” she says. “Whether it was supporting people through tough times, taking in kids who didn’t have safe homes, making sure other people’s kids graduated and got a good education, leading personal history-writing classes in the community for decades, volunteering countless hours to church and genealogy research, being part of photography and poetry exhibits at the Tacoma Art Museum, being a loaned executive for United Way of Pierce County, fighting for Lakewood cityhood, saving historic Fort Steilacoom, telling the heartbreaking and inspiring stories of local people in the newspaper, this was my family. I couldn’t have had better examples.”
A longtime South Sounder, Emily grew up in the Lakewood and Gravelly Lake area and attended Clover Park and Charles Wright Academy. After studying psychology at the University of Washington for two years, she earned her bachelor’s degree in social justice and writing at Evergreen State College.
“Five acres on the lake to run and roam, a pony, dogs and cats, brothers and sisters, family dinner on Sunday,” Emily recalls. “A messy, beautiful time that I now know was so special.”
During her youth, Emily absorbed her family’s community-focused ethos that went back generations. Charles Sayre, her great-grandfather and a prominent local builder, oversaw the construction of several Tacoma landmarks, including Titlow Lodge, Tacoma’s first hotel, and the Snoqualmie Falls Power House, now the library at UW Tacoma.
“Grandpa Happy was an attorney downtown and president of the Tacoma-Pierce County Bar in the 1940s,” she says. “My grandpa on the other side was vice principal of Stadium High School for nearly twenty years. My dad was a Pacific Northwest historian who founded the Lakewood Historical Society and preserved regional historic sites. My mom was the first female journeyman reporter for The News Tribune. I hope to one day be as cool as the people who came before me.”
These days, Emily serves as a nonprofit strategy consultant and specializes in community engagement. She’s also a writer. A principal at the Philanthropy Collective since 2018, she has compiled a long résumé that includes stints as president and board member at the Association of Fundraising Professionals (South Sound Chapter) and director of development and communication at FISH Food Banks of Pierce County.
“I’ve always wanted to help,” she says. “Helping has taken many forms during my career, starting when I was still in college with community organizing in drug-affected neighborhoods and helping people advocate for themselves. I loved being a senior center director for Franke Tobey Jones and working with older adults. I’ve raised a ton of money for feeding families in Pierce County for multiple organizations. Working with schools, youth, community centers, affordable housing, gardens, and folks I love who need a little help getting from A to B, making sure people have food and housing and feel belonging and love is what I’ve spent most of my time on.”
Emily says she was inspired by her “second mom,” Dr. Jill Kinney, who guided Emily’s first steps as a community organizer. Dr. Kinney showed Emily how to write grants, publish reports, and work with boards and large foundations.
Today, Emily wears a lot of hats while working on nonprofit governance, fund development, strategic planning, community engagement, and organizational storytelling. When someone asks what she does for a living, she answers with enthusiasm.
“I get to work with organizations that I love and missions that are near and dear to my heart and help them be more effective, raise more money, reach more people, and strategize for the future,” she says. “I have a business partner for the last handful of years, Jim Hushagen, who has been an attorney serving nonprofits and corporations regionally and nationally for forty-plus years. When we try to define it, the closest we’ve gotten so far is, ‘We help you change the world.’”
So what does it mean to win the Heart of Gold Award? Emily sees it as a group win.
“I think this award is representative of our community full of people who show up day after day to make things better,” she says. “There are people who do ‘help as a profession’ and are tasked with solving society’s toughest issues. There are volunteers who work the equivalent of a full-time job every week because they believe in helping their neighbors. There are caregivers whose work is mostly unseen. There are coaches and mentors who make a difference in the trajectory of kids’ lives because someone cares and shows up. Anytime there is a complaint about the state of the world, which is often valid, I think of all the people who show up and just keep helping. This is how I know there is love and hope all around us. There are beautiful, compassionate people caring for each other all around us.”
