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North Sound ACH

North Sound Accountable Community of Health

CEO Update

Change and Gratitude

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Last week marked the summer solstice and each year it compels me to ponder the place I get to call home. We yearn for the longer days of sunlight noting it as the ‘beginning’ of summer. The solstice is a pivot point – getting to the longest day of sunlight only to begin the journey back toward the winter solstice. For me, the solstice marks those periods of change, the patterns of this planet we call home, a reminder that we also change, day by day. 

June also marked my grandson’s high school graduation, and the prior month was filled with many ‘final’ milestones – the final symphony orchestra concert, the final soccer game, final exams, the final day of school: all of those events leading to the next chapters in the lives of Ian and his amazing group of friends. They give me so much hope for the future and I’m grateful to be along for part of their journey.

And June 30 marks my last day as CEO here at North Sound ACH, with Arlesia Bailey stepping in on July 1 to lead the organization’s next chapter. We will be working side-by-side for a period of time to fully transition the work, but the team and the work are in such strong and creative hands. It gives me excited confidence, and I’m grateful to have been part of this journey to the next chapter.

We’re planning a partner gathering for September 10, so keep an eye out for details in the coming month. We’ll be talking about the importance of connection to each other, and you will be able to officially celebrate Arlesia in her new role, and look back on the past 10 years of North Sound ACH. I plan to be there and hope you will be too. 

Thank you for all you do – these past 10 years have enriched me, nourished me, and inspired me as you all do such amazing things to help people across this region. Thank you for letting me be alongside your journey. 

North Sound ACH announces incoming CEO

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Arlesia Bailey to succeed Liz Baxter as the organization’s leader on July 1, 2026


After a thoughtful search and interview process, the North Sound Accountable Community of Health (ACH) Board of Directors has selected Arlesia Bailey to be its next Chief Executive Officer. North Sound ACH is a nonprofit organization serving a five-county region in Northwest Washington which supports a diverse array of partners and organizations to meet the health, social, and other needs of community members so they can thrive.

Arlesia Bailey (left) will succeed Liz Baxter on July 1, 2026 at North Sound ACH. 

Arlesia has been part of North Sound ACH’s leadership team since March 2024, when she joined as the Chief Transformation Officer, leading work across the region’s five counties – Snohomish, Skagit, Island, San Juan, and Whatcom – spanning Medicaid waiver implementation, health-related social needs, and care coordination, with a focus on sustainability as conditions change. The Board’s decision reflects confidence in Arlesia’s leadership, deep commitment to health equity, and ability to guide the organization into its next chapter while staying grounded in North Sound ACH’s mission to advance community health and well-being throughout the region. She will officially assume the role of CEO on July 1, 2026.

Our regional partners are facing a tough economic climate along with reductions in public health and social services. Arlesia brings transformational leadership, with 30+ years at the intersection of healthcare, public systems, and community which will serve North Sound ACH and our network of partners well. She understands the importance of relationships among and with partners, especially with the tribes in the North Sound region – those relationships and shared wisdom have shaped North Sound ACH for the last 10 years.  

Prior to joining North Sound ACH, Arlesia served as a senior leader at Seattle Children’s, where she led major health equity investments, including the expansion of primary care into historically under-resourced communities. She is also a co-founder and partner of weAVS Collective, a health equity and social justice consulting firm that supports health systems nationally. Arlesia resides in Seattle and has served on the boards of Wellspring Family Services, Seattle Youth Recreation Foundation, and is a member of the Rotary Club of Seattle.

Arlesia often introduces herself first as “Charley, Geneva, and Marie’s granddaughter.” The stories and lived experiences of her grandparents — all of whom migrated north from the Deep South — profoundly shaped her understanding of community, resilience, and inequity. Their influence continues to guide her commitment to centering community voice, disrupting inequities, and improving health outcomes for all people.

There will be a thoughtful transition between outgoing CEO Liz Baxter and Arlesia, who already have a strong working relationship. “I cannot have imagined a better candidate for this role,” Liz shared. “North Sound ACH and its partners are very special and knowing that the work and relationships are in good hands means so much. We had incredible candidates, and to have Arlesia be the Board’s selection is inspiring. She will lead the organization into its next chapter and I’m excited to see what comes next.” 

“Arlesia brings the experience, relationships, and values-centered leadership needed to guide North Sound ACH into its next chapter,” shared Board Chair Kevin Riley.

The Board and staff also expressed deep appreciation for Liz, the founding CEO of North Sound ACH. “On behalf of the Board of Directors, I also want to express our deep gratitude to Liz Baxter for her visionary leadership and unwavering commitment to this organization and region,” said Kevin Riley. “Liz helped build North Sound ACH from the ground up and established a strong foundation rooted in partnership, equity, and community trust. We are grateful for her leadership and for her support in ensuring a thoughtful transition into this next era.”

For more information, please contact us at Communications@NorthSoundACH.org.

End of April

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We hope that spring is appearing wherever you are on this planet. This is when we realize that the daylight hours are stretching further, and even though the daylight  lasts longer each and every day, there is still that moment of ‘oh wow!’ for me when I wake up to daylight and ease into the end of the day with the same. Feels magical every year.

A few of us on the team have been meeting with leaders from across Washington and other states talking about the work of belonging and well-being. If you have been with North Sound ACH for any length of time, you know that we ground ourselves in some frameworks that guide our decisions and the work we take on. They include:

We envision a region where everyone feels a sense of belonging, and fully able to take part in decisions that affect themselves, the community, and the world that surrounds us. And each and every day, North Sound ACH learns of another organization or another network that is doing similar and aligned work. It is the right work to help us navigate challenging times and forces that want to divide us or make us afraid of each other. We know that we are stronger together.

Our team is grateful for all you do to nurture connections across the region – whether in small localized efforts or with broad strokes across the region, state, or country. As humans we are hungry for connection, purpose, and hope. The work you do gives us that and more.

We are spending the next month or so receiving proposals focused on food security. As we have in past years, we have a group of community partners and leaders who will review the proposals, and we have every confidence that you will offer up ideas that can transform the way we approach such a basic need.

We look forward to seeing you sometime this summer as we are out and about; in the meantime thank you for all you do each day to make this region a better place –

Spring 2026

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Coming from a very large family it has always required a pretty broad ‘tent’ to cover us all. We are different in terms of place of birth, the language spoken at home, political views, religious and spiritual practices, education, gender, sexual orientation, marriage, kids/no kids, and on and on. We are a diverse family by every common definition, different in a hundred different ways, and yet we are connected in ways that cannot be broken. Or at least we always hope that is the case.  

In order to stay connected to each other – in families and communities – it takes more than proximity and friendliness. It takes intention and purposeful engagement with each other, fighting against forces that want to separate us from each other and want us to fear what someone else might take away from us. I realize that connection, community, and belonging are constant messages that North Sound ACH sends to you, but this is our work. 

It would be easier to just pause in our tracks and wait until this crisis (or the next one) passes. But part of our reason for being is to not sit on the sidelines, but to ask ‘how can we be of help?’ to our colleagues and partners and friends. 

North Sound ACH is part of a growing table of organizations committed to Washington being a state where everyone feels that they belong. A few weeks back I was asked what that would look like to me. I said I wanted this state to be a place that my grandson would choose to live over all the other possible places, because he sees an opportunity here that he can’t see anywhere else – to thrive in every sense of the word. It is about more than finding a good paying job; it is about safety, being seen and appreciated, welcome and celebrated – being part of a collective whole. 

Imagine a place where we look out for each other (which means others are looking out for you.) We can be a community, a region, a state that thinks about the impact on those least able to withstand the pressures of 2026, and even while facing substantial changes because of budget pressures, we assure that no one is going to be left standing alone. 

This is no longer aspirational; it is critically necessary. In order for any of us to thrive we must find paths for everyone to thrive.  That is the work ahead of us and none of us can do this alone. 

Thank you for all you do – 

Liz 

PS – If you did not get a chance to see the last blog post, written after the February Convening, you can find it here.

Post Convening Thoughts

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Last week, the North Sound Partner Convening was focused on food insecurity – the first time that we have had a single topic convening. The room was filled with folks passionate about the topic, who know what is needed in their organizations and for the people they serve.  

We ended the day with a question – I think of it as ‘how should we spend the next dollar?’ Since 2023, the ACH Board has approved discretionary spending each year allowing North Sound ACH to award grants to partners working around the Vital Conditions for Well-being. More than 80 projects have been funded across the region to seed innovative ideas, even though the ACH does not have funds to sustain the work. That is the reason we focus on capacity building: working in partnership with other organizations, and seeing what other resources may be available to continue the work. Leverage is a key theme – how we can grow resources through our investments.

We are not the same as a community foundation, but we can use ACH resources to jump start innovation and support capacity. 

We ended the convening by asking attendees to share ideas of how we should set the criteria for the funds available in 2026. The requirements already include that applicants are:

  • Members of the Collaborative Action Network,
  • In collaboration with at least one other Network partner,
  • Connected to at least one of the Vital Conditions,
  • Agree to reporting and site visit requirements.

Last year we had close to $4 million to distribute and received nearly $12 million in requests. We anticipate that this year will show even more need than we have funds to support. It takes us back to leverage. How can we work together to bring more resources to this important work?

Report outs from the table discussions were rich – and sometimes contradictory – reflecting how hard it is to say no to any request when we know the need is vast. The ACH team is still compiling all of the notes, but here are few things I heard as recommendations:

  • Simpler applications, with some ability to submit in alternative formats, such as video
  • Don’t require outcomes to be listed; yet you want the dollars to go where they will have the greatest impact
  • Don’t require applicants to compete with each other (i.e., share the dollars equally to all applicants); yet there were recommendations to put dollars where there is the greatest need, and in communities facing the highest disparities
  • Support what is currently in place (replacing lost funding); yet support new ideas and partnerships
  • …and more – 20+ tables reported their ideas and we’ll look at them all. 

We will prioritize proposals that address food insecurity, and accept proposals aimed at other Vital Conditions focus areas. We hope to have the applications posted on our website the first week of April, and that will be a heavy push to make that happen – stay tuned. 

We live in times of contradiction and inconsistency and that can be exhausting. The sun has come out, daylight hours are growing which means plants are starting to bud. And people in communities are still being stopped and detained, and bombs are dropping again, folks are in need and looking to us to help. It asks a lot of us and people in our communities. 

We are grateful to you all, your families and teams. Thank you for all you do and we hope to see you all again soon. 

Happy New Year

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I was looking back at the last few new year messages and they seem to bring up the same themes – hope, opportunity, challenges, and gratitude. North Sound ACH is entering its 11th year and partnerships with community organizations drive the work we engage with and how we approach our role as opportunities are presented.

We are always grateful for your trust and the aligned commitment you have to improve the lives and well-being of the people in communities across the region. 

For the past month, our team has been supporting efforts in Whatcom and Skagit counties related to flood response, and we offer huge thanks to those on the ground in flood impacted communities.  We made a commitment during COVID, and the 2021 flood response, that we would support the counties and local health jurisdictions during times of crisis like this. There are amazing folks who stand up emergency operations during climate events (flooding, extreme heat, cold weather), disease outbreaks, wildfires, and at other times. North Sound ACH offers to help with organizing the community organization response that surrounds the more formal disaster responders. We have been grateful to the weather that we have not yet had the deep cold of winter, but we know it could come at any time. 

A few years ago our team crafted concepts under a heading of Leading with Love – curiosity, courage, care, compassion, and connection. They help us bridge relationships, even when it’s not easy. It is more than adopting a set of principles though; it requires that we practice them every day, with each other and with our partners. It can help us get unstuck, and open our minds to new ways of viewing what happens around us. 

I try to imagine a country where these five elements were front and center – how differently would we respond to disagreement and conflict? Could curiosity replace fear and presumption? Could compassion take the place of judgement? Could connection help us prevent isolation and siloed thinking? Can we see and interact with each other without presuming the person in front of us intends to inflict harm?

I know we are not alone in being emotionally impacted by the recent deaths in Minnesota, No one should expect that their right to protest will be met with deadly force, especially without consequence. The continued ‘breaking’ into us-versus-them is causing harm to the fabric of communities, but also to the rights that we believe we have – to peacefully protest in the face of injustice. Disagreement in of itself is not a threat; but there is a growing climate across the country that people who protest are un-American, when it is the very essence of what makes – or should make – this country unique.

A colleague’s recent newsletter contained a reminder that none of us can sit on the sidelines. It might seem safer on those sidelines, but I am not safe if I stay behind closed doors and refuse to engage with the conflicts around us. If we stay in our own bubble we are putting the heart of our community and nation at risk. The Vital Conditions for Well-being have Belonging and Civic Muscle at the center. We have the knowledge and power to take care of people around us, and assure that their voices, as well as our own, are heard. It may contain risk, but we all face greater risks when we are silent.  

One of our partners shared a story on social media that pointed to what is possible when we use our civic muscle – seven months ago a person was stopped by multiple ICE agents as they were leaving a landscaping job. They were charged with ‘assault with a deadly weapon’ on four of the ICE agents. After months in federal detention, challenges to the family, expenses to retain counsel and stay in touch, the trial was completed in the past week. While the prosecution brought all eight ICE agents to testify, the defense brought one – a coworker who testified about the person’s role in the community. After five days of evidence, the jury deliberated for 27 minutes and found the person not guilty on all counts. (Seattle King5 news clip)

It does not diminish the harm to the individual who was detained and their family, but looking at national media we know that the outcome could have been much worse. As we begin this new year, I hope that we all continue to look for ways to stand beside each other, to offer support before and when it’s asked for. We will accomplish more together than we can when standing alone. 

I’m often asked about our organization’s commitment to belonging as if the concept is something soft and ‘nice.’ A commitment to belonging is both simple and hard, and the journey is long. But every day someone else joins this journey with us, and that makes all the difference. We stand together in this work. 

Thank you for all you do –