President and CEO, Wallace H. Coulter Foundation 

Sue Van is the President and CEO of The Wallace H. Coulter Foundation. The Wallace H. Coulter Foundation is the largest funder of civic engagement for Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders (AANHPI)and American Indian and Alaskan Natives (AIAN). Both populations have been under-resourced, under served and under-represented by the lack of philanthropic and government support for decades. Due to the lack of investment, these communities were often invisible, had no voice and no seat at the table. Therefore, the vision and mission of Coulter is to build long term power in both communities. We provided risk capital and seed investments to build capacity and infrastructure for national and state-based organizations starting in the AANHPI community in 2010 and in the AIAN community in 2018.  

 The impact of this multiyear general support was exhibited in 2020 in the AANHPI community. Despite a raging pandemic which caused economic damage, health chaos and a huge increase in anti-Asian hate, the AANHPIs had the highest self-response rate in the Census and the highest voter surge in the elections. The Foundation started its investment in the AIANs with the 2018 midterms. The increase of Indigenous elected officials and the redistricting successes of the Native American Rights Fund (NARF) have been impressive. When the Foundation sunsets in 2025, we would have invested a total of $250,000,000 into both of these two communities.