Khalilah Burt Gaston

Khalilah Burt Gaston is the founding Executive Director of the Song Foundation, shepherding its efforts to invest in ideas, people, and organizations that amplify equity, power, prosperity, and joy in Southeast Michigan. A trained urban planner and passionate advocate for equitable communities, her work has been featured in Dwell Magazine, The New York Times, Chicago Public Radio, and the Harvard Family Research Project. Khalilah has held a variety of other positions in the private and private sectors. These include her prior role as Program Officer at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, where she was the foundation’s lead architect of Hope Starts Here: Detroit’s Early Childhood Partnership and managed a grant portfolio of $500 million. She received a bachelor’s degree in Sports Management and Communication and a Master of Urban Planning degree from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.

Stacy Stout

Stacy serves as the inaugural Director of Family-Centered Philanthropy with the Steelcase Foundation and is responsible for leading the Foundation’s new Investment In Families (IIF) Initiative. The Initiative is a 10-million-dollar investment over 10 years designed to co-learn with a cohort of Black and Latina mothers in Kent County, Michigan on how policies impact families overtime, co-create an action plan to change behaviors of systems that continue to harm them, while also focusing on the mothers’ individual and collective well-being.

Previously, she served as the inaugural Director of Equity and Engagement with the City of Grand Rapids. She created and implemented the City’s diversity equity and inclusion (DEI) strategies, framework, policies, training, and provided executive leadership around engagement and equity across the organization. Before the City, she was a Michigan team member with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Dean of Students at Burton Middle School with Grand Rapids Public Schools (GRPS), Education Director with the Hispanic Center of Western Michigan, and as the former Freshmen Academy Coordinator with Grand Valley State University (GVSU) working with incoming students of color. Stacy is a K-Connect board trustee (collective impact organization), a member of the GRPS Native American Education Program (NAEP) Parent Committee, co-founder and board member of the Latina Network of West Michigan, and is currently in the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Community Leadership Network (CLN) Fellowship, in partnership with the Center for Creative Leadership. She earned both her undergraduate degree in biology and her master’s degree in public administration with an emphasis on nonprofit leadership and management from GVSU. She resides in Grand Rapids with her husband, daughters, and the best pup in the world named Luna.