Stacy Stout is the Assistant to the City Manager with the City of Grand Rapids to support City neighborhood capacity building initiatives, such as the Neighborhood Match Fund, the annual Grand Rapids Neighborhood Summit, and Neighborhood Economic Connections grant designed to increase resident leadership and power. Stacy serves on the City’s Racial Equity Here (REH) cohort team connected with the Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE), and brings a strong racial equity and community empowerment lens to the work, pulling on her lived experience and training as a former Michigan team member at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Dean of Students at Burton Middle School with Grand Rapids Public Schools, and as the former Education Director at the Hispanic Center of Western Michigan. She is currently a Latino Community Coalition of Kent County steering committee member, K-Connect board trustee, and is one of four co-founders of the Latina Network of West Michigan that has a vision to be a catalyst for systemic change through leadership development, a space of cultural belonging, and reclaiming the Latina narrative. She has been recognized with the Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce ATHENA Youth Professional award, Young Professional of the Year award by the West Michigan Hispanic Chamber, Community Improvement award by the Grand Rapids Young Professionals, and GR Business Journal’s 40 Under Forty designation and most recently as one of the 50 Most Influential Women in West Michigan. She earned both her undergraduate degree in biology and her master’s degree in public administration with an emphasis in nonprofit leadership and management from Grand Valley State University. She is currently launching an online marketplace to celebrate the urban Native experience while also bringing awareness and raising funds for the local Grand Rapids nonprofit, Anishinaabe Circle.
Stacy in the 2018 recipient of the American Express NGen Leadership Award. Her nomination video is below:
