Help us end 2024 strong!

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Confluence staff has spent the year connecting across the region through Confluence in the Community, Confluence in the Classroom, and so many more community events and connections. We’re so grateful for another year of meaningful, collaborative partnerships and engaging public programming, helping us all connect to the history, living cultures, and ecology of the Columbia River system through Indigenous voices.

In 2024, we’ve connected with over 2,000 students through Confluence in the Classroom and Confluence Outdoors. We launched Volume 3 of our journal, Voices of the River, led workshops, hosted events, attended community gatherings, and connected with storytellers, educators, students and the community across the Columbia River region.

Confluence is seeking support for its executive director transition and capacity building in 2025 and beyond. Our goal during strategic planning is to determine our next steps in increasing our work with Native communities in the region and turning our audience inward to focus on the needs of Native people.

Help us end 2024 strong and support our strategic planning goals in 2025 with a gift today!

2025 and Beyond
Under new, Native-led leadership, Confluence is embarking on a strategic planning process in 2025. The process will include a community participatory approach, involving input from various constituents, with a priority on our Tribal partners in the region.
We envision working with strategic planning, board development, and executive leadership consultants to collect information from focus groups, surveys, and our staff and board to design a plan for the next 3-5 years. Confluence’s prior “Strategic Blueprint” was produced in 2021 and covered the period from 2021-2025 (with most/all of its stated objectives now completed), so there is an urgent need to complete this work.

Education
In 2024, we’ve connected with over 2,000 students through Confluence in the Classroom and Confluence Outdoors. The programs reached 750 rural Oregon students and 462 rural Washington students. The education team has participated in 35 student field trips, and have connected with over 250 educators across Oregon and Washington for professional development.
Camp Confluence’s spring break and summer camps helped over 40 campers to connect with nature, with trips to Confluence river sites, alongside state parks and cultural heritage sites along the Columbia River system.

Programming
This year, our public programming at the six Confluence river sites has continued to connect the people of the Pacific Northwest with the river that supports the region. We’ve hosted community events like birding at the Sandy River Delta Bird Blind with the Bird Alliance of Oregon and the Old Apple Tree Festival at the Land Bridge, presented on the work of connecting people to the outdoors with the Washington Trail Association, screened films, and tabled at community events. We’ve stewarded the works of art that make up the river sites, replacing decking at the Bird Blind and adding interpretive panels and performing needed maintenance at the Land Bridge.

Voices of the River
In November we celebrated the launch of Vol. 3 of Voices of the River, Confluence’s journal. Voices of the River is a journal that explores the Columbia River system’s history, living cultures, and ecology through Indigenous voices. Volume III’s theme, led by Lead Editor Emily Washines, is Side Channels. In Volume 3, we invited contributors to consider what their insights, research, and creative work told them about healing and resilience? How do we look back and see these themes in the history of the river and its peoples? And how does this give you hope in the future? Learn more about the journal at www.confluenceproject.org/support-donate/confluenceshop/