Chinook Fund is excited to welcome Daisee Francour as our new Executive Director!
On October 8th from 6:00-7:30pm, join us for a free evening of music, connection, and celebration as we mark this new chapter in our shared journey for social justice.
Enjoy delicious food and drinks, vibrant community energy, and a special program featuring remarks from Daisee Francour and a Chinook Fund grantee. Plus, there will be time to mix, mingle, and celebrate in community.
Whether you’re a grantee, Giving Project alum, donor, partner, supporter—or just someone who believes in transformative systems change—you are warmly welcome!
RSVP for October 8th Community Celebration
Sponsorship Opportunity: We are seeking community-minded businesses and individuals to partner with Chinook Fund in fostering a more just Colorado for all. Will you join us as an event sponsor? As a sponsor, you will be a part of a collective movement for social justice, while ensuring a successful community celebration. For more information, view our Event Sponsorship Packet.
Press Release: Daisee Francour Named as New Chinook Fund Executive Director
August 7, 2025
Chinook Fund is thrilled to announce the appointment of Daisee Francour (she/her), an accomplished leader with nearly 15 years of experience in advocacy and movement-building, community-led grantmaking, and resource mobilization, as its new Executive Director. 
“In a time of escalating injustice and coordinated attacks on frontline communities, I’m honored to lead Chinook Fund into its next era—deepening our commitment to systemic change and grassroots power,” said Francour. “I’m excited to build with social movements across Colorado to redistribute resources, shift power, and carry forward a vision of justice rooted in Indigenous values and collective liberation.”
Daisee was raised on the Oneida Reservation in Wisconsin by generations of strong Matriarchs who embodied resistance, resilience, and an unwavering commitment to Indigenous sovereignty. Their example instilled in her the values of truth-telling, collective care, and standing firm in the face of oppression—principles that continue to guide her work. A citizen of the Oneida Nation, Daisee’s Haudenosaunee lineage and lived experience as an Indigenous woman deeply inform her lifelong commitment to social justice, self-determination, and community-led transformation.
Daisee has dedicated her career to support and empower Indigenous and frontline communities and her work centers strengthening the leadership, infrastructure, and resource strategies of grassroots organizations to build lasting systems of resilience and sustainability. Prior to joining Chinook Fund, Francour held senior leadership positions with the Indigenous Environmental Network, Cultural Survival, and The Cultural Conservancy.
Her experience in advocacy and movement-building has deepened her commitment to transform philanthropy, and bridge the divide between today’s generations of leadership in nonprofits. As a former program officer at the Christensen Fund, Daisee worked with various funders and donor affinity groups to help deconstruct, dismantle, and co-create new grant-making models aligned with Indigenous ways of being and knowing. While serving as the Director of Strategic Partnerships and Communications at Cultural Survival, she cemented her status as a paradigm shifter, co-creating a five-part framework series to transform and Indigenize philanthropy. Most recently, Daisee was the Communications and Media Director at Indigenous Environmental Network, where she worked to create digital campaigns that uplifted Indigenous rights and leadership while also exposing greenwashing and false climate solutions pushed by extractive industries to the masses.
Chinook Fund’s Board of Directors, in partnership with staff and community members, led a national search supported by Denver-based Cultura Leadership Consulting. “We are so thrilled to have Daisee join the Chinook Fund team. Daisee’s experience, leadership, commitment to social justice, and vision for the future make her uniquely qualified for the Executive Director position,” said Angela Schreffler, Chinook Fund Board Co-Chair. “We are grateful to the staff, board of directors, and executive transition committee for their participation and contribution in the hiring process.” Special thanks goes to Mateo Parsons, Program Director, who served as Interim Executive Director over the past six months. Mateo’s leadership has been foundational in carrying the organization forward during this time of transition.
Please join us in welcoming Daisee, who can be reached at dfrancour@chinookfund.org.
Save the Date! Join us for a welcome event on October 8th from 6-7:30pm in Denver. Further details and RSVP will be available in early September.
Founded in 1987, Chinook Fund supports grassroots organizations working on issues of social and economic justice; by pooling our collective resources, we seed groups making a positive, systemic impact to improve the quality of life for all Coloradans. Through the innovative Giving Project donor organizing model, Chinook Fund’s legacy of community-led grantmaking continues to resource emerging and cutting edge organizing on the ground.