Longbrake Family Foundation

Longbrake Family Foundation

Founded in 1999 by Bill and Martha Longbrake, the Longbrake Family Foundation is a Seattle-based private independent foundation. Its corpus is derived from Bill Longbrake's career in finance, most notably his tenure as Chief Financial Officer of Washington Mutual, the thrift that became the largest bank failure in U.S. history before its 2008 seizure. The foundation's grantmaking and investment strategy reflects a disciplined, principal-driven approach to community development, shaped by decades of institutional banking experience. The foundation concentrates its deployment in three areas: education, Christian mission work, and affordable housing. Its asset pool includes a direct residential property, Mercy Othello Plaza in Seattle's Othello neighborhood, and commitments to outside private equity funds, including Bow River Capital's Real Estate Fund III. Bow River Capital, a Denver-based alternative asset manager, has been a recurring partner. The foundation maintains its investable assets through a custody relationship with Manchester Capital, a multi-family office, and also holds legacy assets connected to Charles Schwab. Bill Longbrake maintains a network of professional affiliations that inform the foundation's governance. He serves on the boards of City First Bank, a community development financial institution, and BECU, one of the largest credit unions in the United States, including its audit committee. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and holds an Executive in Residence position at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business. Martha Longbrake serves alongside him as vice president of the foundation. The foundation operates with the governance structure of a classic low-profile family foundation: a husband-and-wife leadership team, a lean outsider manager for part of the portfolio via Manchester Capital, and direct real asset ownership. Unlike the endowment model institutions that deploy across dozens of managers, the Longbrake Family Foundation functions as a concentrated pool, pairing a few trusted GP relationships with direct impact assets in its own community.