Everett Gospel Mission is honored to recognize The Norcliffe Foundation for a milestone partnership that will help shape the future of homelessness response in Snohomish County.
The Norcliffe Foundation has pledged $1,000,000 toward EGM’s Smith Campus Expansion, a transformational capital project designed to create more safe, dignified, and relationally supportive spaces for neighbors experiencing homelessness.
This commitment is significant not only because of its size, but because of what it represents: thoughtful stewardship, regional commitment, and confidence in the kind of durable community infrastructure that helps people move from crisis toward stability.
Founded in Seattle in 1952 by Paul Pigott, The Norcliffe Foundation is a private family foundation in Washington State. After Paul Pigott’s death, his wife, Theiline Pigott McCone, led the foundation for decades, and succeeding generations of the family continue the legacy today. Norcliffe’s mission is “to improve the quality of life for all people in our community,” and its grantmaking supports areas including human services, healthcare, civic and community projects, education, and arts and culture.
That legacy of community investment makes this partnership especially meaningful.
Norcliffe’s guidelines describe a foundation interested in joining a broader community of funders, particularly around work with strong community support and shared investment. The foundation’s grantmaking areas include Social Services & Basic Needs, and its funding types include Capital and Infrastructure.
The Smith Campus Expansion fits squarely within that spirit of community partnership.
This project is not simply about constructing a building. It is about creating the kind of infrastructure Snohomish County needs in order to care well for neighbors experiencing homelessness. It is about safe shelter, trauma-informed design, trusted relationships, and practical pathways toward stability.
The expansion will transform EGM’s historic men’s shelter site into a unified campus for both men and women, with dedicated spaces for sober and non-sober guests, trauma-informed wraparound services, and long-term community impact.
Norcliffe’s own grantmaking preferences emphasize requests that meet critical needs, employ innovative and effective approaches, fill a unique community niche, and have a diverse funding base. Those priorities align closely with the opportunity before EGM and our community.
The Smith Campus Expansion responds to an urgent and local need. It builds on EGM’s unique role in Snohomish County, including providing emergency shelter for single men, shelter for single women, and specialized support for families. It also reflects a broad funding partnership that includes public, private, and philanthropic support. EGM worked to secure the vast majority of Phase 1 costs through public partnerships before launching the full private capital campaign.
For EGM, Norcliffe’s commitment comes at a pivotal moment. A $1 million pledge from Norcliffe helps signal confidence to other philanthropic partners as EGM continues building the private support needed for this transformational campus.
This is what thoughtful philanthropy can do.
It can help a community move from temporary response toward lasting infrastructure. It can give confidence to other partners. It can help turn a shared vision into a place where lives are changed.
For more than 64 years, EGM has walked alongside neighbors experiencing homelessness. Over those decades, we have learned that transformation requires more than a bed. It requires intentional design, trusted relationships, and a community committed to dignity.
The Norcliffe Foundation’s partnership helps make that kind of community possible.
We are deeply grateful for Norcliffe’s careful stewardship, regional commitment, and willingness to invest in work designed to strengthen our community for decades to come.
Thank you, Norcliffe Foundation, for helping build what our community needs next.
Together with partners like Norcliffe, EGM is building more than shelter. We are building room for dignity, stability, and transformation.
