CONTACT JOSHUA

Joshua Heim started at Western Arts Alliance (WAA) in September 2022. Before dedicating his work fulltime to WAA, Joshua served as Deputy Director at 4Culture, a cultural development authority and funding agency in King County, Washington. During his time at 4Culture he led an impactful COVID-19 response that distributing over $12 million of federal disaster relief to cultural organizations and individual cultural workers and served as an advisor to the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) Arts and Culture Recovery Strategy. He also provided oversight on a portfolio of funding programs, helping to deepen the organization’s commitment to equity and supporting those who have been historically underserved through arts philanthropy.

Before that, Joshua led local arts agencies at the Cities of Bellevue and Redmond in Washington State where he cultivated a passion and expertise in cultural planning, creative placemaking, and the creative economy. His art in public spaces program in Redmond has been recognized nationally for urban trail revitalization by American Trails, and his work in the Creative Economy in Bellevue has been featured as a case study in Creative Economies and Economic Recovery: Case Studies of Arts-Led Recovery and Resilience, published by WESTAF.

Joshua holds a Master of Arts in Cultural Studies from the University of Washington in Bothell, WA and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Anthropology from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, OR. Additionally, he holds an International Development Policy and Management Graduate Certificate from the University of Washington in Seattle, WA. He is a Trustee at Humanities Washington and sits on the Steering Committee for the American Planning Association Arts and Culture Division. He is originally from Hawaii, where he worked for a short time as a professional.