Founder's Corner
Katoya Palmer (pronoun: she/her)
Systems with Soul. Structure with Strategy.
I’m Katoya R. Palmer—a systems-minded fixer with a people-first lens and a polymath spirit. I thrive at the intersection of structure and soul. I don’t just solve problems—I humanize them. When the stakes are high and the path isn’t clear, I’m the one you call.
Through ToyBox, I design clarity into complexity, helping nonprofits, civic leaders, and businesses move from plan to practice.
Core Values & Strengths
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Integrity — built through transparency and accountability.
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Community — grounded in lived experience and cultural wisdom.
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Liberation — creating systems that heal and unlock possibility.
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Structure + Soul — balancing data and intuition.
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Clarity & Creativity — storytelling as a strategic tool.
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Relationships over Transactions — collaboration that transforms.
Professional Snapshot
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Founder & Systems Strategist — 20+ years across nonprofits, government, and creative ventures.
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Executive Leadership — Former COO managing $12M+ budgets, rebuilding HR, IT, finance, and communications systems.
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Civic Partner — Currently facilitating Bellevue’s Affordable Housing Strategy Community Conversations, gathering resident perspectives to shape policy recommendations.
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Community Builder — Designed governance frameworks, facilitated equity-centered strategy, and led multi-stakeholder coalitions.
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Creative Producer — Directed cultural campaigns, high-end events, and public health initiatives that reached diverse audiences.
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Academic & Professional — B.S. in Business Management & Marketing; IT Project Management certification.
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Founder, Strategist, Cultural Architect
Building Systems with Soul. Leading Change with Purpose.
Full Bio
Katoya R. Palmer is the founder and principal strategist of ToyBox Consulting & Management, a boutique consulting and creative operations firm based in Bellevue, WA. With over 20 years of cross-sector leadership, she has built a reputation as a systems-minded fixer who thrives at the intersection of structure and soul.
Katoya most recently served as Chief Operating Officer of a $12M nonprofit, where she rebuilt finance, HR, IT, grants, and communications systems in the wake of organizational crisis. Her leadership restored funder confidence, positioned the organization for federal funding, and stabilized a team of more than 80 staff. She has managed budgets ranging from $300K to $24M and consistently bridges operational rigor with equity-centered practice.
In 2025, she launched ToyBox into a new growth phase aligned with a 5-year business plan that integrates consulting services, a future nonprofit facilities arm, and regional expansion. Her recent portfolio also includes facilitation of the City of Bellevue’s Affordable Housing Strategy Community Conversations, a time-limited project gathering resident voices to inform policy recommendations.
Current Board Leadership
Katoya currently serves on four boards that reflect her commitment to community, equity, and regional growth. On the Bellevue Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors, she contributes to advancing business vitality and shaping civic policy across the Eastside. With SplashForward, she champions access to aquatics and community health, including the City of Bellevue’s recent approval of Airfield Park in Lake Hills as the future site for a public aquatic center. At The Sophia Way, she helps guide a mission dedicated to providing shelter, housing, and dignity for women experiencing homelessness. And through the Keenan Ellis Educational Project (KEEP), she advances efforts to create a public defender system for school discipline in Seattle Public Schools, combating racial disproportionality in exclusionary practices and dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline at its source. Across these roles, Katoya brings expertise in governance, finance, and equity-centered leadership to align boards with mission, metrics, and sustainable practices.
Fundraising, Events & Creative Leadership
Beyond executive operations and governance, Katoya’s expertise spans fundraising campaigns, event production, and creative direction. She has led high-stakes capital campaigns that raised six-figure sums in record time, produced cultural storytelling campaigns that shifted public narratives, and designed governance frameworks that strengthened board accountability across multiple organizations.
Creative & Cultural Leadership
In addition to nonprofit and consulting leadership, Katoya has played a pivotal role in Seattle’s creative economy through artist management and cultural production. She managed PR campaigns for Black Stax (including their XXL feature), directed Nottus Tre’s album release, and produced WTF is a Femcee with investor backing, featuring Jean Grae. She also launched Crown of the Sound, crowning Gifted Gab as Seattle’s best rapper and securing her first paid performance, and created Puget Power to elevate independent artistry. These projects highlight her ability to merge business acumen with cultural advocacy—building platforms that helped emerging Black artists thrive.
Entrepreneurial & Media Roots
When Katoya launched ToyBox in the early 2010s, she was deeply immersed in Seattle’s media and cultural scene—working as a booking manager, generalist, and blogger. She collaborated with Seaspot Media Group, the region’s long-standing hub for urban culture, and partnered with The Elite Collective, a creative production team specializing in culturally responsive media. Katoya also supported the business development of local venues and retailers that defined the era’s creative ecosystem, including Skybox Seattle and Sky Bellevue—popular nightlife and event spaces—and Suede, a street fashion retailer located off Rainier Avenue in Seattle that amplified urban style and community culture. These early experiences laid the foundation for ToyBox’s dual identity as both a consulting practice and a creative platform, shaping Katoya’s ability to merge business acumen with cultural strategy.
Public Health & Aquatics Leadership
Her professional contributions also extend into public health and safety. As a Senior Aquatics Program Director, she served as a subject matter expert in drowning prevention and was featured in the award-winning documentary Drowning in Silence, lending expertise to highlight systemic safety issues facing youth and families. She also coached high school athletes, including the Garfield High School swim team (2021) and boys and girls water polo teams at Sammamish and Interlake High Schools, leading them to a 2nd place finish in the Division II Championships and 5th place at the State Tournament in 2022.
She is a published author, contributing to YMCA’s Social Justice Day with her article The Digital Economy Can Uplift or Isolate Us, and co-authored a 2024 paper in the American Journal of Public Health advancing new theory for violence prevention.
Education & Scholarship
Katoya holds a B.S. in Business Management & Marketing and an IT Project Management Certificate. Although she does not hold advanced academic titles, her career reflects the rigor of a scholar-practitioner. She has authored peer-reviewed research, contributed to national journals, and is recognized as a subject matter expert in both public health and organizational systems. Her expertise is grounded not only in formal study, but in two decades of applied leadership across complex, multimillion-dollar organizations.
In recognition of her leadership and global perspective, Katoya was honored with the YMCA Emerging Global Leader Award in 2018—an acknowledgment of her ability to bridge local impact with international vision.
Lived Experience
Katoya’s leadership is grounded not only in her professional expertise but also in lived experience. As a Black woman raised in the Pacific Northwest with family roots in Louisiana, she carries the intergenerational resilience of migration, adaptation, and cultural pride. Her perspective has been shaped by navigating the realities of inequity, systemic barriers, and the complexities of identity in professional and civic spaces. These experiences fuel her commitment to equity-centered systems, culturally relevant leadership, and creating opportunities where others might have been excluded. Whether advocating for youth facing school discipline, women seeking stable housing, or artists building platforms in overlooked industries, Katoya draws on her own lived experience to connect authentically, lead with empathy, and design systems that honor the communities they serve.
A lifelong learner and community builder, Katoya brings the rare combination of operational discipline, creative vision, and relational leadership. Her mission is to design systems that not only work, but heal—helping organizations and communities thrive with clarity, culture, and credibility.
From Theory to Practice
As a strategist and former Chief Operating Officer of a nationally recognized justice reform organization, Katoya understands both the challenges and opportunities of community-led work. Her approach blends structure with soul—centering relationships, data, and design to drive lasting change.
In 2024, she co-authored “Codeveloping Theories of Change for Improved Community-Based Violence Intervention Evaluation,” published in the American Journal of Public Health. This research, grounded in collaborative efforts across Washington state, reframes how violence prevention initiatives are evaluated—by aligning community voice, structural root causes, and healing-centered outcomes within a shared theory of change.
Through ToyBox, Katoya continues to partner with organizations, artists, and visionaries who are reimagining systems—and brings the tools, strategy, and insight to help them build what comes next.
🎬 Featured In: Drowning in Silence
Katoya Palmer appears in the award-winning documentary Drowning in Silence, a powerful exploration of grief, water safety, and healing through community and personal resilience.The film follows the journey of filmmaker Chezik Tsunoda after the loss of her son to drowning, and uplifts the stories of individuals and families working to prevent similar tragedies.
Katoya shares her experience as a Louisiana native discussing the Shreveport Six; an aquatics leader, swim coach, and advocate for expanding access to water safety and education across all communities. Her voice in the film underscores her long-standing commitment to systems change—not just in boardrooms and policy—but in the everyday spaces where life, loss, and leadership intersect.
📚 Published Work: Digital Equity & Social Justice
In recognition of World YMCA Social Justice Day 2021, Katoya Palmer contributed to a global reflection on equity in the digital economy. Her article, “The Digital Economy Can Uplift or Isolate Us,” explores how access to technology and opportunity shapes pathways to liberation, particularly for historically marginalized communities navigating education, entrepreneurship, and public systems. In this piece, Katoya speaks to the urgency of bridging digital divides—not just through tools, but through culturally responsive leadership and policy.
Katoya Raquell Palmer is a systems strategist, cultural architect, and the founder of ToyBox Consulting & Management, LLC. Her work centers on healing-informed leadership, public infrastructure rooted in equity, and mobilizing cross-sector coalitions for social impact.
While serving as Chief Operating Officer at Community Passageways, Katoya co-founded the Together We End Gun Violence initiative—beginning with a groundbreaking 2022 symposium at Seattle University. Framed as a public health response to a growing epidemic, the event united statewide leaders from grassroots organizers to government officials in one of the first convenings of its kind in Washington.
Katoya played a leading role in conceptualizing the symposium’s purpose, curating its agenda, and coordinating a multi-sector planning team. The event featured remarks from Governor Jay Inslee, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell, King County Executive Dow Constantine, and included panels on community-led safety, public health, domestic violence, and sustainable funding strategies. Katoya herself moderated the high-stakes "Funding the Work" panel, helping frame the dialogue around braided, long-term investment in violence prevention.
Since then, the symposium has expanded into a statewide movement, including events in Tacoma and a two-day summit at Lumen Field, co-hosted by King County and the Seattle Seahawks. The initiative has gained national attention and helped secure broader investments in community safety.
Through ToyBox Consulting, Katoya continues to develop public strategy, build organizational ecosystems, and design transformative experiences that bridge vision and execution—with deep roots in the communities that need it most.
Katoya Palmer served as a co-facilitator for the King County Government’s Regional Community Safety & Well-Being Workgroup—an ambitious, multi-phase initiative led by Public Health – Seattle & King County and Zero Youth Detention (ZYD). Launched in response to the region’s declaration of youth gun violence as a public health crisis, this initiative brought together over 20 municipal departments, community-based organizations, and lived experience leaders to co-create a comprehensive public safety strategy rooted in equity and healing.
As a co-facilitator, Katoya helped lead interdisciplinary workgroups composed of government officials, service providers, youth leaders, and community representatives. These workgroups were tasked with developing shared goals, values, and strategic directions across five key domains: Education, Workforce Development, Juvenile Justice, Health & Human Services, and Community-Led Public Safety. Her facilitation ensured psychological safety, promoted co-governance, and prioritized the inclusion of those most directly impacted by violence and systemic harm.
This work laid the foundation for King County’s “Go-First Strategy”—a coordinated response designed to deliver immediate, wraparound services for youth and families most at risk. Katoya’s leadership in this initiative reflected her deep commitment to participatory governance, systems transformation, and culturally grounded facilitation. Her role was central to building trust across sectors, aligning shared values, and supporting a regional movement toward safety and well-being that is community-defined and sustainable.
Research & Impact: The Black Brilliance Research Project
As Research Project Manager with King County Equity Now’s Black Brilliance Research Project, Katoya Palmer co-led one of the largest Black community-led research initiatives in the region. This historic project mobilized over 100 community researchers to gather, analyze, and uplift data rooted in the lived experiences of Black residents across Seattle and King County.
Katoya's role included overseeing research teams, managing timelines and deliverables, facilitating data integrity processes, and ensuring community accountability in both methodology and reporting. She helped bridge grassroots knowledge with institutional pathways—supporting participatory budgeting efforts, policy advocacy, and resource equity campaigns grounded in the project’s findings.
The impact of this work was far-reaching. The team co-produced a 1,000+ page report that informed the City of Seattle’s participatory budgeting framework, redefined what public safety could look like for Black communities, and sparked ongoing dialogue about how governments must share power with those most impacted by systemic harm.
This project exemplifies Katoya’s commitment to community-led inquiry as both a tool of liberation and a model for ethical, equity-centered governance.
Producing the Movement
As Creative Producer and Project Director, Katoya Palmer led the development of Heroes of This Hell (Anti-Violence the Science)—a multimedia anthem born out of the Beloved Project. Drawing from her deep roots in community-centered storytelling and cultural strategy, Katoya shaped the vision and sound of the project from the ground up. She provided creative direction during the beat selection process, worked hands-on with the composer Beezie to ensure the music moved intentionally through distinct artistic segments, and crafted a sonic structure that symbolically honored each performer’s unique style and message.
Katoya co-curated the artist lineup: Beezie 2000, Papa Black Davinchi, Black Stax, Mike Jack 3200, and Tia Nache; ensuring diverse voices were centered around the shared theme of anti-violence as a collective science. She also designed the cover art and led the development of the promotional video to visually align with the project's emotional and symbolic resonance. Her leadership helped translate a community-driven call for healing into a powerful and purposeful creative work.