Seattle Reign FC Legend: Shawna Rosenzweig – CEO of Camp Fire
The Legends Campaign, a partnership between Seattle Reign FC and Starbucks, honors women for their extraordinary contributions to our community in the Pacific Northwest and beyond. Prior to Seattle Reign FC’s RISE Together Match against San Diego Wave FC, the club recognized Shawna Rosenzweig, CEO of Camp Fire, an inclusive youth development organization that enables young people to develop essential skills that have long-term benefits and make a positive social impact in the world.
Through high school and college, Shawna worked at day camps, as a babysitter and in after school programs, operating under the assumption that the way to make a career out of working with children was to become a teacher.
Everything changed in college, when she stumbled upon an extra credit opportunity that required her to go see a documentary film about a summer camp in Maine that works with high school students from around the world.
“I was blown away by what they could do and in a summer camp setting. The experience of bringing these kids together was amazing, so I ended up spending the next two summers working for them at their camp in Maine, and some time in the Middle East in between, and that really started me on my career journey in out of school time spaces,” Shawna said.
She moved to New York City to work in after school programs for a while before she found her way to Camp Fire, where she has worked for the last 12 years. Her career with the organization has evolved since 2013, as she occupied many roles at the organization before she was named CEO at the start of this year.
She has worked for over a decade to ensure that Camp Fire affiliates across 24 states and Washington, D.C. are properly equipped to serve more the 100,000 youth and families each year.
“I am all about building belonging and connection for young people and I'm passionate about working with young people and out of school time spaces. So, whether it's after school programs or summer programs. I've always loved working with kids and feel very fortunate that I have found a professional pathway to do so and am grateful for any opportunity to create spaces where young people can belong. That's what I'm about.”
She added, “The through-line through all of the roles I’ve had, is the opportunity to be creative and create new and powerful experiences for young people. I joke that it's probably been close to 12 roles in 12 years. Camp Fire is a very unique organization in that it’s 115 years old and it's constantly innovating. I've been very lucky that my job through it all has been to create new. Whether it’s new training systems or programs or new ways to address cultural appropriation, we are finding new ways to go about it all.”
Known for her transformative leadership work, she has led culture change efforts and leadership transitions at the national office, as well as designed and launched diversity, equity, inclusion and access efforts across the network, including creating an equity task force to address and end cultural appropriation in the organization.
“Building Native partnerships has been a major accomplishment. And just adding a lot of our programming for LGBTQ+ young people, especially in more politically conservative states, has been another major piece for me. The little things really add up to be something bigger.”
In her current role as CEO, her day-to-day never looks quite the same, but there are some constants, like raising money to support the organization and building new partnerships.
“The things that changed are centered around young people’s needs. The needs change, right? As we’ve responded to different needs over the last decade, we’ve adapted and changed. At the end of the day, the partnerships may look different, the projects look different, but it's it is kind of a cycle of working on all those things I love.”
As part of her work, Shawna serves on the board of the National After School Association – something that she’s incredibly proud of as she works toward advancing after school programming for all young people to have a safe place to exist. Through navigating her own career and working with young people, she has curated insightful advice to offer to those chasing a goal of their own.
"It's very easy to ask why anyone would pick you for that job or for that opportunity or that award and I often try to remind both myself and those that I work with that it's easy to kind of sell ourselves short. But why not you? You deserve it just as much as anyone else.”
She continued, “I apply that to myself too, right? I asked myself if I could be CEO. I’ve been all of these other roles but never a CEO before. But why not me? Give yourself credit to do things your way and do it authentically.”
Being honored as a Seattle Reign FC Legend is a big accomplishment for Shawna, made extra special by the fact that her family loves to attend Reign games.
“This feels like a big moment. It means a lot to have all of those little moments add up to a big moment. Going to Reign games is something I enjoy doing with my family, especially my daughter, so that’s a special thing, especially as we talk a lot about young people finding their sparks, passion and their purpose in life.
“Going to soccer games and learning about soccer and following a lot of the players is a spark of my daughters and so to be able to celebrate in this setting and have this recognition is a really cool moment.”