VESTIGES OF stars still hang in the sky when Phyllis Campbell lifts her head to start her day.

By 5:15, Campbell, who is the face of The Seattle Foundation, is out of her Issaquah home and making her way to Washington Athletic Club where every weekday she joins a heart-pumping aerobics class or does a little weight training. At 7:30, over breakfast at the club, she is likely to be advising a potential philanthropist who wants to finance a worthwhile cause. Ever since she was a kid, and even more strongly since she was diagnosed with cervical cancer at age 32, the 50-something Spokane native has worked to put passion in each day and to improve the communities around her.

"What I remember most poignantly is that my mother, no matter how little we had, would always give money or food to people, invite people to dinner, adopt families for Christmas, provide food baskets for people in the neighborhood..." Campbell recalls. "Those things all had a powerful influence on me, and that spirit has always stayed with me." The cancer, which she beat, magnified her desire to leave behind a legacy.

Looking out for the disadvantaged, finding ways to make King County a better place to work and live, is what Campbell does at the foundation, where she has spent the last three years as its president and CEO. Last summer, the foundation announced nearly $1.3 million in grants to 45 King County area nonprofit organizations including the Seattle Art Museum, Food Lifeline, Fremont Public Association, Washington Women's Foundation and the YMCA of Greater Seattle.

One ambitious project she and her staff (she insists on sharing credit with veteran staffers such as Senior Vice President Molly Stearns) recently put together is the foundation's A Healthy Community report. The report points out areas in the county that need work, such as job training, and it guides donors on how they can be part of the solution. The foundation helped Dan Regis, the former managing partner at Price Waterhouse LLP in Seattle, start the Regis Family Unity Fund dubbed the "Go Fish Foundation." Regis's foundation funds FareStart, which operates a restaurant in downtown Seattle where work seekers can get training for jobs in the restaurant industry.

The report also suggests ways in which the foundation might respond to challenges in the region such as rising housing costs, growing ethnic diversity, high obesity rates, and increased global competition. To combat high housing costs, for example, the report suggests that nonprofits buy land and develop affordable housing. Tenants would buy the homes on leased land, a step between renting and full ownership.

Campbell, who served for nine years as the president of US Bank of Washington, has pushed the foundation toward more professionalism. The foundation has turned to outsiders to analyze the effectiveness of the organizations it funds. This has helped push nonprofits to be more efficient in fundraising and managing expenses. "I think, over all, most charities are very well run," says Campbell. "But it's important to have an outside market force to keep us on our toes."

Stearns, the foundation's vice president, says Campbell supports her staff and helps them build the skills and confidence they need to more effectively serve the community.

"Her attention to customer service all through her banking career certainly helped the customer service ethic we continue to embrace here," Stearns says. "That's quintessential Phyllis. She's businesslike, a friend and a colleague, and that resonated with my style."

GROWING WITH GRACE
Campbell is optimistic about the future of philanthropy in the region. Last year the United Way of King County raised $101.2 million, more than any other United Way branch in the country. If you add up all the philanthropy, she says, there's no question that this area eclipses all others. "We have an unusually generous community," she says. And Campbell is encouraged by rising interest in philanthropy among the young - including many of whom are not household names in the region. The foundation's philanthropy workshops are also filled with teens and young adults as more philanthropists involve their children in giving and volunteering.

Warren Buffett's $31 billion donation to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has also inspired others to give and has "set the tone for much bigger-picture thinking - that these problems are solvable," says Campbell.

Buffett's decision to entrust his money to the Gates Foundation rather than create a new foundation named after himself was also important. "Just as he has made brilliant investments in business, he is making brilliant investments in philanthropy, Campbell adds. It's okay to treat philanthropy as an investment."

Margot Walker is a Seattle-based writer.