Childlike Wonder Meets Grown-up Funder How Massoud Emami became a fundraising force for Riverfront Park and all of Spokane BY SETH SOMMERFELD
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t’s the first summery day of 2022 at Riverfront Park, and the all-inclusive Providence Playscape playground rings with peals of children’s gleeful laughter. The biggest child contributing to this joyful clamor with bellowing chuckles happens to be the incredibly dapper grandfather who helped make the playground a reality — Massoud Emami. As chair of the Campaign for Riverfront Park, Emami is the man who helps make improvements to Spokane’s signature downtown park into a reality. It wasn’t exactly the most straightforward path for him to arrive at this point, but he revels in his community responsibility.
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world away from the Pacific Northwest’s own Rose City of Portland, Oregon, Emami grew up in the City of Roses — Shiraz, Iran — a place renowned for the natural beauty of its lush, flowering gardens. It undoubtedly infused a love for communal outdoor elegance into his core. Family ties led him to the Spokane area in 1970. His older brother Mahmoud
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was attending graduate school at Gonzaga University (his younger brother Cyrous also graduated from GU), which lured him to study at Eastern Washington University. Eventually 10 or so family members migrated to the area. “Spokane is so perfect for somebody coming out of a small town to another small town,” says Emami. “Only thing different — everybody else left. I stayed.” After graduating, Emami worked at The Bon Marche department store for a decade before partnering with Gary Anderson to open the high-end men’s clothing shop Anderson & Emami. The store became a fashionable downtown Spokane fixture, and Emami worked there for 35 years before deciding to retire five years ago (the store is now Anderson & Co.). But Emami’s journey to becoming a local fundraising titan wasn’t one he fully expected. In fact, when he was approached to be a board member for Sacred Heart (now Providence) well over a decade ago, he was convinced they had picked the wrong guy. “I told them, ‘You want me as a board member? But I don’t even take aspirin!’ So
one of the sisters, I never forget, they said, ‘You know, there is a lot more than aspirin here. We have union, we have employees, we have building, mainly we have our image in the city that we would like to improve.’” After a four-term, 12-year stint with Sacred Heart, which included fundraising for the Children’s Hospital, some of the same peers asked Emami to join the Campaign for Riverfront Park team (along with his wife, Jacqueline, as the also very involved co-chair) and lend his skills to help finance six big projects at the park. To date, they’ve raised over $3 million.
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o what makes Emami a fundraising superstar? The obvious element that jumps out as we stroll around the park is Massoud’s personality. He’s effervescent. He cannot for one moment hide the enthusiasm, vigor and pride he has for the park and for the Spokane community. It’s a charisma that could draw anyone in. When he’s in the zone talking about his fundraising projects, it’s easy to assume there’s not a cynical molecule in his body. “He is a wonderful, generous, very upbeat and always positive man,” says Yvonne Trudeau, the executive director of the Spokane Parks Foundation, the nonprofit behind the private fundraising. “Very personable, and he seems to know
