Saira Siddiqui Joins as Community Impact Program Director

The John R. Oishei Foundation is pleased to welcome Saira Siddiqui as Community Impact Program Director, Organizational Power. This role is part of the Foundation’s ongoing evolution as it advances its mission to build financial prosperity for a racially just community where all people can thrive.

Siddiqui joins the Community Impact team as the Foundation continues to operationalize its strategic direction through its Community Power-Building Framework, which outlines seven interconnected areas of focus: Individual Power; Organizational Power; Community Control & Asset Ownership; Policies & Practices; Narrative Change; Collective Community Organizing; and Joy, Restoration, and Resilience. Together, these areas guide how the Foundation partners, learns, and invests, centering community voice and long-term systems change.

Siddiqui will lead work across the Organizational Power focus area, which centers on strengthening the leadership, infrastructure, relationships, and long-term sustainability of organizations rooted in and serving Buffalo’s East Side communities. This work reflects the Foundation’s belief that thriving communities require thriving organizations—organizations with the ability not only to deliver services, but to influence systems, shape narratives, build partnerships, and advocate alongside community.

Both an internal and external partner, Siddiqui will help translate the Foundation’s strategy into practice by supporting nonprofit leaders, strengthening ecosystem connections, and helping organizations identify and pursue the resources, relationships, and opportunities needed to build long-term organizational and community power. She will partner closely with Perrin Associates on the Foundation’s Organizational Power work already underway, including leadership development initiatives, peer learning opportunities, and ecosystem-building efforts designed to strengthen nonprofit sustainability and collaboration across Buffalo’s East Side.

“Organizational power is about more than capacity-building alone,” said Pamela Ross, MSW, Vice President of Community Impact at the Oishei Foundation. “It’s about ensuring organizations have the relationships, leadership, infrastructure, and influence needed to help shape systems and drive long-term change. Saira brings an extraordinary combination of creativity, systems thinking, community engagement, and strategic leadership to this work. She understands how to connect people, ideas, and institutions in ways that strengthen both organizations and community.”

Siddiqui brings more than a decade of experience in collective impact capacity building, nonprofit strategy, district development, and community-rooted facilitation, with a strong focus on advancing racial equity and place-based transformation across Buffalo’s East Side. Most recently, she founded SAIRA Creative, a consulting practice focused on organizational development, process improvement, systems-change learning, and place-based program design. In that role, she designed and facilitated cross-sector cohorts and collaborative learning groups supporting organizations and leaders navigating complex community challenges.

Prior to launching her consulting practice, Siddiqui served as Program Officer at the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), where she led neighborhood planning initiatives and place-based investments through the Buffalo Billion’s East Side Avenues program. Her earlier leadership roles include serving as Executive Director of both the Hillsboro Downtown Partnership and La Grande Main Street Downtown in Oregon, where she led strategic planning, revitalization efforts, partnership development, and organizational stabilization initiatives.

An urban planner by training with experience in environmental design, nonprofit management, and creativity and change leadership, Siddiqui brings an interdisciplinary perspective to the Foundation’s work—one grounded equally in systems thinking, creativity, and community engagement. Throughout her career, her work has centered on helping people connect more deeply to each other, their neighborhoods, and the systems shaping their lives.

“What drew me to this role was the opportunity to work with a foundation that is really thinking differently about its role in community and systems change,” Siddiqui said. “The Foundation is naming power, talking about power, and being intentional about shifting power in ways that feel meaningful and community-centered.”

That perspective also shapes how she understands Organizational Power.

“It’s not just about helping organizations function better,” she said. “It’s about helping organizations understand their own influence and ability to shape systems, advocate for themselves and their communities, and build the kinds of relationships and partnerships that create lasting change.”

Siddiqui, who lives and works on Buffalo’s East Side, also brings a strong belief in community voice and resident agency to the role.

“I think power should live with the people,” she said. “Organizations represent people, and community members should have a voice in what happens in their neighborhoods, what happens to their families, and what kind of future they want to help create.”

“I am excited to welcome Saira to the Foundation and to see her creativity, systems perspective, and community-rooted leadership help strengthen this work,” said Christina Orsi, President of the Oishei Foundation. “Her ability to move between strategy, relationship-building, and implementation aligns deeply with how we are evolving as a foundation. As we continue operationalizing our Community Power-Building Framework, leaders like Saira will help us think differently, partner differently, and build more connected, community-centered approaches to building financial prosperity for a racially just region.”

The Community Impact Program Director, Organizational Power position is part of ongoing organizational development at the Oishei Foundation as it aligns its structure, staffing, and approach to fully support its strategic direction and mission. The Community Impact team will continue to grow in the months ahead, building the capacity needed to deepen partnerships across Buffalo’s East Side.