A Note of Gratitude: Rosalyn M. Davis Reflects on Nearly a Decade at Cypress Fund

After nearly a decade of building, learning, and growing alongside the Cypress Fund community, Rosalyn M. Davis reflects on the relationships, lessons, and legacy she carries into her next chapter.
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There are some chapters of our lives that become so intertwined with who we are that it is difficult to talk about their ending without reflecting on everything they helped make possible.

For me, Cypress Fund is one of those chapters.

Over nearly a decade, Cypress has been a place of work, learning, relationship, and growth. It has been a place where I have had the privilege of working alongside people who are deeply committed to building a more just world, and where I have been continually reminded that meaningful change is made possible by the people who choose to pursue it together.

As I close this chapter, what I feel most is gratitude.

I am grateful for every person I have met through Cypress: our grantee partners, philanthropic peers, movement leaders, organizers, advocates, colleagues, collaborators, and friends. I am grateful for the conversations that challenged my thinking, the relationships that extended beyond a meeting or a grant cycle, the introductions that opened doors, and the people who welcomed me into rooms and communities where I had so much to learn.

To our grantee partners, thank you for your work and for your willingness to share it with us. Some of the most meaningful education I have received throughout my career has come from listening to the people closest to the issues, learning from those doing the work on the ground, and witnessing the creativity, courage, and persistence required to move a vision forward in the face of real challenges. The work you do has expanded my understanding of justice, philanthropy, community, and what it means to resource change with intention. I carry those lessons with me.

To everyone who has served on a movement committee, an executive committee, or in any capacity that helped guide, strengthen, or sustain our work, thank you for your thoughtfulness, your leadership, and your willingness to share responsibility for something bigger than yourselves. To our fiscal sponsor partners and everyone who has helped steward the relationships, resources, and infrastructure that make this work possible, thank you. Your contributions have been essential, and I have never taken for granted the trust and collaboration required to sustain work of this nature.

And to the philanthropic community and the many people I have had the pleasure of meeting, learning from, and building alongside over these years: thank you for the generosity of your knowledge, the openness of your collaboration, and the ways you have reminded me that none of us does this work alone.

Cypress has also been present for some of the most significant moments of my personal life. During my time here, I got married and welcomed two children into the world. In many ways, I grew a family while helping build an organization. I experienced the profound, sometimes beautiful, sometimes humbling reality of building a life and building something meaningful at the same time.

That will always be part of my story with Cypress.

Systems as a Practice of Care

Professionally, this chapter has shaped how I understand leadership, systems, and operations in ways I will carry for the rest of my career. I have come to believe even more deeply that operations are not separate from the mission. Systems are not simply processes, policies, budgets, or tools. At their best, they are a way of caring for people.

The way we design our systems determines who can access resources, how people experience an organization, whether teams can do their work sustainably, and whether a mission can endure beyond the individuals who first brought it to life. The structures we build can either create unnecessary burdens for a community or make it easier for that community to thrive.

I have spent much of my time at Cypress thinking about what it takes to build an organization that can hold its people, remain accountable to its purpose, navigate change, and continue doing meaningful work over time. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to contribute to that work—not only through the strategies we developed or the systems we implemented, but through the relationships, practices, and institutional knowledge we cultivated along the way.

One of the greatest privileges of my time at Cypress has been the opportunity to leave my own footprint and DNA in an organization I believe has the potential to stand for decades. There is something deeply meaningful about contributing to work that is bigger than your tenure, and about knowing that what you helped build may continue to serve people and communities long after your own role has changed.

I leave proud of what we have built, grateful for what we have learned, and hopeful about what Cypress will continue to become.
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A Special Thank You to Chi

Chi, my forever partner, forever ED, forever CEO: I want to offer you a special thank you.

There is something incredibly special about getting to build alongside someone whose story has intersected with yours in so many ways. We went to college together, became spelling sisters, built a professional partnership, and somewhere along the way, that partnership became a friendship that extends far beyond the work. I am grateful for every version of our relationship and for the privilege of having shared so much of life and leadership with you.

Thank you for taking a chance on me when I was building my first business as a virtual assistant. Thank you for seeing something in my talent, my passion for well-being in the workplace, my commitment to building meaningful relationships, and my instinct for recognizing the people, systems, and strategy that make organizations work. You believed in my capacity to contribute before the full picture of what that contribution could become had even taken shape, and you gave me room to grow into it.

One of the greatest gifts of our partnership has been the freedom you gave me to evolve. You allowed me to experiment, stretch beyond what I knew, move through different roles, and discover new dimensions of my own leadership. You trusted me to see beyond the immediate needs of the organization and help shape its broader architecture: the systems, structures, relationships, and operational foundation that could sustain its vision for decades to come. You gave me the space to bring my whole self to the work, challenge assumptions, imagine new possibilities, and build. That kind of trust is a gift, and I will never take it for granted.

I have so much respect for your genius, your leadership, and your vision. You are someone who can see possibilities beyond the present moment while remaining deeply connected to the heart of the work. I have had the privilege of witnessing your vision up close, learning from your leadership, and helping translate that vision into the structures and practices that allow an institution to grow and endure. To have played that role alongside you has been one of the most meaningful experiences of my professional life.

But beyond the titles, the strategy sessions, the decisions, and everything we have built together, I am grateful for you. For the friend who knew me before all of this, for the partner who trusted me with so much, and for the person with whom I have shared a chapter of life that will always mean something to me. We have grown through this work, and I know I will carry pieces of what we have built, what we have learned, and who we have become along the way for the rest of my life.

Thank you for believing in me, making room for me, challenging me, trusting me, and allowing me to leave my own footprint and DNA in an institution I believe has the capacity to stand for decades. Thank you for the opportunity to build something bigger than either of us individually, and for allowing our partnership to become part of the foundation on which Cypress will continue to stand.

I am proud of what we have built. I am grateful for the leader you are, the visionary you continue to be, and the friend you have been to me. And regardless of where our individual paths lead from here, I will always be cheering for you, for the vision, and for the work we have poured so much of ourselves into.

Forever your spelling sister, forever grateful for the partnership, and forever cheering for you.

Carrying the Work Forward

As for what comes next, I am making room for new expressions of the work I have always felt called to do: building healthy organizations, creating systems that help people thrive, supporting leaders and teams, and bringing thoughtful strategy and creativity to the work of building things that last. I am excited about the possibilities ahead and about carrying the lessons of this chapter into whatever comes next.

For now, I simply want to say thank you.

Thank you for the trust. Thank you for the lessons. Thank you for the work we shared, the relationships we built, the conversations that stayed with me, and the moments that reminded me why this work matters.

Thank you for allowing me to learn from you, build with you, and be part of this community.

Nearly a decade is a long time to be part of something. It is long enough for an organization to become part of your story, for colleagues to become friends, for work to change the way you see the world, and for a professional chapter to become inseparable from some of the most important moments of your life.

Cypress will always be part of my story.

And I will carry a little of this community with me wherever the work takes me next.

With deep gratitude,

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