Cityside, the nonprofit home to The Oaklandside and Berkeleyside, is delighted to announce that Becki Couch-Alvarado has joined our team as director of events.
With more than 15 years of experience in leadership roles, Couch-Alvarado has been deeply immersed in the Bay Area arts, food, nonprofit and small business ecosystems.
As Executive Director of Creative Growth Art Center in Oakland, from 2015 to 2018, she directed arts programming, creative projects, and strategy for the world-renowned, multi-faceted nonprofit arts organization for artists with disabilities. More recently, she worked independently as a creative projects and events producer, and was co-owner and managing partner of Oakland restaurant and community gathering space The Lede.
The next Berkeleyside Idea Makers is on May 19 at BAMPFA. Details and tickets.
“After a very competitive recruitment process, we are thrilled to welcome Becki on board,” said Cityside Editorial Director Tracey Taylor. “It was immediately clear to us that her creativity, thoughtfulness, and fierce dedication to centering the audience aligned perfectly with, and were crucial to, Cityside’s mission of building community through local journalism.”
“I’m thrilled to be part of the incredible Cityside team,” said Couch-Alvarado. “I’m looking forward to working with The Oaklandside and Berkeleyside to build and connect with communities through live events.”
Live events are powerful opportunities to create new conversations about the issues our newsrooms report on. They help us reach and hear from people beyond our digital platforms, and they help us build and strengthen bonds with both regular and new readers of our work.
Cityside’s current event lineup includes Oaklandside Culture Makers, a quarterly series with some of The Town’s most fascinating culture makers; Oaklandside Live, an annual celebration of Oaklandside’s reporting; and Berkeleyside Idea Makers, quarterly live conversations with the people who are extending Berkeley’s tradition of pioneering thinking (a follow-on from Berkeleyside’s successful Uncharted Ideas Festival which ran from 2013 to 2018 in downtown Berkeley).
Cityside also holds fundraising events throughout the year and partners with other event organizers through media sponsorships, in-person appearances, and more.
Couch-Alvarado’s first day at Cityside was April 24, and she can be reached at becki@citysidejournalism.org
