The Bridge For Youth

Michelle Basham, Executive Director and Christina Heineken Woodlee, Associate Director

Michelle brings to The Bridge for Youth more than 20 years of experience in the public and nonprofit sectors. She has started and led organizations focused on runaway and homeless youth, child welfare, racial disparities and strengthening families since the early 1990s. In 1993, she started Avenues for Homeless Youth, one of the first programs in Minnesota for homeless youth and an organization still in existence today. Between 2001 and 2008, she worked in progressively higher positions at the Minnesota Department of Human Services, eventually leading department priorities regarding racial disparities in health care, healthcare reform, licensing regulations and child maltreatment. She left the Department in 2008 to serve as the Executive Director for FamilyWise (formerly Genesis II for Families) and between 2008 and 2013, led a dramatic organizational turnaround including the organization more than doubling in size, completely rebranding and merging into it several smaller nonprofits and programs. Michelle also co-founded the Minnesota Runaway and Homeless Youth Coalition in 1998 and the Nonprofit Emerging Leaders Academy in 2009. She also served as a Vice President at CommonBond Communities and as the CEO for the YWCA of Delaware.

Michelle holds an undergraduate degree in communications and organizational development, a graduate degree in public administration and a law degree in addition to having previously served as a Fellow at the Humphrey Institute Public Policy Forum where she did her group work on women and people of color in political leadership. Michelle is also a part-time adjunct professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law. She brings to The Bridge her education, experience and more than anything, a deep and unwavering passion for protecting and serving runaway and homeless youth.

Christina has more than 15 years of experience in nonprofit administration and development. She has developed nationally recognized donor engagement programs – Women United, Emerging Leaders and Arise Project – for United Way. She spent 4 years as the Director of Leadership Affinity Groups at United Way of Central New Mexico, and 5 years as the Manager of Leadership Giving at Greater Twin Cities United Way. Prior to joining United Way, she worked at Discovery Creek Children’s Museum in Washington, DC, as the Special Events and Board Relations Manager. Most recently, Christina was the Director of Donor Relations at Perspectives Inc. in St. Louis Park. In this capacity she introduced an audience segmentation and donor acquisition strategy focused corporate women and millennials.

Christina is a graduate of the University of New Mexico with a Master Degree in Public Administration as well as an undergraduate degree in Sociology and Family Studies. She and her family live in the Twin Cities metro.