Get to Know Doerr & Co.’s Founder, Elizabeth Doerr

Talk to me for a few minutes and there's a good chance you get at least a hint of my personal views on the world. And you can probably get a good hint of that based on the business I'm building. 

I've always been a heart-on-my-sleeve kind of person. But there were times in the past where I wondered whether sharing my social justice perspectives, or even giving hints of personal life, would hinder me professionally. As I've gotten older, though—with another milestone birthday coming up in just a few months—it's become clear to me that hiding that part of myself does nothing for me or the world around me. 

If I truly want to be a part of making the world a better and more just place, it's important for me to be clear about who I am. It's important for me to speak up about the things that are important to me. And it's also important to be open about my outside-of-work world. This has become more apparent than ever in this pandemic and in the racial justice movements going on around is. It's also a big reason that I started Doerr & Co. where I am clearly linking my passion for social justice to work I love doing that also allows me the flexibility and balance to be fully present for my friends and family.

So in the spirit of our value of authenticity, this post gives a deeper glimpse into me who also happens to be the founder and chief strategist & writer for Doerr & Co.

I'm a mom. My role as a parent has a huge influence on my writing. What kind of human I want my son to be and the world I want him to live in motivates the type of projects I take on and the stories I want to write. That human, currently in 4-year-old form, is named Finch, and he's my favorite person in the whole wide world (no offense to my second favorite person, my husband, Cory). Finch was born with a cleft lip, and I chronicled the early part of our cleft journey in my blog, The Widest Smile.

I'm an extrovert and a connector. My parents tell me that at almost every playground we'd visit when I was a kid, I'd come away with a new friend. This is as true today as it was when I was five. I derive energy from being around other people and no matter where I end up, I'm constantly seeking community and connection. This innate ability to connect with people comes in handy as an interviewer for the stories I write and the work that I do. 

I'm an external processor and reflector. To process what is going on in the world, I need to talk and write about it. From my early journaling days to my current reporting experiences, writing and storytelling is how I organize my thoughts and make meaning out of them. In many cases, I get to share these reflections about the world through my journalism and blog posts. I bring this inquisitiveness to all the work I do and I continuously learn from the interviewees I speak with and the editors who bring their perspective and experiences to my pieces.

I'm an aspiring antiracist. Ever since I landed in Malawi as a bright-eyed young Peace Corps Volunteer with the intent to "help the people of Africa," I realized I didn't know a damn thing and that my only "credential" was whiteness. After returning to the U.S., I made a career as a social justice educator and brought that lens into my writing work. But, as a privileged white woman, I’m still learning/unlearning so much. I’m on a lifelong journey to tear down racist systems and structures I’ve been complicit in upholding. While, previously, I kept some of this personal work to myself, I'm on an active—and much more vocal—journey to being a productive ally/accomplice to Black and Indigenous people and other people of color. Read about my antiracism journey at my blog, The Unlearning Journal.

I'm a Pacific Northwesterner. I grew up in Spokane, Washington, where the local motto is "near nature, near perfect." After a decade-and-a-half living abroad and in the Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. East Coast, I’m back and rooted in my home region. Living in Portland my love of the Pacific Northwest and my antiracism journey are resulting in an important tension: loving where I live while acknowledging and honoring the people whose land was stolen from them. In navigating that tension, I’m learning about that history and finding ways to actively invest (monetarily or otherwise) in returning the land back to its rightful owners. You can read our land acknowledgement here (scroll to the bottom of the page to read).