Japan-America Society of Washington (Non-profit)

Program Manager, Small Business Resiliency Network · Mercer Island, WA ・April 2026 – Present

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I manage services for small business owners across Washington State, delivered in Japanese and English, as part of the state’s Small Business Resiliency Network — funded by grants from the Department of Commerce, the Department of Labor & Industries, and the Washington State Microenterprise Association. The work is deciding what they need to know and getting it to them: tracking regulatory changes, turning them into practical bilingual guidance, and planning the hybrid seminars and presentations that deliver them.

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WRITING

I write a weekly bilingual series, 知っ得情報 / “Did You Know?”, covering labor law, tax changes, and compliance requirements. I start with material from weekly SBA technical assistance briefings, filter it for what matters to a restaurant owner or salon operator in Washington, and turn it into practical guidance. Every piece is published in English and Japanese, with the same terminology, meaning, and voice across both languages.

 

I also prepare the monthly program report for the Department of Commerce: social and web performance metrics, participation data, demographic reporting against state grant categories, and client outcome narratives. I wrote the published recaps of our Japan Fair 2026 participation and the launch of our Small Business Toolkit Series.

 

RENAMING A PROGRAM

The organization offered one-on-one business consultations under the name "Workshop." The label created the wrong expectation before anyone arrived. I renamed the program to describe what it actually was and rewrote the description — the words were doing the wrong work.

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REBUILDING THE CONTENT PIPELINE

Our L&I grant-funded content requires state agency approval before publication. The team knew approvals could take up to six weeks, but there was no schedule built around that; each deliverable was handled ad hoc as it came due. ​

 

At a check-in with the agency, I asked whether we could submit drafts before the quarter started. The answer was yes; nobody had asked. I built a rolling 12-month schedule working backward from quarterly deadlines — deliverables, review status, and event milestones at daily resolution — and I track every submission through the approval chain. Four consecutive quarters have gone out across both grant streams, review cycles are running two to four weeks rather than six, and I’m now planning Q1 2027 against measured turnaround rather than a worst-case assumption.

 

MOVING THE PROGRAM TO ITS AUDIENCE

Attendance at our presentation series was chronically low, and each grant deliverable requires a minimum of fifteen attendees — making low turnout a compliance risk, not just an outreach problem. 

 

At Japan Fair 2026, I ran a survey asking attendees where they wanted these programs held. More than 200 people responded, with a clear preference for the Eastside; Bellevue was the most requested location. I researched three alternative venues, visited them, and found that Bellevue City Hall offers conference space to nonprofits at no cost. I presented the findings to program leadership and the series moved.

 

It launched in September as the Small Business Toolkit Series, and the October session drew more than twenty attendees — above the grant’s fifteen-person threshold. Our one-on-one consultations now run at Bellevue Library as well. I’m testing a fully online format next, starting with the workers’ program.

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SYSTEMS AND OPERATIONS

During the organization’s migration from Wild Apricot to Neon One, I rebuilt the registration and ticketing flows for our consultation programs and published the consultation series to the website event calendar — previously promoted only through social media and the newsletter. ​