Influential Women Profiles Alia Zaidi: Founder of Up & Atom Foundation’s Spokane Inner Peace Park
Spokane nonprofit founder Alia Zaidi is redefining what mental health and community spaces can look like. As the Founder of Up and Atom Foundation, a 501(c)(3), and creator of its flagship initiative, Spokane Inner Peace Park (SIPP), she is developing a first-of-its-kind indoor STEAM-based environment designed to combat social isolation, seasonal mental health challenges, and limited access to affordable wellness resources.
Alongside building this innovative space, Zaidi is also preparing for an official Guinness World Records endurance-based artistic swimming attempt—an unconventional yet powerful advocacy and fundraising initiative aimed at raising awareness of preventive, community-centered mental health solutions.
Spokane Inner Peace Park integrates science, imagination, and play to create inclusive environments where children, teens, and families can engage, learn, and connect year-round. By combining educational programming with wellness-focused design, the park provides a safe and inspiring space for community members to explore, collaborate, and build resilience.
Zaidi brings more than two decades of leadership experience across business operations, sales, and crisis management at national organizations. Her background includes leading teams through high-pressure environments, including operational leadership during the aftermath of 9/11 while working with American Airlines, where adaptability, decision-making, and resilience were critical.
In addition to her corporate leadership experience, Zaidi has successfully built and operated her own business ventures, giving her a firsthand understanding of financial management, growth strategy, and execution. This combination of lived experience, professional leadership, and entrepreneurial background positions her to not only envision large-scale solutions—but to build and sustain them.
She has also intentionally assembled a diverse and skilled board of directors, bringing together expertise across business, science, education, and community engagement to ensure Spokane Inner Peace Park is guided by strong governance and multidisciplinary insight.
Her work is deeply informed by lived experience with trauma, including PTSD and complex life challenges that reshaped both her personal and professional trajectory. Rather than defining her limits, these experiences clarified her mission: to create spaces that support mental well-being proactively, not just in moments of crisis.
Zaidi is a vocal advocate for reframing how trauma is understood—particularly the impact of cumulative and prolonged experiences—and for building environments that foster regulation, connection, and resilience in accessible, everyday ways.
Alia attributes her success to persistence paired with purpose. Years of leadership experience have taught her how to execute with precision and adapt to evolving circumstances, while her personal experiences have provided clarity about the kind of impact she hopes to make. By combining structure with empathy and strategy with creativity, she continues to develop initiatives that directly respond to real community needs.
Reflecting on career guidance, Zaidi emphasizes the value of taking initiative. She believes in not waiting for permission to build solutions—if a solution does not exist, it is an invitation to create it. She stresses that impact matters more than perfection, and that progress, learning, and adaptability are what move meaningful work forward.
For young women entering her field, Zaidi advises choosing work they genuinely believe in and committing to learning how to build it well. She underscores that passion alone is not enough; credibility, follow-through, and collaboration are essential to earning trust and achieving lasting impact.
As communities face rising mental health challenges and increasing social isolation—particularly in regions impacted by long winters and limited indoor resources—Zaidi sees an urgent need for preventative, community-based solutions. Spokane Inner Peace Park is designed to meet that need by integrating science, creativity, and human connection into a scalable model that can be adapted in other communities.
She identifies one of the greatest challenges in her field as meeting the growing demand for accessible, trauma-informed mental health and community-based wellness resources amid an increasingly constrained economic environment. Funding has become more competitive, and both grant-makers and private partners are often hesitant to invest in innovative or nontraditional models—particularly those requiring physical space, long-term commitment, or cross-sector collaboration.
In response, Zaidi is actively advancing Spokane Inner Peace Park through strategic partnerships, sponsorships, and shared-use spaces—an approach that allows the model to grow while reducing barriers to access and implementation. Her work reflects a commitment to practical, scalable solutions that can be adapted across communities, helping people of all ages feel supported, inspired, and connected—especially in regions where seasonal and economic barriers limit access to wellness resources.
Despite these challenges, Zaidi sees a significant opportunity. As traditional systems struggle to meet rising community needs, there is growing momentum for creative, preventative, and community-driven solutions that integrate education, wellness, and connection. She highlights the potential of combining STEAM-based programming with mental health-supportive environments to create scalable, inclusive approaches that resonate across sectors.
The values guiding Zaidi in both her professional and personal life are creativity, connection, and presence. She prioritizes cultivating curiosity, spending time in nature, and nurturing meaningful relationships—particularly with her children. These principles also manifest through her personal practices, including artistic swimming, gardening, and music, reinforcing the importance of balance, creativity, and intentional living.
Through her leadership, strategic vision, and dedication to mental wellness, Alia Zaidi continues to set a standard for what community-centered, trauma-informed innovation can achieve—empowering individuals, families, and communities to thrive through creativity, connection, and compassion.
Media opportunities include conversations on trauma-informed innovation, leadership resilience, nonprofit development, and redefining mental wellness through STEAM-based community spaces.
Learn More about Alia Zaidi:
Through her Influential Women profile: https://influentialwomen.com/connect/alia-zaidi
Or Spokane Inner Peace Park: https://spokaneinnerpeace.org/our-team
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