Mijo Lee, Principal
Philanthropic advising and fundraising consulting to move resources to social justice movements.
What I Do
Philanthropic Advising
I work with individuals, families, and foundations to:
Develop priorities and frameworks that reflect your values and strategically support social justice movements.
Research and recommend grantees for your giving portfolio in line with your values and goals.
Build and steward responsive, responsible relationships with your grantees.
Design, improve, and/or facilitate grantmaking programs rooted in and accountable to social justice principles.
Manage the logistical and administrative aspects of your giving.
Donor and Funder Education
I work with public and private foundations, donor and funder networks, and informal groups of donors to:
Design tailored curricula to help donors, funders, board members, and trustees build a shared analysis of why and how to fund social justice movements.
Facilitate trainings and discussions to build understanding and skills for social justice philanthropy.
Fundraising Consulting
I work with individuals and organizations to:
Build a framework for fundraising and donor organizing based in social justice principles and values.
Train staff, board, and volunteers in major donor and grassroots fundraising and/or donor organizing.
Other
If you have needs around facilitation, planning, or other areas of work, let’s talk!
What I Believe
We are living in a moment of great urgency and possibility. This is a time that calls on all of us to act, to take risks, to step outside of our comfort zones. I love supporting people through that process and helping them discover their potential.
I believe:
Lasting social change is impossible without grassroots movements, building collective power to win, govern, imagine, and create the world we dream of.
Philanthropy must center, listen to, and follow the leadership of those most directly impacted by injustice - especially Black, Indigenous, and People of Color; trans and queer people; rural people; disabled people; and poor and working class people.
As we head into the largest intergenerational wealth transfer in history, it is imperative to redistribute resources (financial and otherwise) to those who have been historically and systematically excluded from them.
This is joyful but challenging work and no one should do it alone.
About Me
I bring a deep commitment to movement building, and a long background both in community organizing and funding community organizing.
From 2011 to 2020, I was in leadership of Social Justice Fund NW, the largest public foundation funding community organizing in the northwestern US.
During my time at SJF, our team developed the innovative Giving Project model, which combines political education, leadership development, grassroots fundraising, and democratic grantmaking in order to fund social justice movements in ways that are more accountable, connected, and sustainable than traditional models. The Giving Project model has been adopted by 7 other organizations through the national Giving Project Network and continues to thrive and evolve.
As program director and executive director of SJF, I played a leadership role in improving our grantmaking programs to be more responsive and accessible to grassroots organizations, particularly those led by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, and those based in rural communities and small towns. I helped steward the organization through two bold strategic plans and exponential growth in our fundraising and grantmaking.
Since 2020, I have been consulting with individuals, families, private and public foundations, and nonprofits. (See "What I Do" for more info.)
With Rye Young, I co-designed and co-lead DIGG (Donor Intro to Grounded Giving), a social justice donor education cohort for people with high-net wealth.
As executive director of Willow Fund, I manage a large portfolio of multiyear grants to movement-grounded organizations working for collective liberation and an end to racial capitalism.
I’m also proud to serve on the advisory council of the Emergent Fund, a collaborative effort funding at the intersection of rapid response and movement building.
I live in Seattle with my daughter and my pit bull, and enjoy baking, speculative fiction, learning Korean, and bad but passionate karaoke.
Contact
Email me at MijoConsulting@gmail.com
We can schedule a free consultation to determine if I can meet your needs. I look forward to talking with you!
Testimonials
For me, Mijo is a Rosetta stone between cultures. She has made it her job to listen to some of the best organizers in this country. She then creates space for the two of us to ponder what makes the most sense, in terms of my own hopes and dreams. And she keeps my feet to the fire.
-- Becky Liebman (Individual Donor Client since 2020)
Mijo brings both depth and breath of experience to any conversation on how a foundation can put social justice values into action. She has seen many different sides of this work and brings a compassionate, disciplined, and thoughtful approach to supporting institutions seeking to maximize their impact in challenging times.
-- Jennifer Ching (Executive Director, North Star Fund)
Mijo’s work with our family foundation helped us to grow our work centered on our values and to create a plan to actualize our vision and mission. Mijo has helped elevate our work and made us feel supported throughout the process of stretching and changing. We can’t recommend Mijo enough!
-- Still Ain't Satisfied Foundation
Before I met Mijo in 2015 I had never fundraised before. What I loved about her approach was that she taught me fundraising through the lens of equity and power. She helped break down assumptions about fundraising, and gave me the skills to fundraise in a way that acknowledges and addresses the inequities in giving. I’ve used what she taught me to teach many others since then, and have been able to triple our non-profit’s budget in the last 2 years as our Executive Director. Mijo’s support has been invaluable for me and the thousands of low wage workers we can now better support through our organization.
-- Mara Ventura (Executive Director, North Bay Jobs with Justice)
About this page
Graphic design by Teyo Lee
The images are from a hwa tu card - a gambling game from Korea and Japan. This card depicts a plum tree (the meaning of my family name) in February (the month I launched my consulting practice). As for gambling...
"I am totally confident not that the world will get better, but that we should not give up the game before all the cards have been played. The metaphor is deliberate; life is a gamble. Not to play is to foreclose any chance of winning. To play, to act, is to create at least a possibility of changing the world." ~ Howard Zinn