Janine Lee

When Janine Lee was a child, her father told her that she was the stars, the moon, and the light – a profound and early observation of what so many of us came to know, respect, and admire about Janine’s special role in philanthropy and in our lives.

I met Janine more than 20 years ago, in the early 2000s, when she was vice president at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, Missouri. She was hosting convenings there in her role as a co-founder of Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO). It was my first business trip as grants manager of a newly created regional foundation in Illinois. I was young, unsure of myself, and I didn’t know a soul.

Janine’s presence was commanding, yet accessible. Her vision for how philanthropy could more effectively invest in community-based organizations with flexible funding and infrastructure support was clear. She stressed then, and for years after, that when properly deployed,  philanthropy and its vast resources could change people’s lives for the better.

Her warm smile, brilliant analysis, bright light, and razor-sharp wit were on full display. I was prepared to stand in the shadows and quietly watch her from the sidelines. Janine was having none of it.  She saw me, grabbed my hand and introduced herself.

Janine held onto me from that day forward. For me and countless others over decades, she was a mentor, sponsor,  friend, wise elder woman, confidant and champion.  

She was a brilliant strategist and transformative institutional leader whose impact was deep and wide at the Kauffman Foundation, GEO, the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, Southern Partners Fund, and, of course, Philanthropy Southeast.

Janine exemplified a brand of leadership that is rare. Her words were true and her deeds were genuine. She navigated the intersections of race, gender, and class with strategic political analysis and clear intention. In times when her competence and expertise were under attack, Janine stayed rooted in truth. She never compromised her reputation or integrity.

In recent years, I had the privilege and good fortune to share sacred space and vulnerable talks with Janine as part of Voice. Vision. Value. and its effort to document and celebrate the leadership impact of Black women in philanthropy. What follows are powerful takeaways from my time spent with Janine, interspersed with quotes from a 2021 interview with Janine and Monique Brunson Jones, CEO of Forefront. (The full interview can be found on the Voice. Vision. Value. YouTube channel.)

On Being the First

“People were comfortable because I was a woman, as if I was the help in some way –and so navigating that and being able to bring a certain amount of command to a position, to get the respect you  deserve, is really important.”

Janine’s legacy at Philanthropy Southeast was 10 years in the making when we spoke in 2021. The weight of responsibility as the first woman, the first person of color, and the first Black woman CEO of  Philanthropy Southeast was not lost on anyone.  

She expressed how, early on, she felt a sense of “mamification” of her role as an African American woman, coming into a historically White organization in the American South and how she listened carefully to who supported her and who didn’t. Janine described how listening and learning through observation were core to her approach.  

Long before the murder of George Floyd and the racial reckoning of 2020, Janine had guided Philanthropy Southeast through a thoughtful, patient, and strategic focus on a core set of equitable values and inclusive operational frameworks.  The results are now embedded and institutionalized across the organization’s infrastructure. Most importantly, Janine committed to ensuring these efforts would last beyond her history-making tenure as the first Black woman CEO.  

On Mentorship

Janine described leading from the inside out with integrity and a commitment to never treat others the way she had been treated coming up through the ranks.  

“I feel like it’s such a privilege and honor for someone to reach out and engage you in a way that they believe you can, in fact, mentor them. If I have a gift to provide someone and they’re willing to receive it,  some knowledge that I can share, some opportunities maybe that even exist,  walking them through how to navigate some of these very difficult environments – and yes, it is predominately African American women, young women, that will often ask if I would be willing to do so – and I always say yes. It’s painful to hear what some of the challenges are, I know the challenges because I’ve been through all of them. And they don’t just stop. I mean, I continue, in different ways, to go through some of these various challenges myself. And I’ve learned  how to navigate them pretty well so that  I’m able to share some ways that hopefully make it a little easier for someone  else.”

Wish for Black Women

Janine admitted to giving away way too much for far too long – if she had one regret, that would be it. She urged leaders,  Black women especially, to not follow her  example because it will catch up with you.

“Take care of you, you have to celebrate you, and you have to be there for your  family.”  

“I have so many wishes for us. I want us to love ourselves more, I just want us to do that. I feel like we give so much of ourselves away. We gotta hold on to some of ourselves and keep it for us. Recognize the strength, the love, the power, and the light that we have, and that we give it away in relationships, and we give it away in family situations. We gotta hold onto some of that and give it back to ourselves. My wish for us is that we love ourselves more. I mean, look at us; we are  amazing.”  

Capturing Our Stories, Celebrating Us

When Voice. Vision. Value. launched a partnership with regional associations to produce Portraits of Us, Janine, along with Tiffany Friesen and Utoia Wooten on her team, convened a gathering of more than 40 Black women in the fall of 2022 in Atlanta. Photographer Danielle Miles captured images of our sisterhood in real time over a weekend of storytelling and fellowship. Janine’s graceful presence set the welcoming tone for women who traveled from Mississippi, North Carolina, Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas and South Carolina for an unprecedented convening. This would turn out to be the largest in-person gathering for the project.

I recall whispering to Janine how the room in Atlanta looked a lot different than the room in Kansas City all those years ago when we first met. We marveled at the women gathered that night with deep gratitude for the sisterhood manifesting before our eyes. I thanked her for holding onto me and staying close as I navigated life and career.

The Last Goodbye

Our final time together was in January, weeks before her death, when Janine and her team reconvened the community of women from the Southeast featured in Portraits of Us.  

The weekend included a powerful talk from the United Way of Greater Atlanta’s Katrina Mitchell on the importance of prioritizing our health and well-being.  Katrina’s vulnerability and honesty about what she had to unlearn in the process of learning to put herself at the top of her list left the room in tears. Her words echoed  Janine’s wish from 2021 that we “love  ourselves more” and “hold onto some of  ourselves.”  

I now realize that Janine had made her own wish come true in January by organizing a regional gathering rooted in the principles of love, rest, health, and wellness. It’s now up to us to carry on the work with a commitment to not give ourselves away in the process.