Hali Lee ’89 Reimagines Philanthropy’s Future

The Book: Philanthropy leader Hali Lee ’89 redefines giving in The Big We (Zando – Sweet July Books). She challenges the idea that philanthropy is exclusively reserved for those with an abundance of resources, instead arguing that it can be as simple as small communities coming together to make meaningful change in giving circles. Through personal and real-life examples, including her own Asian Women Giving Circle, Lee lays out a more expansive and inclusive future of philanthropy. With the power of collective action and community-driven philanthropy, we have a real opportunity to create lasting, positive change.

Image

The Author: Hali Lee ’89 graduated from Princeton with an undergraduate degree in Religion and received a Masters in Social Work from New York University. She is a Co-founder of the Donors of Color Network and helped create Philanthropy Together. She also founded the Asian Women Giving Circle, which has provided millions of dollars to support art and activism in New York City. She lives in Brooklyn, NY with her family where she also runs her consulting practice, Radiant Strategies. The Big We is Lee’s first book.

Excerpt:

They announced it on Oprah and the optics were perfect. A young Black mayor with a promising future in the Democratic Party and a not-quite-so-young Republican governor — also with national ambitions — came together on the stage with a 26-year-old tech billionaire. Oprah Winfrey gasped and applauded, as did her audience.

It was 2010, and for years the public education system in Newark, New Jersey, had been plagued by poverty, violence, and underinvestment. That year, less than 40% of the city’s third- to eighth-grade students were reading or doing math at grade level, and nearly half the district’s students were dropping out before finishing high school. The schools were in such bad shape that the state had taken over.

Cory Booker, then mayor of Newark, now a U.S. senator, had secured the cooperation of Governor Chris Christie, as well as a $100 million donation from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. The three were embarking on one of the most audacious exercises in education reform, as described by journalist Dale Russakoff in her book, The Prize: Who’s in Charge of America’s Schools? Russakoff writes, “Their stated goal was not to repair education in Newark but to develop a model for saving it in all of urban America.” In five years.

The deal was born in Sun Valley, Idaho, at a swanky dinner hosted by a large financial institution. Booker had arranged to sit next to Zuckerberg, who was rumored to be interested in making big moves in education. Booker’s pitch was that Newark was small enough that a $100 million investment would make a difference yet also big enough that it could feasibly serve as a pilot for education reform in other cities. Zuckerberg agreed, on the condition that Booker raise an additional $100 million to match his donation. This would mean $200 million in new funds for Newark’s schools. It would also be an audacious first outing for Zuckerberg, a brand-new philanthropist, and a gilded political feather in the cap for Booker.

The 2010s were an era of great reformist zeal in education. Waiting for “Superman,” a controversial film about charter schools, came out in 2010. (Bill Gates threw in $2 million for its marketing campaign.) Michelle Rhee, chancellor of District of Columbia Public Schools, was a star in the film and is an exemplar of the reformers of that time. Like many reformists, Rhee was a graduate of Teach for America, begun by Wendy Kopp in the 1990s to send college grads into (usually less well-resourced) public schools across the country with a lot of idealism but only a summer’s worth of training. Like other reformsters of that era, Rhee championed school choice, school vouchers, charter schools, tying teachers’ salaries to student achievement in test scores, and gutting teacher job protection by ending tenure based on seniority. To many career education folks, Rhee was a smart, unqualified outsider (she’d never run a school, much less a large school district). George Parker, president of the Washington Teachers’ Union, said that no superintendent had wrecked morale more than Rhee and that much of her message amounted to teacher-bashing.

School choice, vouchers, and school “portability” (the idea that parents should be able to withdraw from the public school system and use their share of public funding for private or religious school, homeschool, or internet school) are key tenets of education reformists. They’re part of a political movement called neoliberalism, which started in the 1970s and sought to turn public goods and monies toward business models, markets, and privatization.

NEOLIBERAL REFORMIST EDUCATION prioritizes choice and incentives over equity and funding, and most often, it is hardest on the poor. Market choices in this arena tend to favor those who have the time, wealth, networks, and wherewithal to plan, coordinate, and move their kids to the best schools for them. The people who benefit the most from privatization are often the rich, as Jason Blakely wrote in The Atlantic: “As money is pulled from failing schools and funneled into succeeding ones, wealth can actually be redistributed by the state up the socioeconomic ladder.” And that is what happened in Detroit.

Betsy DeVos, appointed secretary of education by President Trump in 2017, is from Detroit and is a fervent advocate for neoliberalizing education. She believes that public education is a monopolistic “dead end” and that the public school system needs to be re-engineered by the government to mimic a market. Starting in the 1990s, DeVos played a big role in getting school choice introduced in Detroit. Over 20 years of marketization has led to a ton of money leaving the public school systems, the closing of many public schools, the funneling of taxpayer dollars toward for-profit charter ventures, poor parents with worse options than richer ones, and no significant improvement in student performance. There are areas of Detroit that are “educational deserts” where families have to travel miles and hours for their kids to attend school.

So, this is the neoliberal context into which Mark Zuckerberg dropped. Add to this amped-up, reformist, ideological zeal the fact that education in the United States was a $667 billion business in 2009 (if you add up all the money that was spent for primary and secondary education in the country during the 2008–2009 school year). And then add to that the national aspirations of two very ambitious politicians and the philanthropic debut of a new billionaire — you can see the fireworks.

Excerpted from The Big We: How Giving Circles Unlock Generosity, Strengthen Community, and Make Change by Hali Lee. © 2025 by Hali Lee. Used with permission of the publisher, Sweet July Books, an imprint of Zando, LLC.

Reviews

“Hali Lee is redefining philanthropy for the 21st century. Her activism and generosity are exemplary, and this book celebrates the beauty of community giving, and the power of collective action. In my own work, I’ve been so inspired by both the spirit of this book and giving circles at large, and I know readers will be too.” — Ayesha Curry, Sweet July Books

Through compelling and diverse stories about the power of giving circles, Hali Lee demonstrates that true philanthropic impact comes from collective action and community engagement. By showcasing collaborative initiatives and highlighting the shared strength in unity, she fosters deeper connections and paves the way for a more equitable future for all." — Jamia Wilson, author of Young, Gifted, and Black