Leeway’s history

In 1993, artist and Philadelphian Linda Lee Alter (who goes by Lee Alter) established the Leeway Foundation to “promote the welfare of women and benefit the arts by bringing visibility, support and increased respect to the work of women artists.”

After almost a decade, in 2002, as part of a long-term strategic planning decision, Lee stepped down as president of the foundation, at which time her daughter, Sara Milly (Sara Becker at the time), accepted the position. Sara came on board with the intention of making the “individual and community transformation” aspect of the mission the focus of Leeway’s grantmaking. In 2003, Leeway’s board resolved that all of its grants and work as an organization would be through a “lens of change,” and new grant programs were implemented in 2004.

In 2004 Leeway began a multi-year anti-oppression organizational development process to begin to look more clearly at issues of racism and privilege inherent in foundations. This work ultimately led to the board’s decision to include trans and gender-nonconforming artists in all programs, as well as Lee and Sara’s decision to leave the board and transition out of the foundation’s leadership in 2006, leaving the governance of the organization in the hands of the community it serves. 3

This history where white family members transferred the foundation to a multiracial community board led by people of color is strikingly unusual. The transfer of power process was fraught, and painful for many people. Within Leeway, staff and board members honor this history and the difficult and brave choices the family, staff and board members made during the transition. They also understand what freedom it has given Leeway to become a different kind of foundation, one where the staff and board reflect the communities it serves, one that is in active relationship with those communities, and one that can make grantmaking choices free of donor influence.

There was a clear appetite among the national partners working in philanthropy that we spoke with to have Leeway talk more about this change process in family foundation spaces, and so contribute to the emerging conversation about white families letting go of their historical philanthropic power and influence. We would note that within Leeway there is an awareness that there are wealthy people of color who have family foundations and that Leeway’s power-sharing message and practices would benefit these institutions too. However, the interviewees we spoke with were focused on white families in family foundation spaces.

“Until philanthropy is subjected to the level of scrutiny that it deserves and becomes accountable as public dollars, the misunderstanding that these families are the owners of the philanthropy is really quite strong. Especially when you’re talking about wealthy people who haven’t had to work in their lives. They don’t have a separate professional identity not related to the family foundation.” (national partner)

Leeway Transformation Award review panel meeting, December 2009 (L-R: D’Lo, Denise Brown, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Dara Greenwald, Imani Uzuri, Sham-e Ali Nayeem, and Michelle Posadas). Photo from Leeway Archives.