HONOREE
KATHERINE ACEY
DIRECTOR OF STRATEGIC COLLABORATIONS, GRIOT CIRCLE
Katherine Acey is a highly respected activist, known for her expertise and
commitment to social justice feminism. Her creative and inclusive vision of justice
movements has been instrumental in setting a standard for a more progressive,
diverse, and community-driven philanthropy and activism.
Katherine is a Senior Activist Fellow Emerita at the Barnard Center for
Research On Women, where she was a fellow in 2015 and 2016. Currently, she is the director of strategic collaborations at GRIOT
Circle, a Brooklyn-based organization serving elder people of color where she was previously the executive director.
From 1987 until 2010, Katherine served as the executive director of Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice. Under her stewardship,
Astraea established the nation’s fi rst Lesbian Writers Fund and Lesbian Visual Artists Fund, created the International Fund for Sexual
Minorities in 1996 — the only fund of its kind — and launched the US Movement Building Initiative in 2005 to support the leadership
and vision of people of color LGBTQ organizations. In 2017, Astraea established an award — Social Justice Feminist — in Katherine’s
name to honor movement elders.
Katherine serves as treasurer of the board of the Center for Constitutional Rights, and recently completed tenure on the boards of Political
Research Associates and Open Society’s International Human Rights Initiative.
From 1982 to 1987, Katherine served as the associate director of the North Star Fund in New York, overseeing its grants and technical
assistance programs and managing a donor portfolio. She helped create and shape the Women’s Funding Network in the mid 1980s,
serving as its fi rst board chair. She is a past board chair of the Funders for Lesbian and Gay Issues and has been a board or advisory
member of Women in the Arts, the Center for Anti-Violence Education, New York Women Against Rape, MADRE, Women Make Movies,
and the International Network of Women’s Funds (Prospera).
Katherine is past chair of the National Executive Committee of the Palestine Solidarity Committee, and was a core member of the Arab
Women’s Gathering Organizing Committee. She has served on the Human Rights Watch LGBT Program Advisory Committee and helped
to establish the Global Philanthropy Project: Expanding Resources for LGBT People.
Katherine has been honored with the Changing the Face of Philanthropy Award of the Women’s Funding Network, and her work has
also been acknowledged by the Cross Cultural Black Women’s Studies Institute, the New York City chapter of the National Organization
for Women, Lambda Legal, and SAGE. She was profi led in the 2017 book “200 Women Who Will Change the Way You See the
World.”
Katherine has traveled globally speaking on philanthropy, women’s and LGBTQ human rights, race, and class, and has served on
numerous women’s and LGBTQ delegations in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Europe.
Katherine holds a bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Daemen College and a master’s from the Columbia University School of Social
Work.
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