Kathy Sessions, Principal
She / Her / Hers
Kathy Sessions is a strategic analyst, bridge-builder, and guide for equity-advancing philanthropy and social change.
She helped build a field of philanthropy at the intersections of health, the environment, and equity, as founding staffer and Executive Director of the Health and Environmental Funders Network (HEFN). She has two decades of experience bringing funders together — across issues, places, and identities — to improve conditions where people live, learn, work, and play.
Kathy has deep knowledge and broad networks in environmental health and environmental justice, including their intersections with climate and energy, racial and gender equity, sustainability, and community resilience.
F0r over twenty-five years, Kathy has advised many funders, donors, philanthropy-serving organizations, and non-profit leaders on strategies, resources, or partnerships needed for success. She is an accessible writer, speaker, and editor. She has extensive experience designing and leading workshops, trainings, and convenings that help people learn and work together. She is a skilled executive manager of relationships, organizations, and partnerships for action.
She holds an M.P.A. from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs (1990), as well as a B.A., magna cum laude, in Social Studies from Harvard University, with a focus on poverty and race in the American South (1983).
Kathy is an Associate Member of the National Network of Consultants to Grantmakers. She has served on the the National Environmental Health Partnership Council, the National Research Council’s Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology and on a Division of Earth and Life Studies review panel, the Barbara Smith Fund Board, and ecoAmerica’s Climate Health Leadership Circle.
She is secretary of the Hawkins Lane Neighborhood Association. She sings baritone with the Capital Accord Chorus and its Singchronicity quartet, serving as the chorus’ Finance Chair and on the Diversity, Equity, Inclusiveness, and Accessibility Committee.
Leaven Partners, LLC is based in the Washington, DC area, on ancestral lands of the Piscataway, Susquehannock, and other tribes of the Powhatan Confederacy.