We are honored to announce the first of several distinguished honorees to be recognized at AAPIP’s 35th Anniversary Conference Community Celebration and Awards Reception on Tuesday, May 20:
Inaugural Recipient of the
Urvashi Vaid Intersectional Leadership Award
LORI VILLAROSA
Founder and Executive Director, Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity (PRE)
Bio
Lori has been a trailblazer working consistently at the intersection of racial justice and philanthropy for more than 30 years, engaging with thousands of funders at the community level, regionally, nationally and internationally to increase resources to combat systemic racism. As the founder and executive director of the Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity (PRE), she works with a diverse board of racial justice leaders and movement partners to significantly shift grantmaking practices through PRE’s conference workshops, Racial Justice Funder Labs, direct consultations, coaching, research and through PRE publications.
Lori has co-authored several influential reports, including Mismatched: Philanthropy’s Response to the Call for Racial Justice, the most comprehensive analysis to date of racial equity and racial justice funding. This follows earlier PRE reports, such as the seminal Grantmaking with a Racial Equity Lens guide and its more recent update, Grantmaking with a Racial Justice Lens: A Practical Guide, both of which have helped funders integrate racial equity and justice into their grantmaking practices.
Before launching PRE in 2003, Lori spent 12 years at the C.S. Mott Foundation, where she managed the U.S. Race Relations portfolio and directed $24 million in grants explicitly tackling institutional racism. Her work helped lay the foundation for structural racism-focused funding strategies at a time when few philanthropic institutions explicitly prioritized racial justice.
Lori has also served in key leadership roles within philanthropy, on several foundation boards, including having chaired the board of the Edward W. Hazen Foundation as part of its important spend-down process. She has been an active member with ABFE: A Black Philanthropic Partnership through 3 decades, and has served in leadership positions with AAPIP (as a past board chair), and CHANGE Philanthropy, where she remains a member of the Executive Committee and Leadership Circle. She also serves on the United Philanthropy Forum’s Racial Equity Committee, the Latin American Committee of WINGS (Worldwide Initiatives for Grantmaker Support) and Editorial Advisory Committee of Alliance Magazine.
Her expertise extends internationally, having collaborated with racial justice NGOs and funders in Brazil, Canada, Colombia, France, Germany, Mexico, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. She has written for Nonprofit Quarterly and The Alliance Magazine and has been published or cited in philanthropic media on racial justice funding trends, Black movement-building, and intersectionality.
Throughout her career, Lori has consistently emphasized intersectionality, ensuring that racial justice funding strategies also consider LGBTQ+ communities, immigrants, Indigenous communities, and other marginalized identities. She continues to challenge philanthropy to move boldly and effectively to ensure that resources are directed toward systemic change.
Named for the late Urvashi Vaid—fierce LGBTQ+ activist and visionary who insisted on cross-movement solidarity—the Urvashi Vaid Intersectional Leadership Award celebrates an AANHPI leader whose life’s work reflects deep-rooted commitment to intersectional organizing and transformative social change.
Few embody this spirit more profoundly than Lori Villarosa, whose career has shaped and strengthened the field of racial justice philanthropy for over three decades.
As the founder and executive director of the Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity (PRE), Lori has led efforts to align philanthropic practice with the urgent demands of racial justice movements. Through her leadership, PRE has helped thousands of funders deepen their understanding of systemic racism and reimagine their grantmaking to center racial equity and justice—locally, nationally, and globally.
PRE’s landmark reports, including Grantmaking with a Racial Equity Lens and Grantmaking with a Racial Justice Lens, have served as essential tools for the field, demystifying the language of equity and justice while offering concrete guidance to shift power and practice in philanthropy. She has consistently elevated the need for intersectionality—not as a buzzword, but as a daily imperative in funding strategies that take seriously the lived experiences of AANHPI, Black, Indigenous, Latine, LGBTQ+, and immigrant communities.
A former AAPIP board member, board chair & longtime partner and champion for AANHPI communities within broader racial justice work, Lori has helped advance more inclusive and accountable philanthropic frameworks that recognize the interdependence of all struggles for justice.
Congratulations, Lori, on this well-deserved recognition. Your relentless pursuit of racial justice, your belief in collective liberation, and your passion to move philanthropy toward greater courage and clarity are an inspiration to all of us.