Sylvia Yee

Sylvia Mei-ling Yee is Vice President of Programs at the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, a family foundation in San Francisco that makes $30 million in grants annually. She played a key role in the selection and development of the Fund’s education equity, nonprofit leadership, gay and lesbian and immigrant rights programs. A community leader committed to social change, she has served on the boards of numerous national and local organizations, often as board chair, including Asian Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy, BoardSource, Family Support America and the Haas Public Service Center. As the chair of the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center, she led the center’s organizing and advocacy for affordable housing and services the community’s seniors and youth. Formerly an educator at the elementary, high school and university levels in the United States and China, she helped launch major initiatives for young people such as the San Francisco Beacon Centers, a nationally recognized program that runs community centers with afterschool youth development activities at public school sites, and Coaching Corps, a nonprofit that levels the athletic playing field for all young people no matter where they live.