PACF Donor Spotlight
Meet Steven Lee
As a Bay Area native and Palo Alto Resident for the past 10 years, Palo Alto Community Fund (PACF) Donor Steven Lee believes that it is a community responsibility to foster an environment where all Palo Alto residents can thrive.
This strong sense of community is one reason Steven chose to live in Palo Alto—a place where you can see your neighbors while taking a walk downtown or at City Hall, but also know that there are community members working on very challenging issues and banding together to make change. It’s the collective energy of support and fellowship that keeps him rooted here and excited to get things done.
Steven works as a tech lawyer in the trust and safety industry but also has a strong background in community service and contributes to many community groups like the Palo Alto PTA Council, Project Safety Net, and Youth Community Services. A couple of years ago, he also served on the city’s Human Relations Commission, where he was first introduced to PACF. Through that role, he gained many insights about the different nonprofits and organizations in Palo Alto and how he could best serve them.
“PACF is a trusted institution that's been around for decades, run by exceptionally talented community leaders who have been involved in so many different areas of civic life,” Steven remarks. “As a trusted institution with a depth and breadth of local knowledge and expertise, it's a great way for the community to pool its resources with like minded individuals to tackle the plethora of issues and needs in our community.”
Being a part of PACF as a donor, Steven values their efforts to address the needs of Palo Alto and make informed decisions that create an impact, like with the Community Campaign—a fundraising effort and matching grant to support allcove Palo Alto, our community’s integrated youth mental health center.
In the past year, Steven has been at the forefront of rallying support for allcove’s programming, organizing community advocacy efforts to prevent allcove from being de-funded by the County due to Federal government budget cuts. Steven’s advocacy work, coupled with new leadership from Alum Rock Counseling Center allows for allcove to remain a pillar for youth mental health in Palo Alto.
“I'm so grateful that this campaign is coming at this time, and that PACF is providing matching funds. In the wake of Palo Alto’s third youth suicide cluster, the community is often left asking ‘how do I get involved, what can I do to help youth mental health in Palo Alto?’” says Steven.
“Now is the time for the community to rally together, to find a way to get involved in a way that makes sense for them. For me, I’ve historically been involved in shaping public policy and funding priorities to support youth mental health, and that’s evolved into helping local nonprofits and service providers think strategically about how to sustain and grow their capacity, how they can collaborate with others, but more and more as my career has enabled me, donating has become an important component of that. Whether it's volunteering or donating so that the non-profits on the ground doing the work have the resources they need, or some combination of the two,” Steven adds. “Together as a community we can pool our financial resources, so that the experts in the field—the service providers and nonprofits, who are doing the good on the ground work every day, oftentimes behind the scenes—have the financial resources to continue doing what they're doing, but also to double down on what they're doing, and really be well resourced to meet this unfortunate moment that we are at as a community.”
Join Steven in being a part of the movement that fosters a thriving community for people of all ages in Palo Alto. Learn more about how to donate to the Community Campaign, and support organizations who deliver essential services and programs that help the most vulnerable in Palo Alto, East Palo Alto, and Menlo Park. Donate today.