Our Team
Our Staff
EUNSOOK LEE
Executive Director
EunSook Lee has led the AAPI Democracy Fund since its establishment. Previously, she was the Senior Deputy for former U.S. Rep. Karen Bass and executive director of local and national organizations serving and advocating for Korean American and immigrant communities particularly in the areas of immigration reform, gender-based violence, and expanding democratic participation. She is also the founding president of the National Immigration Forum Action Fund and former member of the City of LA’s Board of Neighborhood Commission and California Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander American Affairs.
EunSook was born in Korea and immigrated to Canada at a young age. She began her career in alternative community radio first as volunteer news programmer at CKUT radio before becoming the News Director and later Station Manager of CKLN radio. Writings of her experiences in grassroots organizing have been published in books such as “The Political Awakening of Korean Americans” in Koreans in a Windy City (2005), “Women Immigrants” in the Encyclopedia of Asian American Issues Today (2010), and a chapter co-written with Hahrie Han titled “Engaging Korean Americans in Civic Activism” in A Companion to Korean American Studies (2019) as well op-eds in outlets such as the New York Times, Ms. Magazine, and the Hill.
JOTY SOHI
Grants Manager
Joty is a first generation Indian American, who was born and raised in New York City. Recognizing social injustices from a very early age, Joty is driven to advance social and economic rights. Joty is joining the AAPI Democracy Fund with over 10 years of experience in grassroots mobilization and international development.
Most recently Joty worked at the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, organizing with immigrants and refugees for a healthy environment and thriving economy for all communities. Prior to that, Joty was at the Open Society Foundation, supporting efforts to strengthen women’s rights organizations and movements, advancing reproductive rights and justice, and promoting economic rights. Joty also had the opportunity to work as a Peace Fellow in Nepalwhere she worked with a local community organization andwas involved in the development and implementation of a major sustainable child educational project. Joty holds a BA in Sociology and Political Science, and an MA in International Politics and Human Rights.
Board
LUNA YASUI
Chair
Luna has over 25 years of experience in the philanthropic, law and advocacy, and civic engagement sectors. She advises donors and projects that seek to build the leadership and power of women, people of color, young people, immigrants, and LGBTQ people. As a Senior Program Officer at the Ford Foundation, Luna helped launch the foundation’s first LGBT rights program and led grantmaking strategies to deepen the civic engagement of young people, women, immigrants, and people of color. She also developed new initiatives to support state-level social justice infrastructure and multi-year institutional investments in Black-led organizing. While at the Open Society Foundations she oversaw portfolios on gender justice, LGBT rights, and low-wage workers’ rights. Her public interest legal work includes launching the Immigrant Day Labor Program at the National Employment Law Project and serving as a staff attorney at Bay Area Legal Aid. She serves on the boards of the Amalgamated Foundation and re:power.
Luna received her JD from the University of Pennsylvania School of Law where she was a Public Interest Fellow and BA from Brown University. She lives in Brooklyn with her partner, their twins, and Tater, the guinea pig.
CONNIE CAGAMPANG HELLER
Connie Cagampang Heller is a biracial Filipina-American textile artist and co-founder of the Linked Fate Fund for Justice.
In 2004, Connie co-founded the Linked Fate Fund for Justice with her partner to support grassroots organizing, power building and to transform systemic inequity into systemic inclusion and belonging. From 2005 to 2018, Connie played a critical role as a volunteer leader and consultant to design strategic interventions and racial equity learning spaces for organizations such as the Democracy Alliance, Women Donors Network, The California Endowment, Bioneers and the Othering and Belonging Institute.
Since 2016, Connie has focused on using collage art to explore race in America – capturing both what is beautiful and inspiring about people and disturbing about the continually evolving system of marginalization. Her art has been shown at the Northern California Museum of Art, the National Academy of Medicine and the East Bay Community Foundation, and is in the permanent collections of The Charles Houston Hamilton Institute at Harvard Law School, the California Historical Society and Tufts University’s Tisch College for Civic Life. Her art is featured in World Trust film, Cracking the Codes: The System of Racial Inequity and on the cover of the late Dr. Lani Guinier’s The Tyranny of Meritocracy.
She serves on the boards of the AAPI Civic Engagement Fund and the East Bay Community Foundation. Past board service includes Groundswell Fund for Reproductive Justice, Groundswell Action Fund, Women Donors Network, Perception Institute, and the Center for Social Inclusion.
QUANITA TOFFIE
Quanita leads Groundswell Action Fund, a 501(c)(4) public foundation. Since GAF's inception in 2017, Quanita has moved over $13M in c4 general support funding to resource intersectional electoral organizing led by women of color, low-income women and Transgender and Gender Expansive (TGE) people of color. She co-created GAF’s first-ever strategic plan, 2020 – 2025 Blueprint. Prior to this role, she led Groundswell Fund’s 501(c)(3) Integrated Voter Engagement (IVE) program, a capacity-building program that equips Reproductive Justice (RJ) groups with cutting edge voter engagement skills and technology to implement year-round organizing.
Quanita began organizing for social justice alongside her parents in her native South Africa. She joined her parents as they voted, for the first time in their lives, for Nelson Mandela in 1994. Quanita and her family immigrated to Florida in 1997. She found her political home at the Miami Workers Center and was involved in MWC’s first non-partisan civic engagement campaign in 2008. In 2009, she was a founding staff member of New Florida Majority and led the creation of statewide, data-driven electoral campaigns to advance social change in Florida until 2015. She holds a B.A. in Political Theory, Economic Development, and African Studies from Hampshire College.