In 2024, Lee Draper and Thomas Paiva made a powerful planned gift, pledging half their wealth to establish the Draper|Paiva Feminist Legacy Fund for Bodily Autonomy, dedicated to advancing Women’s Foundation California’s vision and purpose.
This fund is an act of hope. It is a multigenerational commitment to resource feminist leaders and movements working to secure Bodily Autonomy long after we are gone.
The Draper|Paiva Feminist Legacy Fund for Bodily Autonomy reflects the donors’ deeply held belief that:
“Control over one’s body is one of the most fundamental and precious human rights and yet, in patriarchal societies, it is one of the most fragile. It is challenged and chipped away at from many sides in the name of religion, manners and mores, and exercise of pure power domination. Although it affects women, girls, gender expansive individuals, and people of color in all strata of society, it is most pervasive and chilling in marginalized communities.
Bodily autonomy is the hardest issue to raise funding for because it represents the darkest sides of patriarchy and unleashed capitalism.”
For these reasons, Lee and Tom chose to create a permanent, endowed resource for annual grantmaking to fuel community-based intervention, policy development, and movement building for decades to come.
Women’s Foundation California is proud to steward this fund and support movement organizations who, in Lee and Tom’s words, will ensure that “for these core issues, we will keep fighting.”
A Legacy of Love and Labor: Lee and Tom’s Story
The Draper|Paiva Feminist Legacy Fund for Bodily Autonomy is a direct outgrowth of Lee Draper’s long, varied, and deep relationship to the Women’s Foundation of California. Lee’s connection began when she was invited by Pat Etienne in the early 1980s to attend a house party where Liz Bremner, the Los Angeles Women’s Foundation (LAWF)’s founder and executive director, outlined the new feminist foundation’s mission, values, and scope.
In the late 1980s, Lee brought her expertise in philanthropy (during this time, she served in the grantmaking leadership at The Ahmanson Foundation, W.M. Keck Foundation, and the California Community Foundation) to LAWF’s Foundation and Corporate Giving Committee. She and Julie Kenny Drezner (with Liz Bremner and Mary Rappoport) developed four major, multi-year fundraising initiatives and raised hundreds of thousands in new grantmaking dollars from regional philanthropy. One of the four was the Violence against Women Initiative, which was always the hardest to raise resources for.
Lee joined the LAWF Board in 1990 and soon was elected Vice President for Development (Debra Nakatomi was the Board President). During her leadership tenure, Lee helped shift the Board from hands-on programming to a central fundraising role. She designed two endowment campaigns (the first of which started with near 100% of Board giving), and she continually championed the need to build major donor giving to complement strong corporate and foundation investments.
In 1990 Lee founded Draper Consulting Group (DCG) and built it into a nationally recognized firm serving as a change partner to create new philanthropies or transform existing foundations to bring them to a higher level of effectiveness and impact. (In addition, DCG worked with nonprofit organizational leadership to holistically transform community based and arts organizations.)
When Surina Khan became WFC’s CEO, she invited DCG to join her in re-envisioning WFC. However, Lee and Surina uncovered financial and staffing problems that threatened WFC’s solvency, and they worked hand-in-glove in comprehensive organizational course correction and transformation, with Michelle Cale’s Board leadership and partnership. By 2017, Surina and Michelle had raised significant funding and with the WFC Board, made decisive policy shifts to put WFC on a solid path to become the powerful institution it is.
From that first house party, Lee was an annual financial supporter at a stretching level. Her commitment to feminism and social change has been a well-spring that emboldened her career, activism, and life.
Lee received a B.A. in studio painting and a Ph.D. in social cultural anthropology from UC Berkeley. She forged successful careers in museum curation and education, philanthropy, and then in organizational consulting to philanthropic and nonprofit organizations. Her fourth career is as a creative nonfiction writer and activist.
Thomas Paiva was a successful commercial photographer in the corporate sector including maritime, architecture, lighting design, and large-scale industry. Tom is also a fine art photographer, acknowledged for his creativity in night photography and evocative urban and industrial landscapes. He has been recognized in solo and group exhibitions, books of his artwork, other publications, and many awards. Tom received his BFA from the San Francisco Academy of Arts.
Lee and Tom met in Leningrad in 1986, became good friends, and married in 1997. They shared a deep involvement in the fine arts and believed that the arts and humanities play a central role in shaping civilization and fostering engagement of the head, heart, and spirit that together can lead to profound meaning and purpose. They were idealists, progressives, and never made decisions based upon financial aspirations. They each pursued their passions and gifts, were fearless, and in the end, quite unexpectedly, achieved many rewards including financial strength.
The Draper|Paiva Feminist Legacy Fund for Bodily Autonomy reflects the donors’ belief that control over one’s body is one of the most fundamental and precious human rights and yet, in patriarchal societies, it is the one of the most fragile. It is challenged and chipped away at from many sides in the name of religion, manners and mores, and exercise of pure power domination. Although it affects women, girls, gender expansive individuals, and people of color in all strata of society, it is most pervasive and chilling in marginalized communities.
Bodily autonomy is the hardest issue to raise funding for because it represents the darkest sides of patriarchy and unleashed capitalism. Thus, Lee and Tom aspired to create a permanent, endowed resource for annual grantmaking to fuel community-based intervention, policy development, and movement building in this critical area.
In the donors’ memory, WFC will support movement organizations who ensure that for these core issues, we will keep fighting.