Sarah Lee (she/her/hers) is an experienced strategist, facilitator, and evaluator for the nonprofit, philanthropic, and public sectors. She started Sarah Lee Consulting in early 2019 to help nonprofit organizations, grantmakers, and public agencies strengthen their work in partnership with their constituents, by clearly articulating their goals, designing programs for impact, and rigorously assessing what they do. Current and recent clients include the William Penn Foundation, the Jorge M. Pérez Family Foundation, LA Phil, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, The Music Center (Los Angeles), the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Previously, Sarah spent fourteen years at Slover Linett Audience Research, a social research & evaluation firm that serves the arts & culture sector, most recently serving as the firm’s President. While there, Sarah directed work with Carnegie Hall, the James Irvine Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Illinois Arts Council, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, DataArts, and Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, among others.
Sarah is the author of several studies about organizational change, capacity-building, and program effectiveness in the nonprofit sector, including “The Engagement Revolution: A Study of Strategic Organizational Transformation in 10 California Arts Nonprofits,” for the Irvine Foundation; “Recognizing and Advancing Nonprofit Excellence: An Evaluation of the MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions,” for the MacArthur Foundation; “New Data Directions for the Cultural Landscape,” for DataArts; and “Charting New Paths Through Innovative Collaboration: Chicago Arts Organization Needs Study,” for Illinois Arts Council.
She earned a BA in government cum laude from Harvard University. She completed doctoral coursework — focusing on gentrification, home ownership, and the Community Reinvestment Act — at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy, where she also earned a master’s degree. Sarah currently lives in the Boston area, where she serves on the boards of ArtsBoston and Company One Theatre. She watches too much soccer, is a fan of all dogs and most contemporary theater, and there’s little that she enjoys more than sitting down with a glass of wine, a plate of oysters, and a good book.