User:Oughtta Be Otters/sandbox/Kafi Blumenfield

Kafi Blumenfield (b. 1971) is a civic leader and activist in Los Angeles and for the state of California.

Family
Born Kafi Watlington, in 1971, her parents were the manager of the Virgin Islands government's federal programs office, Janet Watlington, and marine physicist Roy Watlington. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1992/07/04/janet-w-macleod-dies-at-53/0045a5cb-4841-48d4-95b1-6a00cc861553/, http://magazine.pomona.edu/wp-content/uploads/images/pdf/2015-fall.pdf, https://stthomassource.com/content/2008/10/27/island-profile-roy-watlington/) Her parents were both native to the Virgin Islands, but had studied, worked, and lived in the continental United States for many years. After her parents divorced, her father moved to take a faculty position at the University of the Virgin Islands. (https://stthomassource.com/content/2008/10/27/island-profile-roy-watlington/) Her mother remaried and Blumenfield took her stepfather, Michael MacLeod's, name, going by Kafi Watlington-MacLeod. She continued living in Washington, D.C. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1992/07/04/janet-w-macleod-dies-at-53/0045a5cb-4841-48d4-95b1-6a00cc861553/)

She is now a resident of Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, CA, where she lives with her husband, Los Angeles Councilperson Bob Blumenfield, and their two children.

Career
After graduating with a degree in politics from Pomona College in 1993, Blumenfield's first job was as a White House Intern for the Clinton Administration (http://magazine.pomona.edu/wp-content/uploads/images/pdf/2015-fall.pdf). She continued her education at UCLA School of Law. She held a series of jobs related to housing and environmental issues (http://magazine.pomona.edu/wp-content/uploads/images/pdf/2015-fall.pdf), including a job at the Natural Resources Defense Council's Los Angeles Office (Draft Environmental Impact Statement for a Geologic Repository for the Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-level Radioactive Waste at Yucca Mountain, Nye County, Nevada: Inventory and characteristics of spent nuclear fuel, high-level radioactive waste and other materials. United States, U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, 1999, https://www.google.com/books/edition/Draft_Environmental_Impact_Statement_for/iv08WgqhcEMC?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=kafi p.16), Deputy Director Chief of Staff for grassroots justice organization Neighbor to Neighbor (https://gould.usc.edu/assets/docs/psg2002.pdf p.136), director of programs for the Fair Housing Council of the San Gabriel Valley (https://www.discoverycube.org/news/social-change-agent-kafi-blumenfield-tapped-lead-discovery-cube-los-angeles/), and working as a consultant for Liberty Vote (https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/las-liberty-vote/).

Eventually, Blumenfield rose to be President and CEO of the Liberty Hill Foundation, the parent nonprofit organization that funded Liberty Vote, along with a range of other grassroots organizations in Los Angeles. She worked there for six years, raising an average of $6.9 million annually, from 2008 to 2012, to distribute in support of local initiatives. When she left, in November 2013, she wanted to take a year off to contemplate her future career path.

Instead of having the year off, however, she was recruited to be the founding Executive Director of Discovery Cube LA, a children's museum with a focus on STEM, and which is the first major museum in the San Fernando Valley. Again, fundraising comprised a large part of her job -- she was responsible for helping to meet the $4.7 million estimated annual budget.

Currently, Blumenfield is in the process of starting up the of leadership development organization, Alisyo.

Board, advisory, and appointed positions
Blumenfield sits on many boards, such as The Tides Foundation of the Virgin Islands, The James Irvine Foundation -- including sitting on the selection committee for the James Irvine Foundation Leadership Awards, and acting as board chair since 2019 -- https://philanthropynewsdigest.org/news/people-in-the-news-11-17-2019-appointments-promotions-obituaries), Southern California Grantmakers, the Self Help Federal Credit Union, and the Planned Parenthood Advocacy Project in Los Angeles. Others include River LA, Pomona College’s Draper Center, Anti-Recidivism Coalition and Project X.  She is also on the board of UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs, where she has served as a Luskin School Senior Fellow since 2015.

Since 2011 she has been an appointee to the California Commission on the Status of Women and Girls (https://www.libertyhill.org/2011/09/02/kafi-d-blumenfield-named-to-the-california-commission-on-the-status-of-women), and in 2014, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti appointed Blumenfield to the Los Angeles Board of Recreation and Parks (https://www.scpr.org/blogs/politics/2014/01/06/15540/mayor-appoints-councilman-s-wife-to-board-of-recre/), although she resigned later in the year when she took on leadership of the Cube, since the Board of Recreation and Parks oversaw elements of the museum's management.

Recognition
These organizations have recognized Blumenfield's civic contributions:


 * Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy - 2016 City of Justice Awards honoree (https://www.oxy.edu/news/dreier-honored-2016-city-justice-award)
 * Liberty Hill Foundation - 2014 Diversity in Philanthropy Award (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEy4khxNkLk)
 * The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force - 2013 (https://www.dailynews.com/2013/09/30/lgbt-task-force-celebrates-40-years-with-eye-to-the-future/).
 * The National Women’s Political Caucus LA Westside - 2012 Remarkable Women Leaders’ Calendar (https://cafwd.org/news/nwpc-la-westside-celebrates-the-leadership-of-12-remarkable-women/)
 * National Council of Negro Women - 2012 Distinguished Community Leader Honoree
 * Stonewall Young Democrats - 2011 Visionary Award

https://women.ca.gov/about-us/commissioners/kafi-bio/

Kafi Blumenfield
Commissioner

founding Executive Director of Discovery Cube LA

President/CEO of the Liberty Hill Foundation

Deputy Director of Neighbor to Neighbor

Kafi is a board member:

Tides, the Community Foundation of the Virgin Islands

James Irvine Foundation

advisory board member of River LA, Pomona College’s Draper Center, Anti-Recidivism Coalition and Project X.

Giving circles like the XX Fund, which enables women and girls to support organizations dedicated to helping women and girls reach their potential and strive for economic justice.

She is an appointee to the California Commission on the Status of Women and Girls.

Kafi’s work has been recognized by organizations such as LAANE, the National Women’s Political Caucus LA Westside, National Council of Negro Women, and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

She holds a law degree from UCLA and a B.A. from Pomona College. She and her husband live in Woodland Hills with their two children.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-discovery-museum-kafi-blumenfield-20140903-story.html

By MIKE BOEHMSTAFF WRITER SEP. 3, 2014 7 AM PT Kafi Blumenfield, who spent most of the last seven years giving away money to grass-roots social causes when she was head of the L.A.-based Liberty Hill Foundation, has been hired as the founding executive director of the Discovery Cube Los Angeles science museum opening Nov. 13 at Hansen Dam Recreation Center at the city’s northern edge.

Blumenfield, 43, will be responsible for raising money to help meet an annual budget of $4.7 million and for building an audience for the San Fernando Valley’s first major museum.

She will be “the community face” of the new museum, said Joe Adams, chief executive of the new Cube’s older and much bigger sister, the recently renamed Discovery Cube of Orange County in Santa Ana.

husband, Los Angeles Councilman Bob Blumenfield. The power couple live in Woodland Hills and have a 5-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter.

Blumenfield, who has an undergraduate degree in politics from Pomona College and a law degree from UCLA

“Even though I’m not a science expert, it’s been a part of my life and my family,” said Blumenfield, whose father is a retired professor of marine physics at the University of the Virgin Islands. She said that the environment, one of the Discovery Cube’s main focuses, ranked high on Liberty Hill Foundation’s agenda as it helped fund causes such as improving air quality in poorer L.A. neighborhoods.

Blumenfield arrives with fundraising experience that will be important in her new job. Unlike bigger grant-making foundations, Liberty Hill relies on donors to provide the grant money it funnels to community activists. Its mission, as outlined in its public tax return, includes addressing “some of the country’s most intractable social problems” by “identifying community leaders at the frontlines of change [and] equipping them with the skills and relationships they need to build power and advance social justice.”

On Blumenfield’s watch as director, Liberty Hill Foundation raised about $6.9 million a year on average from 2008 to 2012, while issuing about $4.7 million in annual grants, its tax filings show

Blumenfield will lead a staff of 24 full-time and 70 part-time employees at the museum, which has 71,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor space.

Mayor Eric Garcetti had appointed Blumenfield to the city’s Board of Recreation and Parks Commissioners in January, but she said she resigned from the volunteer post in June when she accepted the Discovery Cube job. The rec and parks board is the city agency that deals most directly with the new museum, including overseeing its contract to lease the city-owned museum building.

Blumenfield said she consulted the city attorney and the mayor’s office and was told she could stay on the rec and parks board while abstaining from discussions and votes pertaining to the Discovery Cube, but she decided “it would be better for the museum” if she removed all conflicts by leaving the government post.

She said her husband, whose district in the West Valley does not include the Discovery Cube, will abstain from City Council discussions and votes involving the museum.

https://www.lamag.com/lawomanarticle/these-9-women-are-radically-transforming-la/

= These 9 Women Are Radically Transforming L.A. = These leaders include an NBA executive, a labor lawyer, and a Buddhist monk. All make L.A. a better place.

By Julia Herbst August 31, 2016

She brings a love  of science and the environment to an underserved community

director of the grant-making Liberty Hill Foundation until November 2013,

then founding executive director of Discovery Cube LA

nonprofit expertise:

* includes fighting air pollution with the National Resources Defense Council

* commissioner on the California Commission on the Status of Women and Girls

Mayor Eric Garcetti of LA appointed her to the Board of Recreation and Parks in 2014 (https://www.scpr.org/blogs/politics/2014/01/06/15540/mayor-appoints-councilman-s-wife-to-board-of-recre/)

Married to Bob Blumenfield (https://www.scpr.org/blogs/politics/2014/01/06/15540/mayor-appoints-councilman-s-wife-to-board-of-recre/)