Barbara F. Lee

Simmons College presented Lee with a Lifetime Achievement Award at her 50th college reunion in 2017. At the ceremony, Lee said, “My experience at Simmons reshaped my view of the world. It showed me that women can be extraordinary leaders".

By 2011, Lee helped to bring the total percentage of women artists in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts to 11%.

This setback did not end Lee's support for women political candidates. Eventually, her efforts led to success. Another candidate that Lee supported in 2002, Jennifer Granholm, was elected as Governor of Michigan with 51% of the vote and Lee's support.

Barbara Lee founded the Barbara Lee Family Foundation in 1998. The Foundation's goal is to produce "nonpartisan, pragmatic research for women candidates”. The Foundation works as another way to promote gender equality in politics. The Foundation is currently led by Barbara Lee alongside the Executive Director, Amanda Hunter.

At the suggestion of Laura Liswood in 1997, Lee decided to invest in grooming women political candidates for office. Lee co-founded the White House Project with Liswood and Marie Wilson in 1998. The White House Project aimed to put out magazine advertisements for women candidates, the likes of which included Hillary Clinton. The project hit roadblocks when 80% of the women running for gubernatorial positions that year lost their races.

Barbara Lee originally filed for divorce from her husband in 1987 but ended the petition two years later. Her husband had an affair in 1993 with a stockbroker who was later accused of extortion. The Lees officially ended their marriage in 1995, leaving Barbara Fish Lee with half of their combined personal wealth. Her husband's value in late 1994 was over $420 million.

The couple had two sons, Zach (born 1971) and Robbie Lee. Lee foreshadowed her own future activism when she gifted all the women at her son Zach's first birthday with copies of the first Ms. magazine, founded by Gloria Steinem and Dorothy Pitman Hughes.

The then Barbara Fish married Thomas H. Lee in 1968. Lee was a private investor. Thomas Lee began to gain wealth in 1974 when he created his own private equity investment firm. He bought and sold a series of companies, making him “the envy of Wall Street”.

Lee graduated from the all-women Simmons College in 1967 with a bachelor's degree in Education and French Literature. She earned her master's degree in Social Work from Boston University. Lee also received an honorary degree in 2001 from Simmons College.

Barbara Fish Lee (born July 3, 1945) is an American philanthropist. She founded and leads the Barbara Lee Family Foundation and the Barbara Lee Political Office, both located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Major targets of Lee's donations include the Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art and Hillary Clinton's 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. She is listed in Boston Magazine as one of “Boston’s Most Powerful Thought Leaders,” as well as one of “The 100 People Who Run This Town”. Boston Magazine also recognizes her as one of Boston's “50 Most Powerful Women”. Women's eNews ranks her among the “21 Leaders for the 21st Century". In 2015, Lee's contributions to various causes totaled upwards of $1.6 million. She is one of the top fifty national contributors to political campaigns and the third highest of all female contributors. She is best known for how nearly every person that she supports, be they political candidates or artists, identifies as a woman.

Sidney Fish, Lee's father, introduced Lee to modern art when she was 17 years old. Fish took his daughter to modern art exhibit on a re-creation of the 1913 Armory Show. Mildred Schiff Lee, Barbara Lee's mother-in-law, sold her the first piece of art for her original collection.