Michele photographed on film by Eddie Rhea Hemphill.
Michele Kumi (久美) Baer (she/they) is a social justice practitioner, working in modalities of process design, facilitation, education, organizational change, and coaching. Michele’s career is focused on igniting, kindling, and sustaining people’s knowledge and capacity to practice equity and liberation in their lives.
Michele is skilled at building and sustaining processes and programs that center and engage a diverse group of participants. With clients and colleagues, they cultivate affirmative learning spaces, promote dialogue and action, propel organizational development, and strategically enable nonprofits, funders, and networks to create and embody more equitable and just practices. They are frequently on the road speaking and facilitating workshops and retreats for professionals in the cultural and philanthropic sectors.
A lifelong dancer, Michele’s sensibilities as a mover and choreographer shape how she strategizes, facilitates, and collaborates. She has been committed to deep study of dance traditions from West Africa (Mandé & Malinke), Brazil, and Haiti for over 16 years and has traveled to study with master culture bearers in Brazil and Mali.
Michele leads her own consulting practice, Kumi Cultural – a capacity building, organizational change, and field building consultancy. Kumi Cultural clients include private foundations, other grantmaking organizations, philanthropy-serving organizations, arts and cultural organizations, social justice organizations, and individuals working in the arts, cultural, social justice, and philanthropic fields.
As a coach, Michele enjoys creating an affirming and non-judgmental space for her coach partners to be present with the richness of their inner worlds—the thoughts, emotions, memories, and visions that reside there. Michele currently coaches women, femmes, and non-binary folks of color working in the arts, philanthropy, and/or social justice fields. She also coaches working artists as a part of the MAP Fund’s Scaffolding for Practicing Artists (SPA) Program — providing tailored support to working artists in film, dance, theater, visual arts, and literary arts. Michele has a certification in liberatory coaching from the Coaching for Healing Justice and Liberation school.
Active in the nonprofit field, Michele regularly contributes to field-wide events, coalitions, and grants and fellowships panels. Past panel service includes the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Dance Project, the California Creative Corps Artist Fellowship, and the Constellations Culture Change Fund. Michele is currently Guest Curator for Dance/USA’s 2025 National Conference, a member of several national and local cultural policy coalitions, on the board of Versa-Style Dance Company, and a member of Women of Color in the Arts and Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy. Recently, Michele was on the advisory board of The Weavers Project and the steering committee for the Cultural New Deal.
Throughout their career, Michele has worked in programming, advocacy, research, capacity building, and communications roles to advance racial justice, gender justice, and disability justice at and through nonprofits large and small. Michele worked at Race Forward as the first program director to develop the organization’s strategy and portfolio of work advancing racial equity in and racial justice through philanthropy. Other posts include work at The New York Community Trust, Columbia University, Dance/NYC, and the Global Fund for Women.
Like her mother before her, Michele’s love of embodiment and wellness drew her to becoming a fitness instructor back in 2015. She regularly teaches barre fitness classes and is a certified instructor for The Bar Method.
Born and raised on the ancestral and unceded lands of the Ohlone people—what people also currently refer to as the San Francisco Bay Area—Michele is a mixed race, East Asian, cisgender, and non-disabled woman. She is a proud Yonsei (fourth generation Japanese American) who has both Japanese and mixed European ancestry. It was learning about their family’s incarceration during World War II that propelled Michele into critical inquiry at a young age.
They have a Bachelors from Brown University and a Masters from Columbia University.
Michele is currently based on Tovaangar, the ancestral, current, and future lands of the Tongva people, which people also currently refer to as Los Angeles.
People reading this may also enjoy knowing that Michele is a Capricorn Sun, Pisces Moon, and Aries Ascendant.