Jessica Mele is a writer, educator, grantmaker, mother and performer based in California whose work lives at the intersection of labor, education, creativity and philanthropy. For eight years, she was a Program Officer in the Performing Arts Program at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation where she made the first grant to CCI's Research to Impact Lab and funded the Arts Workers in California paper. While at Hewlett, Jessica also led three participatory grantmaking programs that shifted power and centered more equitable grantmaking practices. She is a thought leader in arts education in California, a founding executive committee member of Teaching Artists Guild and most recently served as the interim executive director of Create CA. Jessica has also written, performed and produced sketch comedy for over a decade as a member of San Francisco’s female-driven sketch comedy group, Chardonnay. Her solo play about motherhood and interstellar space, “Eat the Mama,” premiered in San Francisco in September 2023. When she's not making theater or furthering the work of CCI's R2I lab, she co-leads equity-focused storytelling workshops for educators and funders. As a white woman developing her own practice of anti-racism, she is committed to naming her whiteness in professional bios.

Jessica has an M.Ed. in Education, Policy and Management from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a B.A. in Anthropology and French Studies from Smith College (Northampton, MA). 

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