Melissa Wansin Wong joined the Guttmacher Institute in May 2022 as its Director of Individual Giving. In this role, she leads the strategic implementation of the Institute’s individual giving initiatives.

Melissa brings two-and-a-half decades of professional experience to her current position. As a fundraiser, Melissa was Director of Institutional Giving at the Museum of Chinese in America, where she led its government, foundation and corporate giving portfolios, and was on the strategy team of a 10-figure capital campaign. As a consultant, she has advised and implemented fundraising campaigns for national and global organizations advocating for the rights of women and girls; the safety of human rights defenders; criminal justice reform; avoidable blindness; and environmental protection.

Melissa has held multiple leadership and board positions in academic professional organizations for more than a decade. She was also on the steering committee of the Mosaic Network and Fund, a New York Community Trust initiative, which advocates for equitable funding structures for ALAANA (African, Latinx, Asian, Arab and Native American) cultural organizations. Melissa currently serves as a steering committee member for the Asian Women’s Giving Circle, the first and largest philanthropic collective in the United States led by Asian women. She has been a volunteer with Women in Development, New York since 2018 and is currently secretary on its executive board.

Melissa holds a PhD and an MPhil in theatre and performance from City University of New York Graduate Center, an MA in performance studies from New York University Tisch School of the Arts and a BA with honors in English literature from the National University of Singapore.