OUR MISSION:

Recruit, Prepare, Place and Retain Black male teachers in elementary schools.

OUR VISION:

Is that all students have the opportunity to attend schools staffed with racially and culturally diverse teacher and leaders, reflecting the students race, ethnicity and cultures, thereby creating an environment that affirms students for whom they are. Black Men Teach creates the environment and conditions where Black male teachers can thrive, because our children’s schooling experience will never be complete without them.

Leslie Palmieri

Development Consultant

Leslie has been a development consultant since 2017 helping non-profits build and manage their major gift pipelines and all phases of campaign planning and execution. Prior to consulting, Leslie spent more than 20 years in higher education fundraising focused primarily on major and principal gifts. She raised $65 million from her own portfolio during the last decade of her higher education career. Leslie enjoys adapting the best practices and techniques of higher education fundraising to serve smaller nonprofits and amplify their fundraising efforts. A lifelong champion of equity in education, Leslie has focused her recent efforts on using her fundraising expertise to help close the giving gap between white-led and Black-led nonprofits. Her current and past clients include Black Men Teach, Special Olympics US Games 2026, Teach for America Twin Cities and Teach for America Upper Midwest Development Hub, Lions Gift of Sight Foundation, and the Foundation for Eden Prairie Schools. Her higher education experience includes the University of Minnesota, American University, Catholic University of America, and the University of Pennsylvania. Leslie has a master's degree in liberal arts from St. John’s College in Santa Fe, N.M. and a bachelor's degree in political science from Fort Lewis College in Durango, CO. She has also completed graduate coursework in non-profit management at the University of Pennsylvania while she was working at Penn.