Joanne Kim is Chief Operating Officer of Community Coalition. As the organization’s first college student intern in 1996, Kim was responsible for conducting research on the inequities of the City of Los Angeles’ land use policies and regulation of liquors stores in urban communities. Her research helped to advance Community Coalition’s groundbreaking and nationally renowned campaign to reduce the overconcentration of alcohol outlets in South Los Angeles.
The successful campaign resulted in a 20% reduction of liquor stores in South LA. It was one of the first in the nation to combine environmental land use strategies with large-scale grassroots community organizing and advocacy to prevent and reduce addiction and violence, eventually becoming a national public health model.
Kim spent the early years focused on research, communications, and educational curricula for the organization. She built Community Coalition’s human resources infrastructure, which recruits and develops some of the best social justice talent in the region. Kim oversees an impressive leadership and management team in the development and successful implementation of the organization’s strategic plan and annual goals.
Kim represents the organization in California Calls, a statewide alliance of twenty-nine community-based organizations in twelve urban, suburban and rural counties, engaging voters on progressive tax and fiscal policy reform. She also serves on the Board of Directors for the Asian Pacific Environmental Network organizing poor and working class Asians to build a progressive statewide voice for an inclusive and environmentally sustainable economy.
Joanne Kim was born in Chicago, Illinois and raised in Southern California. Kim received her Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Master of Public Health from University of California, Los Angeles. She resides in South Los Angeles with her husband and two children.