Midy Aponte

Founder & Principal,
Civil Strategies

Civil Strategies

Midy is a strategist by trade and a futurist at heart – with over two decades of experience in public, private, and philanthropic sectors. She tackles social justice issues like income inequality, environmental protection, land preservation, and health disparities with a holistic approach. She believes that starting small yields big results and that real change happens when communities own their power.
Midy began her career in Miami, focusing on social activism against the tobacco industry. Her work at Golin and the American Legacy Foundation (now the Truth Initiative) showcased her ability to handle complex public health issues and set the stage for her achievements in strategic communication and social advocacy.
In 2004, she moved to D.C. and later honed her crisis communications and litigation communication skills at The Walker Marchant Group, focusing on diversity and inclusion efforts within Fortune 500 companies.
In 2011, Midy was appointed the founding executive director of the American Latino Heritage Fund (ALHF) of the National Park Foundation. She played a crucial role in recognizing and preserving significant Latino heritage sites, such as the César E. Chávez National Monument, Diego Rivera’s Detroit Industry Murals, and Concha Melendez’s home in Puerto Rico. She helped promote the National Park Service’s “American Latinos and the Making of the United States” theme study and conceptualized the American Latino Expedition, a public engagement and awareness initiative designed to increase Latino visitation rates and stewardship of America’s National Parks.
Midy joined Spitfire Strategies in 2014, later serving as its Chief Experience Officer. She was
responsible for building the firm’s Intermountain West presence while expanding their international portfolio. Here, she collaborated with prestigious national and global foundations such as the Ford Foundation, Environmental Defense Fund, Earthjustice and World Resources Institute, plus countless community foundations and national nonprofits. She also played a pivotal role in developing innovative and effective operational systems that supported the sustainability of the firm, as well as the wellbeing of staff during the pandemic and periods of national unrest in 2020.
In 2023, after witnessing the shortcomings of philanthropy and mainstream consultancies’ commitment to racial justice, Midy founded Civil Strategies, a consulting firm that works exclusively with philanthropy and business to find constructive solutions to age-old problems through strategic communication and smart operations and management. Civil’s approach embraces “a third way” – working alongside clients to bring about comprehensive and lasting transformation in the system that can be felt, seen and heard by those most impacted.
Until recently, Midy sat on the board of directors for the Alaska Wilderness League and the Latino Community Foundation of Colorado and is a current board member of Hispanics in Philanthropy. She received her Bachelor of Science in Communications from the School of Journalism at Florida International University. Go Panthers! A fluent Spanish, Midy was born in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City to Cuban immigrants and was raised in Miami. Having spent considerable time in Washington, DC, and Denver, she now lives in Dallas with her wife and three dogs, Fluffy, ¡Sassy!, and Tinker.