Laurie Lipper is Co-Founder of Kids Impact Initiative, a nonprofit started in 2017 to improve the lives of the nation’s 103 million young people under age 26. After more than three decades as an advocacy organization executive, Ms. Lipper created Kids Impact Initiative to develop and promote next-generation strategies that support and strengthen the child advocacy field as a whole. Kids Impact analyzes advocacy trends and lessons across a broad range of issues, advancing new ways to support effective efforts already underway and strengthen accountability and advocacy for children.
She currently serves as a senior advisor to The Children’s Partnership and on the Washington Advisory Council of Common Sense Media.
In 1993, Ms. Lipper founded and then served until 2015 as Co-President of The Children’s Partnership, a national, nonprofit organization that advocates for the interests of America’s children and families—especially those at risk of being left behind. Its primary mission is to ensure that all children have the resources and the opportunities they need to grow up healthy and to lead productive lives.
Her work at The Children’s Partnership has been recognized for its leadership and foresight, especially in the area of children and digital media. In 1994, she co-authored the first comprehensive report on how digital society impacts children, followed by an award-winning, first-of-its-kind parenting resource for the information age. In the following years, she co-authored multiple publications about children and the digital society, led the development of the first website focused on creating content for low-income Americans, and managed multiple advocacy campaigns resulting in successful policy and practice changes to benefit children and parents.
Ms. Lipper was founding Vice President for Communications at Children Now, a California-based policy organization, where she developed a groundbreaking communications program. Her work at Children Now included several innovations such as fashioning the marketing elements for and releasing, in 1989, the first California Report Card on how children are faring. This technique spawned a generation of data-based accountability tools supported by communications presentations and messaging in child advocacy. She also developed a model media and communications program for children’s issues.
Previously, she was Deputy Campaign Manager for a California campaign reform initiative, Proposition 68, and Marketing Director of Hands Across America, a one-of-a-kind mega-event that raised awareness and funds to alleviate hunger and homelessness. She served as Executive Director of The Nation Institute, a New York-based organization that promotes civil liberties and debate on foreign and domestic policy.
Throughout her career, Ms. Lipper has created influential communications frameworks and fostered innovative approaches to advocacy. She has been adept at anticipating emerging issues and developing them into advocacy platforms. At The Children’s Partnership, she also honed the structure of the organization to support twenty-two years of co-leadership and a virtual organization with multiple offices, as well as co-led an executive transition to a next-generation leadership. She has worked to recruit and mentor young advocates interested in pioneering new approaches to advocacy, and she has designed organizational structures to support innovation.
Ms. Lipper received her undergraduate degree from the University of California at Santa Barbara and resides in Washington, DC. She has two (extraordinary) adult children and a dog named Ruby.