Executive Director, JF Roblee Foundation
Laura is a catalyst for learning, change and giving. She has 20+ years of experience in nonprofit management and leadership with a specific focus on community organizing, systems change, and grant-making organizations. She is the Executive Director of the JF Roblee Foundation, a family foundation dedicated to promoting racial, ethnic, and gender equity, with a preference for early, upstream, catalytic, and movement building approaches. Laura is based in St. Louis, having returned to her hometown in 2014 after working for large national and international NGOs such as American Friends Service Committee and The Pew Charitable Trusts. After the Ferguson uprising, Laura co-founded and served for four years as the Executive Director of We Stories, which engaged white families in changing the conversation about and building momentum toward racial equity. More recently, Laura led the wind down of a participatory grant-making portfolio for Generate Health, a maternal and infant health organization, which included managing five grant cycles and distributing ~$3M to more than 105 community-based nonprofit organizations, the majority of which were Black-led grassroots organizations with budgets of less than $250,000.
Laura has a BA in American Studies from Tufts University and an MA in Organizational Psychology from Columbia University. Laura is married to Guy and they have two children, Lily and Jonah.
How Does Philanthropy Missouri support your work in the philanthropic sector?
PhilMO is my go-to place to connect with peers in philanthropy and stay up to date on best practices in the field. As an “geriatric” millennial (google that term – it cracks me up), I’m particularly interested in next-gen giving, giving with a racial equity lens, and collective giving efforts. I often look at PhilMO events and info with two lens – one as a philanthropy professional looking to continuously improve my skillset for meaningfully engaging donors in social change giving, and the other as a donor myself.