Laura Lauder

Laura Lauder is a native of Canton, Ohio and journeyed to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Seville, Spain for her undergraduate education. In 1992, she joined her husband Gary in their venture capital partnership, Lauder Partners, a Silicon Valley venture fund.

Laura now primarily focuses her efforts on strategic grantmaking through the Laura and Gary Lauder Family Venture Philanthropy Fund and in numerous leadership capacities at local and national nonprofit organizations.

Laura is a social entrepreneur and venture philanthropist. Laura focuses on Signature Initiatives that she has designed and launched with experts and other philanthropists. For example, she co-founded the Center for Media and Democracy in Israel in 2019, a nonprofit and non-partisan independent news organization that promotes democratic discourse through investigative journalism, like an Israeli ProPublica. She founded DeLeT: Day School Teaching through Leadership in 2000, a national Jewish Teach for America type program. And, she co-founded the Jewish Teen Funders Network’s Foundation Board Incubator in 2012 that develops community-based teen philanthropy programs throughout North America, Australia, and Israel. Laura and her daughter, Eliana, created the Gap Year program at Duke University in 2018, during Eliana’s senior year at Duke, that seeks to encourage young people to take a gap year between high school and college to grow, explore, and serve. Together, Laura and Gary co-founded the Socrates Program of the Aspen Institute in 1996, which has convened over 10,500 leaders worldwide to participate in seminars and salons on the most difficult issues of the day.

Laura also serves on numerous nonprofit boards. She is the current Board Chair of the Bay Area Jewish Federation, a position she assumed in January 2025. She is also the Immediate Past Chair of the Endowment Committee at the Federation, overseeing more than $2 billion in assets. Laura also serves on the Advisory Board of Service Year Alliance, an organization that creates opportunities for young adults to serve their country through a year of full-time community service. She is on the Board of Trustees of the Aspen Institute and chairs the Board’s Socrates Sub-Committee. She serves on the Social Finance Board in Boston, a leading organization in the impact investing space. She has previously served on the boards of The Jim Joseph Foundation, the National Constitution Center, the National Public Radio Foundation, and Spark Networks — a NYSE Amex Company and parent of JDate.

Laura is active with the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO/WPO), a global leadership network, and is a fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations. She was named one of “10 Women to Watch” by Jewish Woman magazine in 2004. She has won numerous awards, including Volunteer of the Year from the San Francisco Jewish Community Federation in 2011, the Jim Brooks Achievement Award in 2004, and the San Francisco Bay Area Dinkelspiel Young Leadership Award in 1999.

Laura is an avid cyclist and won a bronze medal in the Maccabi Games in Israel in cycling time trial in 2009. While she is a political junkie, she hopes to never run for political office, but is willing to climb any mountain on a bike. She and Gary live in Silicon Valley and have two adult children.

Nonprofit Boards and Committees on which Laura currently serves:

Jewish: 

  1. Center for Media and Democracy in Israel – Co-Founder (Tel Aviv)
  2. Bay Area Jewish Federation – Board Chair (San Francisco)
  3. Foundation Board Incubator (through Jewish Teen Funders Network) – Co-Founder & Advisory Board Chair (NYC)
  4. Ronald S. Lauder Foundation – Board of Directors (NYC)
  5. DeLeT Alumni Network (through Hebrew Union College) – Founder (Los Angeles)
  6. AIPAC Northern California – Board Member (San Francisco)

General:

  1. Aspen Institute – Board of Trustees; Chair, Socrates Program Sub-Committee (Washington, DC)
  2. Social Finance – Board of Directors (Boston)
  3. Service Year Alliance – Leadership Council (Washington, DC)
  4. Bernard Osher Foundation – Board of Directors (San Francisco)