All In For NYC Honoree Spotlight: Lisa Laukitis

Ever since she was a young girl, Lisa Laukitis has felt the call of service and philanthropy. From her earliest days in middle school, raising money for school fundraising drives and local charities and volunteering her time to community organizations, the feeling of “what can I do to help people in my own backyard,” stayed with her through college, through law school, and into her move to New York. As a Partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, she advises corporations and their investors through the difficult process of bankruptcy, and is active with the firm’s pro bono efforts. Assisting those who need help most has always driven her. She was a leader then, and she’s a leader now.

When Lisa moved to NYC, she was struck by the overwhelming opportunity for making change. Suddenly her backyard wasn’t just her block - it was a place she shared with millions of other people. The question of “what can I do” was less abstract. Every idea was an opportunity for real, concrete change.

That changemaking began with her involvement with the Junior League, one of America’s oldest and most effective women’s volunteer organizations. Following in the steps of the Junior League’s founder, Mary Harriman, Lisa took to training and women who themselves felt called to community service so that they could learn skills necessary to serve on non-profit boards. Through that program, Lisa joined the board of Gina Gibney Dance Company, a modern dance company with a community action component that unites survivors of domestic violence with professional dances for therapeutic dance initiatives. And as she worked in these communities, she became passionately committed to the specific challenges of the women and girls of New York City.

Beginning as a mentor, for over a decade, she served on the board of one of New York’s best known support organizations: the Lower Eastside Girl’s Club. Founded in 1996, the LES Girls Club has supported young women and gender-expansive youth of color throughout New York City in leveraging their inner power to shape a better future for themselves, their community, and the world. They provide year-round programming, completely free of charge, in STEM, Arts, Digital Media, Sound, Wellness, Civic Engagement and Leadership.

Her experiences with the LES Girls Club are a big part of the reason she’s so excited by CitizensNYC’s work. Much like Lisa’s own community service and philanthropic efforts, CitizensNYC engages communities who are often ignored or under-resourced by existing institutional channels. And like Lisa, we aren’t here to build something for these communities. We’re here to give them the tools they need to build something for themselves.

And we are powerfully aligned with Lisa’s commitment to mentoring and supporting women and girls. Nearly two thirds of the leaders we support with our grantmaking programs identify as women.

Lisa’s values are exemplified time and time again in her work, too. The corporate restructuring community is unique in New York’s legal world. It’s small and highly-specialized, which means its members are more closely connected. Over the years, the community has become increasingly dedicated to philanthropy, supportinga huge number of projects and providing millions of dollars in support every year. A lot of this commitment flows naturally from what the community does on a day-to-day basis: figuring out how to solve problems and finding solutions for businesses that need help. There’s a desire to save workplaces - and the jobs they provide. These values, and the capability to enact them, have led Lisa, her colleagues, and the whole community to realize they can use their skills to make the world around them a better place.

At the end of the day, making the world a better place can be as small or as large a project as you decide to make it. For Lisa, and for CitizensNYC, that NYCis the greatest city in the world and is the perfect place to focus on effectuating change. As she points out, the significant needs, even just in NYC, can make things feel daunting. It can be hard to know where to start. But we’re aligned in our understanding that it doesn’t actually take that much to make a big change where you live. By connecting community leaders with the resources we have - resources that we wouldn’t have access to without the dedicated support of people like Lisa - we’re investing in change.

And no matter where you’re from or where you live, a dollar spent on positive change is a dollar well-spent.

Lisa is a true leader. In her workplace; in her industry; in her community; and in this city we all call home. We can’t think of a better person to honor as one of our 2023 All-In For New York City Honorees. New York City needs as many leaders as we can get - and as Lisa points out, leadership and change begins with each of us.