Lisa Anne Thompson

For over 20 years, Lisa Anne has been at the vanguard of progressive philanthropy, a discipline focused on the development of innovative strategies and campaigns to promote social / environmental impact. A leading strategist partnering with organizations, companies, and individuals to improve the impact of their mission and philanthropic vision, Ms. Thompson specializes in working with leaders who seek to use diverse strategies and governance models to achieve desired outcomes.

Fascinated by sociology and people, Lisa Anne entered the nonprofit fundraising world after earning her BASoc. She spent 15 years in the field working with nonprofits to raise funds, recruit board members, and forge institutional partnerships. She served as regional director of development for the National Kidney Foundation; associate director of alumni relations at development for the University of Maryland (College of Behavioral and Social Sciences), and director of public affairs and fundraising at Days End Farm Horse Rescue. Through these and other experiences, Lisa Anne became aware of how a board’s competency and satisfaction directly impact an organization’s performance.

In 2010, Ms. Thompson founded Taylor Strategic Partnerships, where she has advised nonprofit and for-profit board leadership, professional athletes, philanthropists, and corporations on the development and execution of impactful philanthropic collaborations and exceptional governance practices. Through her work, she has developed a reputation for innovation, integrity, and the highest standards of customer service. Lisa Anne also holds the coveted Certified Governance Consultant (CGC) designation from BoardSource, which is awarded to a select group of expert trainers certified to deliver BoardSource’s signature nonprofit governance training.

In recent years, the focus has tightened specifically to working with boards and leadership of organizations on aligning their mission, governance, personnel, activities, and processes to optimally achieve the most significant impact. In so doing, Lisa Anne has surrounded herself with a diverse team whose expertise greatly enhances the capabilities of her company. With these refined areas of concentration and the expansion of the team, a new organization emanated in 2020: Board Veritas.

At Board Veritas, Ms. Thompson and her team focus on helping social causes thrive in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) world. In particular, she advocates two fundamental methodologies for achieving impact: increased professionalization of the nonprofit sector and striving for organizational, cultural well-being. The latter encompasses practices which are espoused by the board, implemented by the C-suite, and infused throughout the organization.

A native of University Park, Maryland, Lisa Anne currently shares her time between Washington DC and Mt. Desert Island (Maine), where she can be found hiking in Acadia National Park, tide pooling in Ship’s Harbor, or bird watching on the coastal paths along the Schooner Head.