Steve Johnson has spent the last 20 years working in the world of philanthropy and social investing. He is an advisor to foundations, families, and philanthropic individuals, and serves on several foundation and nonprofit boards. He is a Senior Advisor at The Philanthropic Initiative, Inc., where he worked for a dozen years in various roles. He served as the Executive Director of the Phyllis and Jerome Lyle Rappaport Foundation from 2012 through 2016. He has written extensively and spoken widely on a broad range of social investing topics.
Steve spent the previous 20 years in public policy, law, education, and long-range planning in the courts and the bar. He has worked in commercial litigation (Bogle & Gates), as a law clerk in the federal courts, as counsel to the U.S. Senate (Judiciary and Commerce committees), in government relations (Boston Bar Association), and with justice reform initiatives around the country, e.g. The Massachusetts Commission on the Future of the Courts (Executive Director, 1990-92). He was the consulting futurist to the American Bar Association (1994-96). He has taught both undergraduate and law students, and has written and spoken widely on public policy and the future of the justice system and the legal profession. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Virginia School of Law.
Partnering with his fellow Commission on the Future of the Courts colleague, Lonnie Powers, as an Access to Justice Fellow, Steve seeks to (1) help civil legal aid organizations more effectively access social capital in support of their critically important work, and (2) help foundations and other social investors better understand and integrate civil legal aid in seeking to achieve their important program goals. They will be working with the Management Information Exchange, a Boston-based national nonprofit that seeks to promote best practices and innovation in leadership, management, and fundraising in the civil legal aid community in order to ensure high quality advocacy on behalf of low-income people.