Lauren Taylor is the Senior Vice President of Programs and Learning at Hyde Family Foundation. She oversees the staff managing the Foundation’s Leadership and Civic Pride, Education, Arts and Culture, and Neighborhoods and Publics Spaces impact areas as well as the Grants Management and Learning/Evaluation team. The Foundation strives to create a thriving, unified Memphis for all by working across sectors to enable the cornerstones of place-based success: access and opportunity, connectivity and vibrancy, and aligned and visionary leadership.
As Senior Vice President, Lauren is responsible for strategy and planning, program area management, grants management, evaluation and learning, and finance and budgeting.
Prior to her current position, Lauren served in other Foundation roles: Senior Program Director/Chief Learning Officer, Program Director for Livable Communities, and Program Officer for Greening Initiatives, and Director of Grants Management. Before joining the Foundation in 2005, Lauren worked in development as the Grants and Research Officer at the Metropolitan Inter-Faith Association (MIFA).
She currently serves on the City Parks Alliance Board of Directors, First Horizon Bank’s CRA Corporate Advisory Board, Grace-St. Luke’s Episcopal School Board of Trustees, and Women’s Foundation for a Greater Memphis Board of Directors. She was a founding board member of the Overton Park Conservancy and the Memphis Farmers Market. She is a member of Leadership Tennessee Class VII (2019-20); a 2015 PLACES Fellow with the Funders Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities; a 2013 recipient of the Memphis Business Journal’s Top 40 Under 40 Award; and a graduate of the New Memphis Institute’s Leadership Development Intensive (2009) and Fellows Program (2007).
She completed the Executive Program in Social Impact Strategy at the University of Pennsylvania and received her BA from Smith College.