Laura Askowitz of KidSafe: 5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Lead A Nonprofit Organization

Ensure you have a clear path to success, even if your idea is in its infancy. Define the organizations you will work with to ensure your service can be easily and affordably received.

As part of my series about “individuals and organizations making an important social impact”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Laura Askowitz.

As CEO of KidSafe Foundation, Laura Askowitz has found her true calling helping children and their grownups be well-educated about the facts of CSA, and learn how to be much harder targets and less vulnerable to abuse, exploitation, and trafficking. First-hand experience of how debilitating looking at life through a child-trauma lens can be, and a real-life study in how prevention education can keep children safe and more resilient all make her a passionate team member of KidSafe. “Empowered children become powerful healthy adults and stop cycles of abuse and life-long, expensive, family-crushing coping mechanisms and health problems.” When not working at KidSafe, she enjoys spending time with her daughter and their Spinonedoodle Margot, and watching old movies or reading history books.

Thank you so much for doing this with us. Before we begin our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”?

I am, like so many, a survivor of childhood trauma. I was lucky; I had a few “Safe Adults” in my circle, and I had a huge drive to “do things differently” — this idea will resonate with many people whose childhood was not safe nor supportive. I saw early on the “advantages” that went to people who had grown up with a sense of safety, which ultimately led to more confidence as an adult. I still say I “fight” making decisions (without the voice of fear criticizing myself) more than my friends that grew up with trauma-free childhoods, and it is sometimes exhausting!

Can you tell us the story behind why you decided to start or join your non nonprofit?

I am not the founder of KidSafe — and so many times the Executive Director or CEO did start the…