Shelley Waters Boots brings over 20 years of experience as a writer, researcher and policy expert on a wide range of issues affecting the lives of children and families. Blending her expertise on strategy, research, policy, and communications, she advises leading philanthropies across the country.
With a passion for collaboration and integrative design thinking, Shelley works to bridge people, ideas, and actions to leverage diverse expertise in creating positive change for families. Committed to equity and social justice, she works as a national expert on two-generation approaches to alleviating poverty for low-income families, partnering with philanthropy, state governments, and non-profits to help them better align family services. She is also a key advisor on creating bipartisan strategies—finding common ground and creating momentum on policy action. Additionally, she leads a funder collaborative with philanthropic leaders from multiple sectors to invest in cross-cutting strategies aimed at improving the lives of youth and young adults.
Through past positions at the Urban Institute and the New America Foundation, she has published extensively on a wide range of issues concerning children, work, and family. Time spent at leading advocacy organizations, including the Children’s Defense Fund and Parents Action for Children, provided experience managing policy and communications campaigns, running coalitions, and crafting new policy ideas.
She holds a BA in Political Science from Furman University in South Carolina and earned her MPA from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University in Syracuse, NY.