Shelley Waters Boots, Principal, SWB Strategic Solutions & Consultant for Funders for Maternal Mental Health
Shelley Waters Boots brings over 25 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. For the past 15 years, she has managed an independent consulting practice primarily serving philanthropic organizations. 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. She is committed to equity and social justice, working as a national expert on two-generation approaches to alleviating poverty for low-income families, partnering with philanthropy, the public sector, 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. Past experience at the Urban Institute and the New America Foundation allowed her to delve deeply into a wide range of issues concerning children, work and family. And leadership positions at advocacy organizations, including the Children’s Defense Fund and Parents Action for Children, provided experience managing policy and communications campaigns, running coalitions, and developing 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.