Torie Osborn is a strong, visionary leader who has spent her life working for change and taking action. She is recognized nationally for her community-organizing approach to solving problems and for being at the forefront of the major fights for social justice for over 50 years.
About
Torie Osborn is an innovative leader who has guided some of the nation’s most effective non-profit organizations as they tackled tremendous challenges – including the early AIDS crisis, poverty and homelessness, and health care. She is recognized nationally for her community-organizing approach to solving problems and for being at the forefront of the major fights for social justice for over 50 years.Torie earned her MBA at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, and served as CEO for four nonprofit advocacy and philanthropic organizations. From 1997 through 2005, Torie Osborn was executive director of the Liberty Hill Foundation, one of the nation’s most admired social-change foundations. Liberty Hill funds grassroots community organizing for environmental, social and economic justice in Los Angeles County.In the mid-1990s, Torie Osborn served as executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in Washington DC, the nation’s oldest gay and lesbian civil rights organization, and, from 1988 to 1992, at the height of the AIDS epidemic in Los Angeles, she led the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center. Throughout those years, Torie was a nationally respected leader in fighting AIDS, and in the LGBT movement for equality.Since leading those organizations, Torie has served as a senior policy advisor and Deputy Mayor to former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on homelessness and poverty. She initiated the Mayor’s Office of Strategic Partnerships that implemented joint projects between government and philanthropy. After that, Torie also served as top policy advisor and “external chief of staff” to LA County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, from 2014-2022. Following the City model, she helped establish the Center for Strategic Partnership at the County, again bringing together local government and philanthropy. She is also the former Chief Civic Engagement Officer for the United Way of Greater Los Angeles and senior strategist for California Calls, a network of 27 organizations throughout California committed to fair tax and budget policy. She retired from paid work in December of 2022, but continues her activism as head of the all-volunteer Making Waves for Democracy. Founded in 2017, the group has raised over $2.1 million at numerous $50 events and knocked on over 100,000 doors to build support for Democratic candidates in California House districts, as well as in several states. In addition to her MBA from UCLA, Torie holds her B.A. from Middlebury College. She is author of Coming Home to America (St. Martins, 1996), has published in several books and magazines, and is a longtime resident of Santa Monica, California.
Background photo by Nathan DeFiesta on Unsplash.