Laura Hansen Dean, Attorney at Law (Indiana, Texas) became involved in the charitable sector when her mother, Geraldine A. Hansen, R.N., invited Laura to join her in volunteering in their community when Laura was 11. Active in the YMCA and Girl Scouting during junior high and high school, as patrol leader of the Community Service Patrol, she and other patrol members convinced the local Girl Scout Council to extend Girl Scouting to all girls in the community. She and the patrol members then planned and provided weekly Girl Scout programming to girls and boys at a community center during her senior year of high school.

 

Soon after graduating magna cum laude from Indiana University School of Law, she joined R&R Newkirk and Company, then located in Indianapolis, Indiana, and served as Legal Editor of the Charitable Giving Tax Service. She started teaching planned giving and charitable gift planning seminars with Marc Carmichael. Her association with R&R Newkirk continued after she joined the Ball State University Foundation as Director of Planned Giving and Legal Counsel, and later as Executive Director and Legal Counsel. Over 30 years she and Marc educated over 1,500 charitable gift planners until his retirement in the mid-2010s. She continues to teach for R&R Newkirk with other speakers.

 

Laura led gift planning teams at public universities, including The University of Texas at Austin during the $3 billion fundraising campaign that concluded successfully in September 2014 and the University of Colorado System; community foundations and academic centers on philanthropy; has served as Chief Executive Officer of a regional community foundation and a state university-related foundation; and as a consultant for multiyear grants funded by some of the country’s largest private foundations. Her consulting firm serves a wide variety of charitable organizations, including community foundations, cultural organizations, private and public institutions of higher education, historic preservation organizations, hospitals and healthcare organizations, human service organizations, religious orders and organizations, and retirement communities.

 

She has served the charitable gift planning field in leadership positions with local planned giving councils and estate planning councils, and on the board of directors (1991-1993, 2012-2014) and committees of the National Association of Charitable Gift Planners. She served on the editorial review committee of the Journal of Gift Planning during its years of publication. She is a frequent speaker and teacher and contributor to publications on philanthropy.