Deskside Chat with the Board: Megan Smith

Thank you for visiting us today, Megan, and thank you for joining our board of trustees. We are thrilled to have you here and are excited for our communities to get to know you better. To start off, could you please tell us about yourself, highlighting key milestones throughout your life, both personally and professionally, that have shaped who you are today?

I was born and raised in Grand Rapids Michigan, which is the second largest city in Michigan. It feels more like a small town, though, compared to Los Angeles. I’m the youngest of four girls and grew up in Michigan but left when I was 18 years old to attend Duke University in North Carolina, where I studied history and public policy.

After graduation, I moved to New York City to attend law school. I would say that moving to New York was one of my first major milestones. Living there radically changed the perception of who I was in the world. In Michigan, I grew up in a homogenous community. It was a wonderful place to grow up because it was very safe – all my friends, their parents and even our grandparents knew each other. We were the fourth generation in our church and in the community I grew up in. Similarly, Duke was also set in a smallish city.

In New York, I was exposed to so many different people from all over the world, interacting with them day-to-day in the sea of eight million people. Being an extrovert, I loved being around people, but I also loved the anonymity of living in a big city. It breaks the self-centeredness that follows teens and people in their early 20s. It also opened my eyes to my privilege in a way that I did not fully grasp. There’s a great level set in New York. It doesn’t matter if you live in a penthouse or in a cardboard box, you’re all stepping on the same trash and taking the same subway. For me, it helped me grow – through meeting people and interacting with people who were very unlike me, which I didn’t have the exposure to as a child growing up in Michigan.

After New York, I moved to Nashville, Tennessee, for a federal clerkship, which was a great opportunity career-wise. At the same time, it felt like moving back to Michigan. Nashville was a segregated city in terms of class and privilege and I quickly decided that that was not the place I wanted to raise my kids. I really wanted to raise my future family in a place where they would be exposed to different ideas and different people and I wanted to practice where I could grow as a person, which is how I ended up in Los Angeles in 2015.

What aspect of our North Star specifically resonates with you and why? (North Star = we believe in the abundant potential of all children & families in achieving educational success and emotional well-being, which build pathways to economic mobility and lifelong health)

There are two things that speak to me:

• Children’s Institute’s focus on safety. I’m a parent of a three-year-old son so creating safety is very important for me so that he can be who he wants to be while being safe.
• The emphasis on creating opportunities. It’s spectacular seeing a child come into their own and to grow into their own personality. What I look for is the opportunity for children to be exposed to new things and to discover their passions while cultivating the talents that they were naturally born with.

What I’ve learned is that those things are very hard to do – no matter where you live – and I say that coming from a place of privilege. Not all families have those privileges and what makes Children’s Institute’s North Star special is that it’s meant to achieve both. Children’s Institute provides children, parents and families a safe place where they are encouraged to discover new things and cultivate those talents and goals within a safe community. These are things that without Children’s Institute, may not be achievable.

You have a beautiful 3-year-old son. What about motherhood inspires you to give back to your community?

One of the things that surprised me about being a mother is how other parents have each other’s backs. You become “a member of the club.” Once becoming a parent, people become much more compassionate and there’s a different level of understanding for other human beings including for other people’s children who are crying on the airplane or the mom who needs to go to the bathroom but needs her kid to be watched at the park while she looks for the nearest bathroom.

It sounds like a cliché, but it really does take a village to raise a child. What inspires me about Children’s Institute is that it’s the embodiment of the village cliché. Children’s Institute says, here’s our village, come meet us at 10200 Success Ave and we’ll help provide you with your needs.

What do you wish for all families with young children in Los Angeles?

My wish for every child in Los Angeles is that they have a safe place to grow into who they are and to find themselves. That’s what sets apart adults who are successful members of their community – people who know themselves and are comfortable in their own skin.

This starts in childhood but it grows into successful adulthood.

Your law firm, O’Melveny, has very generously provided pro bono legal services to Children’s Institute for decades. Is it important for you that your employer supports the work of many worthy nonprofits?

It’s very important to me that O’Melveny provides pro bono services and that it is committed to service. I’m so proud to work at O’Melveny, where I’ve been a partner for a few years and worked there for a total of 15.

O’Melveny takes very seriously the commitment to community service. Not just providing pro bono legal work but also, encouraging its staff to be a part of the communities they work and live in.

As one of the oldest law firms in Los Angeles and working with over 200 nonprofits, we also dedicate a ton of time, money and resources to provide pro bono services and partaking in community service to make Los Angeles a better place to live.

Is there anything else you’d like to share with us?

I’m so grateful to be a part of Children’s Institute. My intention here is to be fully committed to my role as a board member but I also want to involve my family in this organization. I want my young son to be involved in Children’s Institute as a child of Los Angeles and reap the benefits of the safety and community that this place brings – from Watts, Echo Park and to the rest of Los Angeles.