(BALTIMORE – October 24, 2025) – Be sure to RSVP for BMORENews.com’s next Joe Manns Black Wall Street Awards at Coppin State University’s College of Business on Thursday, November 6, 2025, from 6 to 8 pm. RSVP for Black Wall Street NEW BALTIMORE at blackwallstreetnewbaltimore.eventbrite.com.
Honorees include Laura Johnson of the United Way.
Who is Laura?
Laura Johnson is an accomplished community leader and innovator, currently serving as Senior Vice President and Chief Acceleration Officer of the new Social Impact Accelerator (SIA) Division at United Way of Central Maryland (UWCM). Johnson oversees all aspects of the SIA including data and research, marketing and innovation, capacity building for nonprofits, entrepreneurs and resident leaders, along with development of data-driven tools to inform community-wide decision-making. Reporting directly to UWCM’s President and CEO, Franklyn Baker, Johnson supports the organization’s charge to make communities move livable, opportunities more equal, families more stable, and lives better across UWCM’s footprint of Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Harford, and Howard Counties, and Baltimore City.
With more than 30 years of experience in nonprofit management, community affairs, marketing innovation, and human services, Johnson has held executive level positions in various mission-driven, world-class organizations spanning maternal health, environmental stewardship, cultural arts, food retail, out-of-school time, and social justice sectors.
A notable aspect of her background is her connection to entrepreneurship fostered by her late father, Eddie Simpkins, a pioneering serial entrepreneur. Simpkins was a master sheet metal fabricator and HVAC technician who was the only minority business awarded the HVAC contract for the Hyatt Regency Baltimore built in 1981, and he landed many other major HVAC projects, including for the National Guard Armories in Baltimore, University of MD School of Nursing, along with Proctor and Gamble. In addition, he opened a Baltimore nightclub called Club 2900 on Greenmount Ave – all the while building a legacy of excellence, community empowerment, and economic independence.
Inspired by her father’s achievements and powered by the United Way’s Social Impact Accelerator, Laura launched an initiative which provides aspiring entrepreneurs with free access to The Lonely Entrepreneur Learning Community, a one-stop hub for the knowledge, tools and support needed to start or grow a business. United Way, with support from corporate and philanthropic partners, has invested in 100 entrepreneurs over the last two years through The Lonely Entrepreneur initiative and the United Way’s Changemaker Challenge.
Prior to joining the United Way, Johnson served as Vice President for the National Summer Learning Association (NSLA) – the only national nonprofit exclusively focused on summer learning as a solution to closing the achievement and opportunity gaps in America. As the “architect” of NSLA’s $1.65M State Summer Learning Network, she co-led a national partnership with the Council of Chief State School Officers to support State Education Agencies in scaling evidenced-based practices to reimagine traditional summer school models across the U.S. with the goal of mitigating the deep impact of unfinished learning during the COVID-19 crisis.
Additionally, Johnson co-created dozens of parent resources as well as research-to-practice tools to mitigate summer learning loss and executed national advocacy initiatives, including NSLA’s inaugural DiscoverSummer.org national campaign to connect families with low-cost, quality summer programs, its annual Summer Learning Week, and a 2016 partnership with the White House, the Summer Opportunity Project under the Obama Administration.
As a believer in the power of arts education, Johnson spearheaded partnerships and media relations at the Arts Education Partnership (an inter-agency initiative formerly with the U.S. Department of Education and National Endowment of the Arts); helped shape a National Action Agenda for Advancing the Arts in Education and launched ArtsEdSearch – a first-of-its- kind online clearinghouse of research, focused on the outcomes of arts education for students and educators.
From bottlenose dolphins to Beethoven to healthy babies, Johnson enjoyed a robust professional career as a community affairs and communications executive at two of Maryland’s premier cultural organizations – the National Aquarium in Baltimore and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra – and directed statewide advocacy and marketing communications efforts to support hundreds of volunteers, elected officials, corporate and media partners all “marching for babies” for the Georgia Chapter of the March of Dimes, the foremost nonprofit dedicated to pregnancy wellness and infant health.
A longtime education advocate, Johnson has served as Education Committee co-chair for the NAACP Maryland State Conference and 2nd Vice President for the NAACP Howard County Branch. Dedicated to shaping an equitable and nurturing community where all young people and families thrive, she is a member of the Board of Trustees for Generation Teach, a founding member of Howard County Library’s Racial Equity Alliance, and past PTA president at Ducketts Lane Elementary School in Howard County. One of her proudest roles was serving as a member of the 2019 Education Subcommittee Transition Team for Howard County Executive, Dr. Calvin Ball.
Johnson is a past recipient of the 2019 Howard County NAACP’s Natalie Woodson Education Award, the 2022 Howard County Commission for Women – “So She Did” honoree, and 2024 City of Hope Missionary Baptist Church H.O.P.E. (Helping Other People Thru Empowerment) awardee.
Johnson is a proud Western High School dove and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communication and English from Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY; lives in Elkridge, Maryland with her husband of 31 years, Henry Johnson, and is the proud mom of Isaiah Johnson – a sophomore at Morehouse College.
