Linda L. Lader ’08 M.Div.

Linda LeSourd Lader is president of the Renaissance Institute, which she co-founded in 1981, and a Presbyterian minister, associated with Washington, D.C.’s historic New York Avenue Presbyterian Church.  Reflecting a career-long commitment to non-profit initiatives, she is a trustee of the Tony Blair Foundation and Communities in Schools, and has served on the boards of Habitat for Humanity International, International Justice Mission, Harvard Divinity School’s Center for the Study of Values in Public Life, Spoleto Festival USA, the International Tennis Hall of Fame, Alpha Ministries International, and the American International University in London.  From 1993 to 1996, she assisted with White House liaison to American communities of faith and advised the president on public policy issues pertaining to religion.  Associated with the National Prayer Breakfast Ministries throughout the 1970s, she coordinated the 1979 National Prayer Breakfast.  In recognition of such public service, she received the International Women’s Foundation Leadership Award in 2000.  She has served as a Fellow at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture and is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University (a fifth-generation graduate) and the Emma Willard School.  Her editing work continues the tradition of her parents – Leonard LeSourd, longtime founding editor of Guideposts, and Catherine Marshall, author of A Man Called Peter, Christy and other best-selling books.