Levani Lipton: Empowering Others

by Stephanie Neil

Levani Lipton

She grew up in paradise, on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. But what Levani Lipton reflects on most from her childhood are her days off the island, traveling with her mother, a photojournalist who introduced her to a world filled with poverty, starvation, and disease.

“I remember going to India when I was six years old,” Lipton says. “I remember seeing children my age who didn’t have a limb or were crawling along the street . . . it stayed with me.”

Because of that experience, Lipton, 31, has shaped her adult life around helping underprivileged women and children. She is the executive director of the Ananda Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded ten years ago by her grandmother, which gives grants and micro-credit loans to women and children in underdeveloped countries. The focus is on providing them with the tools needed for education, vocation development, and healthcare.

To date, the foundation has existed solely on a family endowment. But that won’t last forever, which is what brought Lipton to Harvard Extension School, where she received her Certificate of Special Studies in Administration and Management in June. She needed to learn to raise money and, therefore, stuck close to the courses on fundraising and nonprofit management. She acquired both theoretical and practical knowledge. “I learned about governance, finances, fundraising, and the importance of communicating with your donors,” she says.

Because of her altruistic endeavors, Lipton was nominated by her classmates for the distinguished Phyllis Strimling Award, which she received at Commencement. The award is named in honor of the former director of the Radcliffe Seminars.

Lipton, who received a bachelor’s from Hawaii Pacific University and a master’s degree from the University of Hawaii, is the first in her family to receive a college degree. She often returns to her alma maters to lecture on issues of personal responsibility. “I think it’s important that we, as global citizens, look beyond our boundaries. Many decisions we make—our life decisions and the values we teach our children—may affect someone else thousands of miles away. Our responsibility is to acknowledge that most of the world lives in poverty.”

To that end, Lipton’s Ananda Foundation has already helped people in Vietnam, China, Thailand, and India. In India the organization is providing assistance to the “untouchable women” known as dalit. Ananda, working with a local organization, purchased six computers to train 75 girls, providing them with the opportunity to find better employment.

Aided by her education at Harvard Extension School and her new network of friends in the Boston area, Lipton continues her efforts to raise money. She opened an Ananda Foundation office in Cambridge, where she now lives, while her mother maintains the office in Hawaii. But it really doesn’t matter where the offices are because Lipton is always out in the field meeting the people she helps. In fact, immediately after receiving her graduate certificate she took a two-month trip, visiting six countries, Africa, and areas affected by the tsunami.

Ananda, from the ancient Indian language of Sanskrit, means “bliss.” It is the Ananda Foundation’s mission to bring happiness into the lives of the people it helps.