Meredith Blake

Founder and CEO, Cause & Affect

 

The chief strategist of Cause & Affect, Meredith Blake is a nationally recognized public interest attorney, advocate and social entrepreneur with twenty years of experience in creating positive social change. Meredith is the Founder & CEO of Cause & Affect, an innovative agency working with influencers to create social change movements. In this role, Meredith works with clients to create deep impact philanthropic initiatives and social action campaigns grounded in research and with an eye toward sustainability. To achieve the greatest possible success, Meredith also brings to bear her experience at the nexus of media and social change: helping to bring visibility to causes, reach the greatest constituency possible and create cross-platform initiatives that enable individuals to learn more and become part of the solution.

Prior to launching Cause & Affect, Meredith worked as a top executive at Participant Productions, a film production company founded in 2004 by former EBay president Jeff Skoll to create movies that are consciousness-raising as well as entertaining. In a dual role as Executive Vice President of Corporate & Community Affairs and President of the Participant Foundation, Meredith developed action campaigns for each film and oversaw the company’s charitable giving. Participant’s first slate of movies—including North Country, Syriana, Good Night, and Good Luck and the documentary Murderball—were nominated for 11 Academy Awards. Among Meredith’s notable achievements at Participant was the social action campaign that accompanied the release of Vice President Al Gore’s Oscar-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. This film and action campaign have been recognized among the greatest contributions to furthering discussion and forging solutions on the issue of global warming.

In addition to her background in media, Meredith provides her clients with years of experience as a nationally lauded activist and social entrepreneur. Straight out of law school at the age of 25, Meredith founded a nonprofit legal-services agency called Break the Cycle, which empowers youth to end domestic violence. As Founder and CEO, Meredith took the organization national in 2003. After building it from the ground up, Meredith was able to position the agency as a leader in the field and establish services now being replicated by others, effectively increasing the scope and impact of her vision.

Meredith was a fellow of the Fund for Social Entrepreneurs and the Violence Prevention Initiative of the California Wellness Foundation. She was also a fellow, and served on the board of directors, of Echoing Green, which provides first-stage funding to visionary leaders with bold ideas for social change.

Meredith has been profiled extensively in the media, including Variety, Premiere, the Los Angeles Times, and on National Public Radio, and has been honored by numerous organizations for her efforts in underserved communities. Her recent honors and awards include being named a 2006 SuperLawyer by Los Angeles Magazine and one of the “Top 20 Lawyers Under 40” by California Daily Journal, as well as receiving the Distinguished Service Award from Women Lawyers Association.

Born and raised in New York, Meredith graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a double major in political science and mass communications. She received her law degree from the UCLA School of Law. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband Jeremy and their two sons