Gara LaMarche

Education

LaMarche attended Saint Bernard’s, a small all-boys high school in Uncasville, Connecticut, before enrolling in Columbia College, from which he graduated in 1976.

Career

LaMarche previously served as president and Chief Executive Officer of The Atlantic Philanthropies. Prior to joining the Atlantic Philanthropies, he served as vice president and director of United States. programs for The Open Society Institute. In his tenure at the Atlantic Philanthropies, LaMarche led the foundation’s shift to a social justice approach to grant-making.

While at Columbia, LaMarche became the youngest member ever to serve on an American Civil Liberties Union policy committee.

From 1988 to 1990, LaMarche was director of the Freedom-to-Write Program of the Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists and Novelists association American Center, when Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists and Novelists association played a leading role in campaigns to lift Iran’s fatwa against Salman Rushdie and controversy over arts funding in the United States. From 1990 to 1996, he was director of the Free Expression Project at the Open Society Institute, until he was named the director of United States. programs.

While at the Atlantic Philanthropies, LaMarche was credited with improving communications and transparency at the foundation. The Atlantic Philanthropies have made grants totaling more than $4 billion since 1982, including a $25 million pledge to advocacy groups supporting United States. health care reform between 2008-2010.

Affiliations and writing

LaMarche is a columnist for The Huffington Post and The Nation, as well as a blogger in his own right.

He has written a number of articles on human rights and is the editor of the 1996 anthology, Speech and Equality: Do We Really Have to Choose? LaMarche has taught at The New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service and at the New School University and John Jay College. LaMarche serves on the boards of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, StoryCorps and The White House Project. He is on the Leadership Council of Hispanics in Philanthropy.

Achievements

• He is the winner of the 2010 Hubert H. Humphrey Civil and Human Rights Award from the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and the Community Change Champion Award from the Center for Community Change.