Taryn Higashi (Chair)

Taryn Higashi is the Executive Director of Unbound Philanthropy, which she joined as the first staff member in 2008. The Foundation has co-founded several vibrant institutions, such as the US-based Pop Culture Collaborative, and was one of the first supporters of the United We Dream Network, which in 2020 awarded Taryn their first ever Believer Award. In 2019, Unbound was awarded the Mover and Shaker Award for Bold Peer Organizing from the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy. Prior to Unbound, Taryn managed the migrant and refugee rights portfolio and was Deputy Director of the Human Rights Unit at the Ford Foundation, where in 2003 she co-founded the Four Freedoms Fund (FFF), a collaborative that has re-granted more than $150 million to state and local immigrant organizations. For her work conceiving and building the FFF Taryn, along with Geri Mannion of the Carnegie Corporation, was given the 2008 Scrivner Award for Creative Grantmaking from the Council on Foundations. Taryn is a Board member of the International Refugee Assistance Project  (IRAP) and a former Chair of the Advisory Board of the International Migration Initiative at the Open Society Foundations (OSF), and former Co-Chair of the Board of Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees (GCIR.)  She lives in New York City with her husband and son.