Larry McGill is vice president for knowledge services at Foundation Center. He joined the organization as vice president for research in 2007, overseeing the research on foundation giving trends, practices, and emerging issues in the field. Under his leadership, Foundation Center’s research program expanded rapidly to create dynamic online platforms for aggregating and visualizing global data on philanthropy and placing it in the larger context of emerging needs and international aid flows. As vice president for knowledge services, he also oversees the work of CF Insights, Glasspockets, Global Partnerships, GrantCraft, IssueLab, and Philanthropy News Digest.

Prior to joining Foundation Center, he served as director of research and planning for the Cultural Policy and the Arts National Data Archive (CPANDA) at Princeton University and as deputy director of the Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. From 1994 to 2001, Dr. McGill was director of research for the Freedom Forum and its operating programs, the Media Studies Center and the First Amendment Center. Prior to that, he was manager of news audience research at NBC. He has taught at Northwestern University, where he earned his Ph.D. in Sociology in 1987.

As a geographer and programmer, Jake Garcia has worked on GIS projects for NASA, Al Gore's Climate Project, the City of New York, and the U.S. Army. At Foundation Center, he builds mapping applications, data visualizations, semantic analysis scripts, and application programming interfaces. In April 2011, Jake was the lead developer on a project that won the Large Organization award in the World Bank's "Apps for Development" contest. He received an M.A. in geography from Hunter College and a B.A. in political science from Brown University.

Jen Bokoff is the director of knowledge services at Foundation Center. She develops partnerships and projects that build knowledge and strategy in the social sector, with an eye specifically on grantmakers. In other words, she goes to sleep thinking about how brilliant curation of qualitative and quantitative data can drive smarter decisions in philanthropy. She also runs GrantCraft, a free service that taps the practical wisdom of funders to improve the collective knowledge of the philanthropy field. In her role, Jen regularly speaks at conferences and facilitates workshops with funders, and connects people to resources, ideas, and one another.

A graduate of Tufts University, Jen studied community health and sociology and spent two years involved in the Learning by Giving philanthropy program. She serves on the Alumni Council as the chair of the development committee and also serves on an advisory committee for The Moth’s education programs. In her spare time, she is an amateur comedic improviser, avid Brooklyn nerd, and second base woman on Foundation Center's winning-in-spirit softball team. Jen is a firm believer that social innovation and change happen only when passionate people across different industries collaborate; being a strong connector enables this growth in local communities and throughout the world.

Working at the intersection of financial flows and sustainable development, Lauren is an expert in Financing for Development, strategy and partnerships. She is a a dynamic and creative leader who can connect big picture concepts to detailed oriented ideas while approaching her work through both a local and global lens.

Lauren’s work at Candid focuses on the philanthropy and civil society, their connections to each other and their role within the broader development ecosystem. She leads the Global Projects and Partnerships team to draw insight from data, developing research and projects that provide timely information on trends, and that support organizations to make strategic decisions. The work also focuses on data collection, sharing and education, as well as capacity building and leading key partnerships to ensure collaboration across the field.

Lauren is a natural high energy leader, who believes that complex societal issues can-not be solved alone or in silos, and hence expertise must be leveraged across a range of platforms and people.

A thought leader for the field, Lauren represents philanthropy in global fora, frequently authoring and contributing to blogs and research reports, speaking at conferences and facilitating workshops around the world. Lauren is passionate about the need for greater collaboration to achieve stronger, faster peacebuilding outcomes and the use and achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Lauren has worked with The World Bank, the Development Assistance Committee at the OECD in Paris, the World Heritage Center at UNESCO and with the United Nations Office of the Resident Coordinator in Dili, East Timor during the exit of the peace keeping mission.

Before pursuing a career in international development, Lauren worked in the private and public sector in Australia in urban and rural planning.

Lauren holds a Master’s Degree in International Development (with Distinction) and a Bachelor’s Degree in Planning (with Honors) from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) as well as a certificate from the Overseas Development Institute and London School of Economics in Conflict and Humanitarian response.

Janet Camarena serves as the director of transparency initiatives for Foundation Center, working to champion greater foundation transparency. A key part of her role is to provide leadership for Glasspockets.org, which she helped to found and build in 2010. Glasspockets provides a variety of tools and features designed to encourage philanthropic openness. It has been recognized by the Webby Awards and was also selected as one of the Top 100 websites by PC Magazine. Janet also oversees and authors articles on the Glasspockets’ Transparency Talk blog.

Prior to her current role, Janet served as director of Foundation Center’s regional office in San Francisco for 15 years. She led a team of six professionals in delivering extensive outreach and capacity building services throughout the Western United States, planning and overseeing training for social sector audiences, carrying out donor development and cultivation, and producing live and online programming such as the popular Meet the Grantmakers and Philanthropy Chat podcast series.

Janet was among 48 nonprofit leaders selected for the American Express Nonprofit Leadership Academy. She completed her undergraduate work at Mills College and received a master’s degree in library and information science from San Jose State University. She serves on the boards of the Alameda County Library Foundation and Community Initiatives, a fiscal sponsorship provider.

Renée oversees the creation of digital solutions that communicate the important work of philanthropy. As managing director of web design & development for Foundation Center, she leads the design and development of innovative online experiences that tell the stories of the efforts of foundations around the globe. Recent solutions include the new foundationcenter.org, sdgfunders.org, peaceandsecurityindex.org, and glasspockets.org. Since joining Foundation Center in 1997, Renée has helped the organization adapt to evolving technologies in order to advance knowledge about philanthropy. Renée began her social sector career at GMHC, the nation’s largest service organization for people living with HIV, leading 100+ social service volunteers and launching the organization’s first website in 1995. Renée holds a Bachelor of Science degree in advertising from the University of Florida’s College of Journalism.