Tamara Toles O’Laughlin Named President and CEO of The New York Women’s Foundation

At a Glance

• The New York Women’s Foundation has named Tamara Toles O’Laughlin its next President and CEO.
• She succeeds Ana L. Oliveira, who steps down after more than 20 years leading The Foundation.
• Toles O’Laughlin starts in the new year, as The Foundation marks its 40th anniversary.
• She currently leads the Environmental Grantmakers Association, a global network of more than 200 foundations.

The New York Women’s Foundation has named Tamara Toles O’Laughlin its next President and CEO. She succeeds Ana L. Oliveira, who will step down after more than 20 years leading The Foundation.

She starts in the new year. Her arrival coincides with The Foundation’s 40th anniversary. An activist and trusted advisor in philanthropy and nonprofit leadership, she is known for shifting power, practice and resources toward community-led solutions.

“We are excited to welcome Tamara at such an important moment for The New York Women’s Foundation,” said Mary Baglivo and Tanya Odom, Co-Chairs of The Foundation’s Board of Directors. “Ana Oliveira’s extraordinary leadership over the past 20 years has shaped The Foundation into what it is today, and we are deeply grateful for all she has made possible. Tamara understands that communities know what they need, and that philanthropy is most powerful when it backs their leadership. She recognizes the strength of what has been built and sees how much more is possible.”

Toles O’Laughlin is President and CEO of the Environmental Grantmakers Association (EGA), a global network of more than 200 foundations that hold approximately $200 billion in assets and grant more than $2.95 billion annually to environmental causes. She has led it for over five years, working with grantmakers to align philanthropic responses to today’s conditions.

She founded Climate Critical. The global network fights burnout in the environmental workforce. She has served as North America Director at 350.org and 350 Action and as Executive Director of the Maryland Environmental Health Network. She was a founding supporter of the Maryland Campaign for Environmental Human Rights, is Senior Advisor to initiatives of the Green Leadership Trust, Climate Refugees and Friends of the Earth Action, and serves as a foundation and institutional trustee.

She is a Brooklyn native. She holds multiple advanced degrees focused on law, energy and environment. Her philanthropic experience runs from leading organizations that raise money for essential work to advising foundation presidents and trustees, including service as Chair of the Good Trouble Fund at Ben & Jerry’s Foundation, which supports grassroots campaigns and advocates.

The Board conducted a national search. Anne E. Delaney and Lola C. West, Co-Chairs of the Board’s Search Committee, said Toles O’Laughlin distinguished herself throughout with her thought leadership and humane approach to the people around her.

“Tamara is a rigorous thinker who knows how to listen,” Delaney and West said. “She came into every conversation with a clear sense of what she could bring to The Foundation and how she could continue to grow its impact. She knows where she wants to go and how to bring people with her.”

Toles O’Laughlin has written extensively about siloed, separate problem-solving as a way to change people’s lives. She calls it misguided. In her environmental work, that view has meant an intersectional approach on class, gender and race, addressing the consequences of decisions and creating accountability to those who hold the power to make them.

“The New York Women’s Foundation addresses deeply connected issues shaping people’s lives,” Toles O’Laughlin said. “What happens in your home, neighborhood and community shapes what is possible in every other part of your life. The Foundation has long trusted women and gender-expansive leaders to understand the connections and build solutions within their own communities, on their own terms. That belief in community is what draws me to The Foundation and what I intend to carry forward.”

Oliveira led for more than two decades. She grew The Foundation’s scale and reach while keeping community leadership at its center. Annual grantmaking rose from $1.7 million to more than $10 million during her tenure, supporting work on economic justice, health and bodily autonomy, civic engagement and other issues facing women and gender-expansive people. The Foundation also deepened its investment in underfunded movements, including disability justice and LGBTQIA communities.

For Oliveira, that growth has been about what The Foundation makes possible: organizations it backed early that became established forces in their communities, and ideas once overlooked by philanthropy that gained wider support. She sees that in Toles O’Laughlin.

“Tamara understands this moment and what philanthropy can make possible in it,” Oliveira said. “She listens before deciding what needs to happen next and understands that our role is not to arrive with the answers. It is to stand alongside the women and gender-expansive leaders who know their communities and make sure they have the resources to lead. I know that she will bring her strategic thinking and full commitment to The Foundation.”

Established in 1987 and based in New York City, The New York Women’s Foundation is among the largest women-led grantmaking organizations in the world. In its nearly 40-year history, it has awarded over $141 million to more than 500 organizations. To learn more, visit nywf.org.