About Us
The world is brimming with innovators whose ideas can shape our region and change the world. At the Goldhirsh Foundation, we identify the brightest emerging talent and give them the tools to best support their success.
We hold ourselves to the same high standard of the talent we seek to cultivate. We are a small team, passionate about our work in social innovation. We strive to manifest that beyond our investments—by creating events and mission-driven initiatives meant to bring together thinkers and doers across a spectrum of disciplines.
The Goldhirsh Foundation has been making grants for almost a decade, but was re-launched in 2012 in Los Angeles, where the majority of our
grant-making occurs. In 2013, the Goldhirsh Foundation will be conducting its grantmaking via the My LA2050 Challenge.
The Goldhirsh Foundation is currently hiring a Team Coordinator. Learn more here.
The Team
TARA ROTH McCONAGHY is the president of the Goldhirsh Foundation. Prior to this role, Tara bridged the worlds of marketing, media, and philanthropy as the founding COO of GOOD and a social strategy advisor. Tara began her career in marketing and business development for NBCinternet and Infoseek. She has worked with organizations such as Participant Media, Fifteen Foundation, and the New Schools Venture Fund. As a senior advisor to GOOD, Tara helped launch the Pepsi Refresh Project. Tara received a bachelor’s degree at Cornell University, and has an MBA from Oxford University where she was awarded a Skoll scholarship in social entrepreneurship. Tara serves on the advisory board of 826LA.
ANNA SILVERMAN is a social innovation manager at the Goldhirsh Foundation. Prior to this role, she managed non-profit partners on GOOD.is and contributed to the launch of GOOD Maker, GOOD's collaborative funding platform. Anna also served as a grants manager for the Pepsi Refresh Project, and worked in donor relations at the non-profit the Hispanic College Fund. She received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia.
SHAUNA NEP is a social innovation manager at the Goldhirsh Foundation. She has a background in program development, and in mobilizing online and offline engagement with various organizations in Los Angeles. She previously worked in programming at the Urban and Environmental Policy Institute at Occidental College and as program director of the Woolly School Garden Program. She has a master’s degree in bioethics from New York University.
CLAIRE HOFFMAN is a director of the Goldhirsh Foundation. She writes for national magazines, covering culture, celebrity, religion, business, and whatever else seems interesting. She has a master’s degree in religion from the University of Chicago, and a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University. She serves on the Los Angeles boards of KIPP and LIFT. Her daughters, Josie and Vivian, sit firmly at the center of her universe.
BEN GOLDHIRSH is the co-founder and CEO of GOOD, a global community of, by, and for pragmatic idealists working towards individual and collective progress. Outside of GOOD, Ben is the Chairman of The Goldhirsh Foundation, an organization built to help social innovators implement and scale solutions to critical societal challenges. A co-founder and board member of City Year Los Angeles, Goldhirsh graduated from Brown University and currently resides in Los Angeles.