Lara Galinsky
Senior Fellow in Social Innovation
Lara Galinsky is an author, speaker, expert on working on purpose, and senior vice president of Echoing Green, a groundbreaking nonprofit organization with the mission to unleash next generation talent to solve the world’s biggest problems.
She speaks and leads workshops at colleges, universities, corporations, and nonprofits around the world. Two themes run through Lara’s career: helping individuals identify their unique role within the ecosystem of social change; and recognizing and championing promising social innovators working to solve the mostly deeply entrenched social, political and environmental problems of our time.
Lara began her career at Do Something, where she was a national program director. There she worked with 20,000 educators and 4 million young people to organize service learning and community service projects. Lara also created Do Something’s BRICK Award (now called the Do Something Award) to celebrate and financially support the most outstanding young leaders in America generating community change with demonstrated impact.
After five years at Do Something, Lara moved to Echoing Green, the organization she now helps lead and for which she runs the day-to-day operations. Echoing Green is best known for its flagship Fellowship program, which has awarded over 500 emerging social entrepreneurs in over 40 countries with more than $30 million in seed funding over the last twenty-five years.
Most recently, Lara launched Echoing Green’s newest program, Work on Purpose, which inspires and equips the Millennial generation to build lives and careers that are both right for them and good for the world. She is the co-author of two books that have become cornerstones of the program: Work on Purpose (2011) and Be Bold: Create a Career with Impact (2007).
Lara sits on the advisory boards of the Institute for Social Innovation and the Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship at Wesleyan University. She received her Masters in Communications with honors from Columbia University and her Bachelors from Wesleyan University, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She is a graduate of the Institute for Not-for-Profit Management Leadership Development Program at Columbia University, the Public Policy Institute at Georgetown, and was selected for CORO Leadership New York.
One of Lara’s favorite quotes sums up her career ideology: “Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.” – Basil King
