Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen, SV2 Founder & Chairman Emeritus

Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen is the Founder, Chairman Emeritus and former Chairman (1998-2008) of SV2. Under her leadership, SV2 built a portfolio of 25 grantees and nearly 400 investors, and it won the Silicon Valley Association of Fundraising Professionals Philanthropic Organization of the Year in 2008.

Laura is the Founder and Board Chairman of Stanford PACS (Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society), a global research center committed to exploring ideas to create social change and publisher of the Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR). Laura has created and teaches Stanford Graduate School of Business’ first course on Strategic Philanthropy and Stanford University’s first course on Philanthropy and Social Innovation. Since 2000, Laura’s faculty appointments include Lecturer in Business Strategy at Stanford GSB; Lecturer in Public Policy; and Lecturer at Stanford School of Education.

Her New York Times bestselling book on individual giving, Giving 2.0: Transform Your Giving and Our World (published by Wiley’s Jossey-Bass 2011) as well as her blog and website (www.giving2.com) empower individuals of all backgrounds, ages, and passions to make their giving matter more. Laura is also a contributing writer to Worth Magazine, the Huffington Post, SSIR and the book, Local Mission, Global Vision, and she has been featured on Charlie Rose, CNN with Erin Burnett, MSNBC with Dylan Ratigan, and CNBC Power Lunch.

Laura is the President of the Marc and Laura Andreessen Foundation. She is a director of the Arrillaga Foundation and a board member of Sand Hill Foundation, Stanford University School of Education, SIEPR (Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research), Women’s Health at Stanford Medical Center, and an Advisory Council Member of the Global Philanthropy Forum. In 2008, Laura was selected as the only individual philanthropist in the Aspen Institute Philanthropy Group—an agenda-setting body of twenty national philanthropy leaders, who come together annually to identify issues that would benefit from sector-wide deliberation among grantees and grantors and among social enterprises and their investors—and the Donor Effectiveness Network—a group of 20 leaders committed to furthering the donor education field. Laura is a former Public Affairs Fellow at the Hoover Institution. She is a former trustee of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, The Hoover Institution, Community Foundation Silicon Valley, Castilleja School, Menlo School, Eastside Preparatory School, San Francisco Art Institute, and Children’s Health Council.

Laura holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, an MA in Education from Stanford School of Education, and a BA and MA in Art History from Stanford University. A native of Palo Alto, California, Laura is a graduate of Castilleja School and was honored with its Distinguished Alumna Award in 2010. She received the 2001 Jacqueline Kennedy Award for Women in Leadership, and in April 2005, she became a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute. She was also awarded the President’s Volunteer Service Award from the Points of Light Foundation in June 2005 and Children and Family Services’ Outstanding Silicon Valley Philanthropist Award in 2009. In 2010, Laura was the first individual awarded SV2’s “Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen Social Impact Award,” and in 2011, the World Affairs Council and its Global Philanthropy Forum honored her and her husband with the Global Citizen Award. Laura lives with her husband, technology entrepreneur Marc Andreessen, near Stanford University, and together they enjoy reading, art, writing, movies, yoga, athletics, and laughing as much as possible.

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