Claire Bernard is the President of the Mariposa Foundation, a private family foundation. She oversees grant making and operations, supervises the endowment’s investments, and is a Mariposa trustee. The foundation gives anonymously, concentrating on humanitarian, environmental, and New York City organizations. Claire’s dedication to better serving grantees has led her to conduct site visits around the world, including such places as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Kenya, Bangladesh, Liberia, and Colombia. Nationally, she has worked closely with those affected by Hurricane Katrina, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and Hurricane Sandy. Claire speaks and writes about the nonprofit world and has written for Vogue, The Huffington Post, and Vanity Fair, where she had a column on vanityfair.com sharing 1-Click tips of how readers can get involved and detailing her visits to mountaintop mining removal sites in Virginia, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill site, and lobbying in D.C.
Claire has been a trustee of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) since 2013, where she chairs the Development committee and serves on the Executive, Finance, Investment, and Governance and Nominating committees. She has also served on International Rescue Committee's Children's Committee, the Global Fund for Women's Philanthropy Committee, the advisory board of Narrative Magazine, the Friends Committee of New Yorkers for Children, and most recently as an Oxfam GB Ambassador and their Programme Review Board.
Claire received a BA with honors from Brown University and holds an MFA in writing from Columbia University.
