Lucy Bernholz

Lucy Bernholz is a philanthropy wonk. She seeks to understand and inform thriving civil societies in an age of digital dependencies. Bernholz is a Senior Research Scholar at Stanford University’s Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society and the Digital Civil Society Lab.

Prior to launching the Digital Civil Society Lab, Bernholz founded, ran, and sold the philanthropic consulting firm, Blueprint Research & Design. Bernholz has been a Visiting Scholar at The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and a Fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center, the Hybrid Reality Institute, and the New America Foundation.

Bernholz is the author of numerous articles and books about philanthropy, policy, and technology, including How We Give Now: Philanthropy by the Rest of Us, (2021, MIT Press); co-editor of Digital Technology and Democratic Theory, (2021, University of Chicago Press); and co-editor of Philanthropy in Democratic Societies, (2016, University of Chicago Press). She has written the annual Blueprint Series on Philanthropy and Digital Civil Society since 2010 and writes extensively on philanthropy, technology, information, and policy on her award-winning blog, philanthropy2173.com. This work led The Huffington Post to hail her as a “game changer.”  She is a frequent conference speaker and an oft-quoted media source for NPR, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Economic Times of India.

She has a B.A. from Yale University, where she played field hockey and captained the lacrosse team, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Stanford University.