Thomas C Layton

Tom is the president emeritus of the Wallace A. Gerbode Foundation which he led for more than 35 years. The foundation’s wide interests included broad civic engagement and inclusion (including youth engagement and participation), civil rights and liberties, conservation and the environment, population and reproductive rights and the arts. Tom is currently serving as a trustee/ director of the van Loben Sels/Rembe Rock Foundation, the Stewart R. Mott Foundation and Cow Hollow Foundation. In recent years, he has served as a trustee or director of a variety of organizations including the Ploughshares Fund, The Council on Foundations, Northern California Grantmakers (founding Chair), Interaction associates, Inc., the Funders Network on Population, Reproductive Rights and Health, Center for Lobbying in the Public Interest, Grantmakers in Film and Electronic Media, Hispanics in Philanthropy, the Non Profit Policy Council of California, Women and Philanthropy, Tides Foundation, the Center for Citizen Initiatives and the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy. Tom has been active in a number of “philanthropic infrastructure” organizations such as Environmental Grantmakers Association, Grantmakers in the Arts, Bay Area Blacks in Philanthropy, Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy, and the Council on Foundations Associates. He serves as an advisor to a fund at the San Francisco Foundation. Tom has received numerous awards including the Council on Foundations’ Robert W. Scrivner Award for Creative Grantmaking, the National Society of Fundraising Executives’ Outstanding Grantmaker’s Award, The California Women’s Foundation Ground Breaker-Dream Maker Award, Asian American/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy Banyan Tree Award and SPUR’s Silver Spur Award. He has published occasional articles dealing with the philanthropic process and the nonprofit sector. Tom was born in San Francisco and raised in Carmel. He holds an undergraduate degree in philosophy and a graduate degree in Urban Studies, both from Occidental College.