Nicole Gallant

Managing Director, US & Europe, Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation

As a Managing Director of the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, Nicole Gallant plays a lead role in sourcing new investments and working with the leadership of those organizations as an operating partner and board member as they grow to build capacity and to achieve their maximum impact. As a member of the Foundation’s senior leadership team, she also helps to execute the Foundation’s strategy and contributes to its thought leadership and external outreach. Nicole supports DRK portfolio organizations in Europe and North America.

Nicole has a track record of enabling and empowering local, national, and international social change organizations and their leaders. Most recently, she has been supporting social change leaders and their organizations through consulting and coaching as a Founder and Principal of Downie Street. She has extensive program, implementation, and performance management design experience for clients such as UNICEF, USAID, Academy for Conflict Transformation, and philanthropies including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation, and the Annie E Casey Foundation. She also teaches trauma-informed peacebuilding for professionals working in international and domestic conflicts in North America, Africa, the Middle East, and Europe.

As Senior Vice President at United Way of New York City, Nicole led program and policy initiatives supporting hundreds of community-based organizations to increase the self-sufficiency and resiliency of low-income New Yorkers. Nicole served as the Senior Education Advisor and Director of Learn and Serve America in President Obama’s Administration, where she created the education strategy for the Serve America Act, leveraging education as a pathway to opportunity for children and youth from historically disadvantaged communities. Prior to that appointment, Nicole was a Programme Executive at the Atlantic Philanthropies, overseeing a nationwide Learning portfolio committed to increasing education equity for children and youth from low-income communities across the United States and Canada.

She holds a Bachelor’s degree in African American Studies and a Master’s Degree in Public Policy and Administration, both from Columbia University. Her work is published in the Journal of African-American History, and she is a proud AmeriCorps alum.