Janet Camarena

Janet Camarena serves as the director of Transparency Initiatives for the Foundation Center, working to champion greater foundation transparency. A key part of her role is to provide leadership for Glasspockets.org, which she helped to found and build in 2010. Glasspockets provides a variety of tools and features designed to encourage philanthropic openness. It has been recognized by the Webby Awards and was also selected as one of the Top 100 websites by PC Magazine. Previously, she served as Director of the Foundation Center’s regional office in San Francisco for 15 years. She led a team of six professionals in delivering extensive outreach and capacity building services throughout the Western United States, planning and overseeing training for social sector audiences, carrying out donor development and cultivation, and producing live and online programming such as the popular Meet the Grantmakers and Philanthropy Chat podcast series.

As a first-generation American, whose family hails from Mexico, Janet recognizes the importance of access for all to information and educational services and has also played an important role in Foundation Center’s creation and delivery of culturally and linguistically competent resources on grantseeking. She was among 48 nonprofit leaders selected for the American Express Nonprofit Leadership Academy. She completed her undergraduate work at Mills College and received a Master’s degree in Library and Information Science from San Jose State University. In addition to serving on the board of Community Initiatives, she also serves as a board member of the Alameda County Library Foundation.