Darren Isom

Darren is a partner in Bridgespan’s San Francisco office, where he advises mission-driven organizations and philanthropic foundations in support of equity and justice. He leads the firm’s work with arts-, culture-, and narrative-focused organizations and works with high-net-worth individuals and family philanthropies focused on power and long-term systems change. He is also the host of the podcast Dreaming in Color: Creating New Narratives in Leadership, which offers leaders of color space to share how they have leveraged their unique assets and abilities to embrace excellence, drive impact, and more fully define what success looks like.

Through his advisory work and field leadership, Darren engages philanthropic and social sector leaders on questions of institutional power, legitimacy, and long-term equity and impact. His recent publications include The Future of Equitable Philanthropy (Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2024), A New Look at How U.S. Nonprofits Get Really Big (Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2024), “A Space Beyond“ (Nonprofit Quarterly, 2023), “Lessons on Leadership and Community from 25 Leaders of Color” (Harvard Business Review, 2022), “What Everyone Can Learn From Leaders of Color” (Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2022), “Endow Black-Led Nonprofits” (Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2021), and “Race- and Place-Based Philanthropy: Learnings from Funders Focused on Equitable Impact” (Bridgespan.org, 2021).

Darren was the founder and executive director of the Memphis Music Initiative (MMI), an ambitious five-year, $20 million grantmaking and community arts development initiative. There, he led efforts to use targeted investments and programmatic offerings to strengthen youth and community music engagement activities for low-income Black and Latino youth and communities.

Earlier in his career, Darren worked as the art, design, and public programming director for the Times Square Alliance, where he planned and implemented public art and performance initiatives throughout the Times Square District. Prior to that role, he served as vice president of programs for Groundwork, a start-up youth services organization in East New York, Brooklyn, supporting young people in underserved communities through experiential learning and enrichment programs.

A seventh-generation New Orleans native, Darren is a graduate of Howard University, the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris, and Columbia Business School’s Institute for Nonprofit Management. He currently serves on the boards of Beloved Community of New Orleans; Collage Dance Collective of Memphis; the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts at UC Davis; the Sciences Po American Foundation; Donors of Color Network; and the Oakland Museum of California.