Modern office space with people working at desks and having a meeting by large windows. Bookshelves line the walls, greenery decorates the area, and a small dog walks across the carpeted floor.
Photo: Mel Taing

Our Vision

We imagine a just, vibrant, and healthy world centered around shared humanity and the equal value of all people.

Our Story

Founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2005, Wagner Foundation began with a local focus, funding programs supporting elementary and secondary education, universities, hospitals, and human service organizations across Greater Boston. These early investments leveraged Boston’s well-known strengths in health and education and focused on making a positive impact on our local community by meeting their immediate needs.

After learning about the work of the global health nonprofit, Partners In Health (PIH), and traveling to many of their sites, our founders were compelled to expand the foundation’s grantmaking in both geographic reach and by issue area. They witnessed firsthand the importance of holistic, systems level investments in people and place to address our world’s most pressing and complex global challenges. Additionally, our founders were inspired by PIH’s accompaniment approach to care delivery, which centers on our shared humanity by being there with and for patients for as long as it takes.

Today, we proudly accompany organizations working in the US, Africa, Latin America, and Haiti to improve health equity by strengthening healthcare systems and tackling the underlying social drivers that impact health. We fund initiatives designed to foster inclusive economies that provide everyone with the opportunity to achieve economic wellbeing. And our work in art & culture aims to nurture a contemporary visual arts ecosystem that cultivates empathy, healing, and a more caring and healthy society.

At Wagner Foundation, we are working for a just and vibrant world where each of us can realize good health, economic wellbeing, and the transformative power of art and culture.

Two dark green hands hold a heart shape with an eye in the center, featuring a green globe inside the eye, symbolizing global care and awareness. Blue rays emanate from behind the heart.

Our Mission

To build healthier communities in the US and around the world by investing in people and places that have been undervalued in global society, so we can all live in a just, vibrant, and healthy world.

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Photo: Mel Taing

Our Role

Everyone has a role to play in supporting the fabric of a healthy community.

We believe those closest to the problem are best placed to imagine and shape the solutions. We place trust and authority in people with lived experience who know what they need. Our role is to stay humble, listen, and support our partners who work closely with the communities we serve.

While we are all human beings with the same basic needs, each and every place in the world is unique, and requires a deep understanding of the needs of the community. Replicable solutions don’t always work and fail to recognize context. Place is our lens to understand the cultural contexts, community needs, and environmental conditions that influence our ability to have a positive social impact.

To us, a “place-based” approach means respecting the historical, cultural, and political contexts of each place, and tailoring solutions that fit the realities of today. We support organizations that are deeply integrated into the communities where they work. We want to understand how our partners engage with individuals from the communities they serve, and how those local perspectives and needs are driving their work.

A stylized blue hand forms an L shape, with a green map pin merged with an eye symbol placed above the thumb and index finger, all on a pale yellow background.

Everyone has a role to play in supporting the fabric of a healthy community.

Team
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Photo: Mel Taing

Carisa Bobskill

Office Engagement Manager and Executive Assistant
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Photo: Mel Taing

Hillary Creedon

Digital Platforms Manager
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Photo: Mel Taing

David Demosthenes

Grants & Impact Manager
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Photo: Mel Taing

Caroline Easley

Deputy Director
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Photo: Mel Taing

Karen Harrison

Director of Communications
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Photo: Mel Taing

Bridget Miskell

Senior Finance & Operations Manager
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Photo: Mel Taing

Ruvimbo Mushavi

Program Officer, International Partnerships
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Photo: Mel Taing

Lily Sargeant

Senior Program Officer, US Partnerships
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Photo: Mel Taing

Abigail Satinsky

Program Officer and Curator,
Art & Culture
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Photo: Mel Taing

Charlotte Wagner

Founder & President
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Photo: Mel Taing

Maggie Wong

Gallery Coordinator
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Photo: Mel Taing

Hunter Wagner

Chief Snacking Officer

What We Believe

At Wagner Foundation, we imagine and work for a vibrant, inclusive world. A world where every farmer can support their family. Where all neighborhoods have access to health care. Where artists are celebrated and cultural institutions flourish. A world where everyone has space to think deeply about the status quo and how it might evolve for the better. Where inequity and injustice make way for compassion, community, and connection.

We understand that making this world a reality requires bold vision, big-picture perspective, patience, and hard work. It demands that we understand and confront the root causes of inequity and injustice, bring creative solutions to systemic challenges, and draw on the deep expertise of our partners.

At Wagner, we are committed to trying new things. To celebrating successes and learning from mistakes. Playing the long game while marking incremental victories. Working to deepen understanding, to find shared values and common ground, so that perspectives broaden, and attitudes begin to shift. Because we believe it’s when culture shifts that we create real change and build lasting solutions.

For two decades, we’ve been working to build healthier communities and a more just, vibrant world.

Our Space

Located in the heart of Cambridge, Massachusetts, our office is more than our workspace, it’s also a vibrant place to build connections and incubate ideas for new ways forward — because sometimes we all need space to come together, think out loud, and spark conversations that lead to positive change.

A group of people converse and hold drinks in a well-lit hallway during a social or networking event. Some people wear name tags, and the atmosphere appears lively and engaging.
Photo: Flavio DeBarros
Our Gallery

Hosting two exhibitions per year, our on-site gallery features rotating exhibitions by local, national, and internationally renowned contemporary visual artists whose work addresses the role of art in civic life.

Learn more about our gallery

A group of people sit facing a panel of three speakers in a modern, well-lit room with wooden floors and black accents. One panelist gestures while speaking, and the audience listens attentively.
Photo: Flavio DeBarros
A Convening Space

Our office provides staff, partners, and visitors with an uplifting space to gather, collaborate, and learn from one another. 

Partners should reach out to their primary contact at the foundation to discuss convening opportunities in our space. 

A small meeting room with light wood walls, a black round table, a curved gray sofa, and framed portraits of people hanging on the wall. The words HUDDLE and RATION are partially visible on the glass door.
Ana Mendieta, Untitled (Facial Hair Transplants), 1972. Suite of seven estate color photographs. Edition 2 of 10. Photo: Flavio DeBarros
Our Rotating Art Collection

On display at our office is a selection of artworks from the collection of Charlotte Wagner, Founder & President of Wagner Foundation and longtime arts advocate. The collection reflects the foundation’s vision and mission and features works by renowned contemporary artists, including Sterling Ruby, Kara Walker, and Deana Lawson.