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Gabriela A. Smith is the co-founder and director of The Amanter Fund, a philanthropic endeavor focusing on children, families and education. The Amanter Fund has been a major supporter of several educational institutions in the Greater Washington DC area, funding a wide range of programs.
Gabriela has designed and launched several educational programs for children, including ones on health and nutrition, media literacy, learning differences, faith life, and financial aid, among others. She launched a pilot youth series to empower youth as they navigate adolescence, to help them understand topics ranging from internet safety to substance abuse. She also started programs to help gain an understanding of the Spanish culture and language, and created the first international scholarship program with Harvard University focused on hunger and poverty alleviation in Argentina.
She and her husband are among the founding investors of Venture Philanthropy Partners, and Gabriela is an active member of the VPP Board. From 1991 to 1992 she worked at the World Bank, where she supervised the implementation of health and education projects in Bolivia. She founded, managed and coordinated fundraising for the Hispanic Leadership Program in Venice, California, from 1988 to 1989, to empower Hispanic families through lectures and development of their own resources. From 1987 to 1989, she was a social worker at Catholic Charities of Los Angeles, providing emergency assistance to the poor and homeless. She received a Master’s Degree from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, in 1991, a Master’s in Latin American Studies/Economic Development from UCLA in 1987, and a BA in Economics from UCLA in 1984.
She married Douglas Smith in 1991 (Harvard MBA ’79, Oxford University MA Philosophy, Politics and Economics ’77, Georgetown University BA Philosophy ’75). Gabriela and Douglas are the parents of three children.
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