Taryn Higashi is the executive director of Unbound Philanthropy and has worked for or sat on the boards of organizations, including the Ford Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, the Center for Effective Philanthropy, Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees, and the International Refugee Assistance Project. In 2003, Higashi helped to co-found the Four Freedoms Fund, a left-of-center funder of immigration-oriented groups that is a project of NEO Philanthropy.  ^{1  2}

Higashi’s career has been largely concerned with funding left-of-center immigration advocacy.  ²

Career

As of January 2026, Taryn Higashi was the executive director of Unbound Philanthropy, a left-of-center grantmaking organization that funds immigration-focused groups in the United States and the United Kingdom. Unbound Philanthropy uses language suggestive of critical race theory-influenced concepts; it runs a “Climate Mobility” immigration initiative, which claims that climate change is causing some places to “become unlivable” and that climate change exacerbates existing “inequities.”  ^{1  3}

Taryn is also the chair of the board of the International Refugee Assistance Project and a member of the board of the Center for Effective Philanthropy.  ¹

Previously, she was the chair of the advisory board of the International Migration Initiative at the Open Society Foundations and the co-chair of the board of Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees.  ²

From 1997 to 2008, Higashi worked as a program officer at the Ford Foundation. Her work included leading the Migrant and Refugee Rights grantmaking portfolio. From 2001 to 2008, she held the title of deputy director of the Human Rights Unit at the Ford Foundation. In this role, she helped to manage the unit’s grantmaking activities in the United States along with 11 other countries. In 2003, she also co-founded the Four Freedoms Fund, an immigration funding initiative that is a project of the large left-of-center grantmaking institution NEO Philanthropy.  ^{1  2}

From 1995 to 1997, Higashi was a program officer at The New York Community Trust, where her work included coordinating the Fund for New Citizens. This fund, which was a joint effort of multiple foundations housed at the New York Community Trust, supported multiple immigrant-related initiatives, including legal services, workers centers, and funding immigrant-led groups.  ¹

Four Freedoms Fund

Taryn Higashi was previously the deputy director of the Human Rights Unit and program officer at the Ford Foundation, where her work included co-founding the Four Freedoms Fund, a left-of-center immigration-focused funder that is a project of NEO Philanthropy.  ¹

The Four Freedoms Fund claims that it seeks “transformation of our country’s systems to be inclusive, fair and just, and grounded in racial, economic, and gender justice,” and promotes the critical race theory-influenced concept of equity, stating it supports “organizations advocating for systemic change and anti-racist solutions promoting equitable power.”  ⁴

Funders of the project have included the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the California Endowment, the Akonadi Foundation, the Gates Foundation, and the Hagedorn Foundation.  ⁵

The Four Freedoms Fund has made more than $180 million in grants to state and local immigration-focused groups.  ⁶

1. “Taryn Higashi.” LinkedIn. Accessed January 30, 2026. https://www.linkedin.com/in/taryn-higashi-5544b2166/. 
2. Person. “Taryn Higashi.” International Refugee Assistance Project, November 7, 2025. https://refugeerights.org/people/taryn-higashi. 
3. “Climate Mobility.” Unbound Philanthropy. Accessed January 30, 2026. https://unboundphilanthropy.org/our-initiatives/climate-mobility/. 
4. “About Us.” Four Freedoms Fund, June 5, 2025. https://fourfreedomsfund.org/about/. 
5. Carnegie. Accessed January 30, 2026. https://media.carnegie.org/filer_public/7c/74/7c744b4f-101f-4f4f-893e-3698675a62ad/ccny_cresults_2008_fourfreedoms.pdf. 
6. “Taryn Higashi.” Taryn Higashi – Center for Effective Government. Accessed January 30, 2026. https://effectivegov.uchicago.edu/people/taryn-higashi.