Loren Gary Joins DMC as Development Director

The David Mathews Center for Civic Life is pleased to announce the hiring of Loren Gary as Development Director. In this role, Loren will work with DMC Executive Director Cristin Brawner to drive the organization’s sustainable growth to meet its mission. Loren will be responsible for developing and maintaining active and productive relationships with internal and external constituencies.

“We are thrilled to have Loren Gary join our team as Development Director,” said DMC Executive Director Cristin Brawner. “Loren’s impressive professional background and his personal passion for strengthening civic life make him ideal for this role. We look forward to the leadership role Loren will play in building to grow a broader base of support for meeting our mission of strengthening civic life in Alabama.”

Fundraising, writing and editing, leadership development, and an abiding interest in matters both civic and spiritual have been the touchstones of Loren’s career. His roles have included director of advancement at Indian Springs School, major gifts officer at Harvard Divinity School, associate director for leadership development & public affairs at Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership, SVP for content at an online leadership development startup, editor at Harvard Business Publishing and the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, director of admissions & financial aid at the Episcopal Divinity School, and chaplain at the University of Chicago Medical Center. He earned an A.B. from Dartmouth College and an M.Div. from Harvard Divinity School.

“The mission of the David Mathews Center is precisely the kind of work that fired my imagination some six years ago when I first started thinking about moving back to Alabama, where my roots are,” said Loren Gary. “Art that ‘speaks most clearly, explicitly, directly and passionately from its place of origin.’ wrote Eudora Welty, ‘will remain the longest understood. It is through place that we put out roots, wherever birth, fate, chance or our traveling selves put us down.’ The placemaking work of the Mathews Center is a civic art every bit as vital to community flourishing as the poetry and storytelling, the music and fine arts that Welty was referring to. It is about the shared future we imagine for ourselves and the pledges we make to each other in the service of those dreams.

“I am delighted to join this group of devoted and highly competent public servants and look forward to helping the center enhance the outcomes of its civic placemaking.”

Please join the DMC staff and Board of Directors in welcoming Loren to the team! You can send him a note at lgary@mathewscenter.org.