About Alchemy Philanthropy's Founder

Dr. Salvatore LaSpada is an internationally recognized leader in strategic philanthropy with a particular expertise working with families in building their foundations and accelerating their impact.       

Previous to establishing Alchemy Philanthropy, he served as founding Executive Director of the Salama bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation, a foundation established by the Royal Family of Abu Dhabi, where he built the Foundation’s strategies and executed funding programs in the areas of arts, education and health.

At the center of his work is The Philanthropy Workshop, a highly acclaimed donor education program and network for high net worth individuals which he led for 13 years, first at the Rockefeller Foundation and then as Chief Executive at the Institute for Philanthropy with headquarters in London and offices in New York.  Dr. LaSpada, who has worked with more than 200 families internationally, is a pioneer in strategic philanthropy education for high net worth individuals and The Philanthropy Workshop is widely held as the premiere such program in the world.

His work with leading philanthropic families began when he was a philanthropic advisor to the Rockefeller family in the Rockefeller Family Office, building on previous professional experience with some of the USA’s most important foundations including the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation.

In the area of governance, Dr. LaSpada was a Trustee of Zennström Philanthropies (London) and currently serves as a Trustee of the Raymond and Gloria Naftali Foundation (New York). He is the former Chair of the Hetrick-Martin Institute, Tamkeen: The Center for Arab-American Empowerment and Hispanics in Philanthropy. He has served on the advisory committees of the Global Equity Initiative at Harvard University, Philanthropy UK, Ci Yuan Business for Social Responsibility (Beijing), and the Global Philanthropy Forum.

In the academic realm, he was a visiting lecturer at the University of Bologna’s Masters in International Studies in Philanthropy program and a Visiting Senior Fellow of the IDEAS Centre at the London School of Economics. He was an Eisenhower Fellow in Argentina where he promoted strategic philanthropy to individuals of wealth, was a Fellow at the London-based Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts/RSA, and is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Dr. LaSpada has served as a commentator on topics of global philanthropy in media including the New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, BBC, Time magazine, Gulf News, the Sunday Times, the Guardian, the Evening Standard, Globe and Mail (Canada), La Nacion (Argentina), The Australian, and Philanthropy Age (a publication of the Gates Foundation), among others.

Dr. LaSpada holds a B.A. in Ancient Greek and Latin (Haverford College), an M.A. in Communications (Temple University), and an M.Ed. and Ed.D. in International Education and Development (Columbia University).