Giselle Ferro Puigbo to Lead Brookline Community Foundation

By Danielle Myers

Throughout Giselle Ferro Puigbo’s storied career in the nonprofit sector, she has consistently been awed by the capacity of philanthropy. Puigbo, who joined the Brookline Community Foundation (BCF) as executive director in the fall, was a lawyer in her hometown of Miami before finding her way to a local nonprofit as a grant writer. Since then, she has spent nearly two decades advocating for the health, education, and wellbeing of our communities through leadership roles at national nonprofits, including Health Leads and Teach for America.

As Puigbo noted in a recent Zoom conversation, philanthropy is derived from the Greek words of “Philos” and “Anthropos,” meaning love and humanity, respectively. She sees philanthropy as a potent vehicle for change. “It’s more than financial; it signifies agency for donors to engage in what matters to them," she says. "I get to talk to someone about how they want to make a difference and then work with them on how to achieve that.”

Joining BCF during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic has provided a unique opportunity for Puigbo to witness philanthropy's roots and impacts directly. Never has the need for support been so pervasive, from economic hardships brought on by the pandemic to inequities in healthcare and access to education, and COVID has thrust the fragilities of our communities into the public eye. “What used to takes hours to explain is all of a sudden understood in a moment,” says Puigbo.

Fortunately, as Puigbo shared in a recent interview with Representative Tommy Vitolo, “community members are stepping in and stepping up.” Through local donations and support from the Town of Brookline, BCF has raised over $1 million for their Safety Net Fund. This reserve has been in place at the organization before the pandemic began, providing emergency financial support to local individuals and families in need through BCF’s partnership with the Brookline Community Center. Since the onset of the pandemic, BCF and the Brookline Center have continually worked to find and address the local need that has resulted from the current health crisis.

Puigbo admits that when she first heard about BCF, she was unsure of a community foundation's utility in a seemingly affluent town like Brookline. However, when she dove into the census data, she realized that many of the alarming trends of increasing poverty, housing instability, and economic insecurity reflect similar patterns across the country.

This understanding has fueled Puigbo’s desire for BCF to play an active in addressing longstanding inequities within the Brookline community. “Affluence is not immune to suffering,” she says, “ Inequities play out in the same ways, and there is a responsibility in philanthropy to integrate racial equity.” Puigbo envisions a multi-pronged approach to BCF’s work to further promote equity within the community. In addition to maximizing fundraising, she aims to further BCF’s research about Brookline's ongoing needs and emerging values. She also hopes to examine the grant-making process to ensure that the community members have a voice in grant-awarding decisions.

Above all, Puigbo is dedicated to the mission of BCF. “I wake up every day and think about how to best make a case for equity in Brookline,” she says. With her healthcare and education experience, Puigbo is poised to lead BCF in its pursuit of equity and inclusion for the entire Brookline community.

BrooklineHub.com is a 501C3 non-profit dedicated to reporting and commenting on life, culture, and community in Brookline. As part of our mission, we advocate for non-profits vital in making this a better place to live, and by sponsoring and supporting events that promote community-building. We hold the belief that as a community, we should foster the well-being of all, remaining mindful of our young people, seniors, and underprivileged.