Jason Garrett
Program Officer, Civic Engagement and Government
Jason Garrett is a program officer in Civic Engagement and Government–US (CEG-US). His grantmaking focuses on the national infrastructure and critical capacities needed to foster civic engagement and a more equitable democracy, and includes support for a national community organizing infrastructure, a range of capacity-building efforts, and engagement with public sector officials and more direct democracy practices.
Prior to arriving at Ford, Jason was a program officer with the US Programs team at the Open Society Foundations (OSF), where he helped launch and build a placed-based initiative, designed capacity-building efforts, and led a portfolio of national civic engagement organizations and multi-issue anchor organizations across grantmaking programs. Before he joined OSF, Jason served as a community organizer with the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO), working with faith institutions, business owners, and government officials on a wide array of local and state issues to change practices and policies that centered the priorities of the most excluded people and communities. Earlier, Jason did economic development research as a Fulbright Scholar in Ecuador, and he consulted with small businesses around the intersection of faith and business development in Honduras.
As a community organizer, Christian minister, program officer, and business owner, Jason has a track record of working deeply in and with civic organizations, faith communities, government, and the private sector in the US and beyond. A unifying strand and guiding light throughout all of his work has been the notion of the beloved community, wherein all people, especially the most oppressed, experience freedom through liberation, belonging in every aspect of our society, power through opportunities to thrive, and love from people and from how we design our systems.
Jason is a graduate of Morehouse College and has advanced degrees in divinity and business from the Harvard Divinity School and Bentley University, respectively.