President, Barr Foundation
Jim Canales has served as president and trustee of the Barr Foundation since May 2014. Prior to joining Barr, he spent two decades in a variety of roles at The James Irvine Foundation in California, including service as president and chief executive officer from 2003 through 2014.
Before working in philanthropy, Canales was a high school English teacher in San Francisco after earning a bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s degree in education from Stanford University. Canales has maintained a broad range of volunteer engagements. He currently serves as a trustee of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and recently co-chaired the Leadership Council of Boston Creates, the city’s cultural planning process. Canales served as a trustee of Stanford University from 2006 through 2015, and he has served as chair of the boards of the College Futures Foundation, KQED Public Broadcasting, the Stanford Alumni Association, and Larkin Street Youth Services, and as vice chair of the Monterey Bay Aquarium. He is also a co-founder and former Board chair of Grantmakers for Effective Organizations.
Canales’ writing on a range of topics has appeared in The Boston Globe, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, the Stanford Social Innovation Review, and The Huffington Post, among other outlets.