Our Story
Karen and Jim Ansara
Since adopting their four now young adult children, Karen and Jim have realized first-hand that millions of children around the world are born into unspeakable conditions of poverty. To ensure that more children can thrive in community with dignity, the Ansaras have focused on ending the root causes of global poverty via the Ansara Family Fund at The Boston Foundation since 2006, as well as at the Essex County Community Foundation since 2014.
Karen Keating Ansara
Recognizing a dearth of learning and networking opportunities for herself and other globally focused funders, Karen founded Network of Engaged International Donors in 2008. She continues to serve as Chair of the Board of NEID, an independent 501c3.
In 2010, in the immediate days after the horrific earthquake in Haiti, Karen and the Boston Foundation co-founded The Haiti Relief and Reconstruction Fund. Guided by a primarily Haitian American Advisory Board, the Fund made over $4.2 million in grants for humanitarian relief and development over five years, before transitioning into the Haiti Development Institute (HDI), where Karen serves on the board. HDI is a permanent institution based in Haiti (and anchored at the Boston Foundation) which strengthens Haitian-led NGOS and collaboration among those who fund them.
In addition to NEID and HDI, Karen serves on the boards of Build Health International, Groundswell International, MCE Social Capital, and the Millennium Campus Network, as well as on the Advisory Boards of the Rian Immigrant Center in Boston and the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. Karen is also a long-term member of the Leadership Council of Oxfam America. She graduated from Wellesley College (Political Science) and Andover Newton Theological School (M.Div.) and furthered her education at the Institute for Non-Profit Management and Leadership at Boston University, The Philanthropy Workshop, and the Women’s Theological Center.
Jim Ansara
Jim Ansara is a retired general contractor who founded Shawmut Design and Construction in Boston in the early 1980’s and led it to become one of the top 25 construction companies in the US. While at Shawmut he led several volunteer teams of employees to build low-tech, clean water systems in Nicaragua with the organization, El Porvenir.
After retiring as Chairman of the Board, Jim redirected his energy to the developing world. In 2009 a trip to Haiti with Dr. Paul Farmer led to an invitation to build a small community hospital with Partners in Health (PIH) in Haiti’s Central Plateau. The process took a major turn when a massive earthquake struck the country on January 10, 2010. For three-and-a-half years after the earthquake, through the outbreak of cholera and political unrest, through hurricanes and unbearable heat, Jim, his partner Dr. David Walton of PIH, and hundreds of Haitian and Dominican workers persevered to build Haiti’s new 340-bed National Teaching Hospital in Mirebalais, Haiti. Since its completion, the mission to build and equip global health care infrastructure has continued via a new non-profit, Build Health International, based in Beverly, MA. The BHI team has undertaken projects in low-resource settings across 22 countries with PIH, the Kellogg Foundation, Cure International, Direct Relief International and numerous other NGOS.
For Jim’s philanthropy he has received Honorary Doctorates in Humane Letters from Amherst College and Salem State University, as well as distinction from Partners in Health, Health Equity International, The American Red Cross Northeast MA Chapter, the Political Asylum and Immigration Representation Project, Summer Search Boston, and more. He serves on the board of Health Equity International, and in years past on the boards of Salem State University, the Boston Children’s Museum, Youth Build, and City Year.
"You have to make your life philanthropy, in the sense that the greatest philanthropy doesn’t always involve money. In fact, when all you can use is money, you see its incredible limitations."
- Strive Masiyiwa, Econet Wireless Group
Photo: Build Health International.