Brian Collier

Brian Collier

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Brian Collier currently serves as President of The Gambrell Foundation, where he oversees all aspects of the foundation’s grantmaking and partnership activities.

Prior to The Gambrell Foundation, he served as Executive Vice President for Foundation For The Carolinas for sixteen years. While at FFTC, he was responsible for the Foundation’s competitive grants programs across thirteen counties in North and South Carolina. Brian also led the Foundation’s Robinson Center for Civic Leadership and the development of community initiatives, including Veterans Bridge Home, Read Charlotte, Carolina Thread Trail, Project LIFT, and Leading on Opportunity, a nationally recognized, multi-year initiative to identify and implement community strategies addressing upward mobility and economic opportunity. During the height of the COVID-19 crisis, Brian worked in partnership with organizations like United Way of Central Carolinas to raise and award over $25 million in private & public funds to help individuals and families impacted by the COVID-19 crisis.

In addition to his work at FFTC, Brian served on the executive leadership team at KABOOM! in Washington, D.C., and as the Founding President and Executive Director of Victory Junction, a state-of-the-art medical camp in Randleman, North Carolina, for children suffering from chronic and/or life-threatening illnesses. The camp was the result of a unique partnership between the NASCAR motorsports industry, NASCAR drivers Richard and Kyle Petty, and actor Paul Newman. Brian began his career as a trial attorney with Rumberger Kirk, one of the country’s premier commercial litigation firms in Orlando, Florida. He is a graduate of the University of Florida’s Levin College of Law and the University of Central Florida. He resides in Charlotte with his wife, daughter, and two dogs.

On Brian’s Desk

Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life

From a foremost expert on the science of emotions and consultant to Pixar’s Inside Out, a groundbreaking and essential exploration into the history, science, and greater understanding of awe.

by Dacher Keltner

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Deficit

In Deficit, Emma Holten traces how economic thinkers – from the Enlightenment onwards – created a value framework that overlooked and neglected ‘women’s work’ and acts of care. She reveals how the economic models that drive political decisions today are just as flawed, giving us unparalleled monetary wealth, but causing deep social harms that are hurting us all.

by Emma Holten

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Hope for Cynics

Through science and storytelling, Jamil Zaki imparts the secret for beating back cynical thinking: hopeful skepticism: thinking critically about people and our problems while also honoring and encouraging our strengths. Far from being naïve, hopeful skepticism is a precise way of understanding others that can rebalance our view of human nature.

by Jamil Zaki

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Ours Was The Shining Future

The clear-eyed, definitive history of the modern American economy and the decline of the American Dream, from the Pulitzer Prize–winning columnist behind The New York Times’s “The Morning” newsletter.

by David Leonhardt

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The Notebook

In an age of AI and digital overload, the humble notebook is more relevant than ever. Allen shows how bullet points can combat ADHD, journals can ease PTSD, and patient diaries soften the trauma of reawakening from coma. The everyday act of moving a pen across paper, he finds, can have profound consequences, changing the way we think and feel.

by Roland Allen

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The Random Factor

From his perspective as a scholar of poverty, Rank also delves into the class and race dynamics of chance, emphasizing the stark disparities it brings to light. This transformative book prompts a new understanding of the twists and turns in our daily lives and encourages readers to fully appreciate the surprising world of randomness in which we live.

by Mark Robert Rank

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