Mike Berkowitz is Co-Founder and Principal at Third Plateau, where he co-leads the firm’s Democracy practice and works across its Philanthropic Management and Jewish Community Impact portfolios. Mike is an experienced facilitator, strategist, philanthropic advisor, and grantmaker. He specializes in weaving networks, curating philanthropic learning, and developing strategies for addressing complex challenges.
A leader in the movement to revitalize U.S. democracy, Mike serves as Executive Director of the Democracy Funders Network, a cross-ideological learning and action community for donors concerned about the health of American democracy. He is also co-founder of the Patriots & Pragmatists network.
Mike is a 21/64-certified philanthropy consultant and has counseled numerous individual donors, family foundations, institutional foundations, and funder networks on their philanthropic strategies. He is a Senior Advisor to the Pritzker Innovation Fund, which supports the development and advancement of paradigm-shifting ideas to address the world’s most wicked problems, with a primary focus on climate and energy and on U.S. democracy. Mike is also a Senior Advisor to the John Pritzker Family Fund. In that role, he advises the foundation on its strategy, governance, grantmaking, and communications, and helps to oversee its investments in Democracy & Civic Health and Jewish Life.
Mike is a board member of Persuasion, a publication and community for people committed to the values of a free society, and is a strategic advisor to A More Perfect Union: The Jewish Partnership for Democracy, which is organizing and mobilizing the American Jewish community to protect and strengthen American democracy.
Prior to Third Plateau, Mike served as Senior Vice President for Operations and Strategy at the Bonner Group, Inc., a nonprofit and political fundraising firm in Washington, DC. He also worked at Mammen, Pritchard & Associates and served as a Public Policy Fellow at the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. Mike has a B.A. in History, magna cum laude, from Brown University, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.