Richard Burns
Museum Board Chair & Johnson Family Foundation
Richard D. Burns (he/him) is a nonprofit management consultant and executive coach who is the interim executive director of GLAD, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders. He has served as interim executive director of the Johnson Family Foundation, the Drug Policy Alliance, Lambda Legal, the North Star Fund, PENCIL, the Funding Exchange, Funders for LGBTQ Issues, and the Stonewall Community Foundation.
He was previously the chief operating officer of the Arcus Foundation and was executive director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center in New York City for 22 years, from 1986 to 2009.
Richard serves on the boards of directors of the Proteus Fund and the New York City AIDS Memorial Park. He is a member of the advisory board of the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project and recently completed 17 years of service on the advisory board of the Center for HIV Law & Policy. He recently retired from the board of Nonprofit New York and was a longtime member of the selection committee of the New York Community Trust Nonprofit Excellence Awards.
Richard was Managing Editor of Gay Community News in the late 1970’s and was president of the founding board of directors of GLAD in Boston from 1978 through 1986, was co-chair of the founding board of Centerlink, and is an alumnus of the board of directors of Lambda Legal.
From 2013 to 2019 Richard developed and led the Arcus Foundation LGBT Leadership Initiative, a national coaching/mentoring program for executive directors working in social justice. He is a graduate of Hamilton College and Northeastern University School of Law.