Gara LaMarche (born August 26, 1954) is the president of the Democracy Alliance, a network of liberal donors who coordinate their political giving.

[1] Prior to joining the Atlantic Philanthropies, he served as vice president and director of U.S. programs for The Open Society Institute.

[2] In his tenure at the Atlantic Philanthropies, LaMarche led the foundation's shift to a social justice approach to grant-making.

[3] LaMarche attended St. Bernard's, a small all-boys high school in Uncasville, Connecticut, before enrolling in Columbia College, from which he graduated in 1976.

[6] Eventually, however, his disagreements with founder Chuck Feeney about the foundation's activities and visibility caused a "donor-intent crisis", where Feeney's single vote on the board of directors gave him insufficient influence to counter LaMarche's change in the foundation's priorities; by early 2011, an anonymous writer sent the board a letter threatening to take the conflict public and asking, “What will potential philanthropists think if they find out that a foundation board doesn’t listen to the wishes of the founder when he is alive and sitting in the room, never mind when he is dead?”.