Michael Fleming Photo: 2023
Michael Fleming is the President and Founding Executive Director of the David Bohnett Foundation – a grant making foundation charged with “improving society through social activism”. Since 2000, he has shepherded nearly $130 million dollars to organizations and institutions that share the foundation’s goals and vision.
Michael has been appointed to boards and commissions at every level of government. In 2021, Governor Gavin Newsom named him as one of his two appointees to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission, a Joint Powers Authority between the City of Los Angeles, the County of Los Angeles, and the State of California. From 2018 to 2022, he was a member of the Board of Directors of the Getty House Foundation, dedicated to civic education, community engagement, and the preservation of Getty House, the official residence of the Mayor of Los Angeles.
From 2013 to 2017, Michael served on the Los Angeles Board of Water and Power Commissioners – the five member panel that oversees the nation’s largest public utility. He previously served as the President of the East Los Angeles Area Planning Commission and as a Commissioner on the Board of the Los Angeles Convention Center. In 2010, President Barack Obama named Michael to the White House Council for Community Solutions.
Michael is passionate about education at all levels. He serves as the President of the LAUSD Education Foundation, an entity established to help the superintendent of the second largest public school system in the US, deliver the greatest value of public and private resources for the benefit of the nearly 600,000 students across Los Angeles. Michael also serves on the boards of the Carr Center at Harvard Kennedy School, the University of Limerick’s Kemmy School, and his alma mater, The Cambridge School of Weston. Since 2003, he’s been an adjunct professor of organizational development and public policy at UCLA, a member of the LGBTQ Studies Faculty Advisory Committee, and, in 2023 was awarded the Student’s Choice Outstanding Faculty Award at UCLA’s 25th annual Lavender Graduation. From 2013 to 2016 Michael was also an adjunct professor of public policy at NYU.
Michael is also a proud board member of public radio powerhouse KCRW, where he served as Chairman of the Board and Co-Chair of their capital campaign, Guns Down America, and the Movement Advancement Project.
Michael is married to California Court of Appeal Justice Luis A. Lavin.