---
category: Authors & Journalists
created: 2026-09-23
relations:
- fn: 2
  role: senior writer
  type: employed_by
  with: '[[Fortune (magazine)]]'
- fn: 2
  start: 2018
  type: investigated
  with: '[[Open Philanthropy]]'
summary: Former Fortune senior writer who covers foundations, effective altruism and
  psychedelics, and whose 2018 Stanford Social Innovation Review article mapped the
  entities around Cari Tuna and Open Philanthropy.
tags:
- Person
- Journalist
- Philanthropy
- EffectiveAltruism
- OpenPhilanthropy
updated: 2026-09-23
---

Marc Gunther is an American journalist who has worked as a reporter for nearly 50 years, on politics, government, television, the media business, corporate sustainability, the nonprofit world and psychedelics, for *Fortune*, *The Guardian*, *The Chronicle of Philanthropy* and other publications. He edits the Medium publications *Nonprofit Chronicles*, *The Psychedelic Renaissance* and *The Great Vape Debate*, and describes his subjects as "psychedelics, smoking and vaping, animal rights, philanthropy and effective altruism."[^1]

### Open Philanthropy

In the Summer 2018 issue of the *[Stanford Social Innovation Review](/organizations/stanford-social-innovation-review/)*, which described him as a former senior writer at *Fortune* and author or co-author of four books, Gunther profiled [Cari Tuna](/people/cari-tuna/), who became an effective altruist after reading [Peter Singer](/people/peter-singer/)'s *The Life You Can Save* and joined the board of [GiveWell](/organizations/givewell/) in 2011. He wrote that she played "a key role in no fewer than seven entities" as a director or major donor, including [Good Ventures](/organizations/good-ventures/), the [Open Philanthropy Action Fund](/organizations/open-philanthropy-action-fund/) and donor-advised funds at the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. [Alexander Berger](/people/alexander-berger/) told him that "each has a reason for being" and that "tax considerations are key." Gunther reported that [Holden Karnofsky](/people/holden-karnofsky/), a co-founder of GiveWell who had worked at Bridgewater Associates, sat on the board of [OpenAI](/organizations/openai/), that Good Ventures made its first grant, of 50,000 dollars, to GiveWell in 2011, and that [Open Philanthropy](/organizations/open-philanthropy/), which separated from GiveWell in 2017, "does not disclose its annual operating costs or the salaries or benefits of its highest-paid staff members."[^2]

[^1]: Gunther, Marc. "About." *Medium,* archived April 14, 2025. http://web.archive.org/web/20250414190549/https://marcgunther.medium.com/about
[^2]: Gunther, Marc. "Giving in the Light of Reason." *Stanford Social Innovation Review,* Summer 2018. https://ssir.org/articles/entry/giving_in_the_light_of_reason