Overview: A successful Wall Street trader and former member of two presidential councils under President Barack Obama, Mark T. Gallogly has been steadily writing checks to Democrats over the last decade. Having left his successful hedge fund in 2019, Gallogly could be poised to increase his philanthropy in the coming years.
Location: New York, NY
Total Donated (2016-2020): $2,217,962
Top Recipients: Senate Majority PAC, Biden Action Fund, DCCC
Key Issues: Education, Democratic Party power
Largest Donation to Date: $272,800 to Biden Action Fund
Profile: Gallogly has deep pockets and had deep ties to the Obama White House. A graduate of Notre Dame and Columbia Business School, Gallogly worked for 16 years at Blackstone Group, serving in a variety of roles including senior managing director and head of private equity. He went on to co-found hedge fund Centerbridge Partners in 2005, where he worked until 2019, when he retired to work on issues like climate change, the Wall Street Journal reported at the time. Still deeply connected to his alma maters, Gallogly currently serves as a vice chair of Columbia University’s board of trustees, also the board of Columbia Business School, and in 2014, he and his wife Lise Strickler made a $10 million gift to support the University of Notre Dame’s student mental health center.
Gallogly was a close ally of Obama and his administration. He was one of Obama’s top bundlers in both his presidential races, raising more than $900,000 for him in total. During Obama’s first term, Gallogly was tapped to serve on the president’s Economy Recovery Advisory Board and the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. Donor records show Gallogly became a consistent Democratic donor during Obama’s second term, with his earliest high-dollar gifts ($75,000 in 2011 and $80,300 in 2015) going to Rahm Emanuel’s campaign for Chicago mayor—Emanuel was previously the former president's chief of staff. Since then, Gallogly has made five-to-six figure gifts each election cycle to the Senate Majority PAC and Democrats running for seats around the country. In 2020, he gave $372,800 to Biden-supporting PACs, along with gifts to other liberal groups.
Ideological Vibe: Centrist liberal. Being close to the Obama administration, Gallogly seems to have focused his donations on helping the party gain and hold power. Outside of a position on the board of a charter school network and reported interest in climate change, there isn’t much besides Gallogly’s pet policy interests to round out his ideological commitments.
Hits and Misses: Gallogly’s bundling for Obama and donations to Emanuel proved fruitful, and his nearly $300,000 in donations to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 run was a smaller loss than many of his mega-donor peers suffered.
Looking Forward: Gallogly reportedly retired from his hedge fund to focus on more policy work, so we could see him expand his donor profile in the coming years.
Relationships: Centerbridge Partners—Co-Founder
Contact Information: N/A