Austin Beutner

Beutner was born in New York and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the son of German immigrants who came to the United States in the 1920s for economic opportunity. His mother was a schoolteacher and his father was a manufacturing engineer. His mother was Jewish and his father was Catholic, although he did not find out that his father's family was Christian until he was an adult. He is a graduate of East Grand Rapids High School, and graduated from Dartmouth College with a Bachelor of Arts in economics.

In 1994 Beutner founded The Beutner Family Foundation with a focus on philanthropy and education for economically disadvantaged people.

In 2012 Beutner founded Vision to Learn, a non-profit that provides children with free eye exams and free glasses by bringing its mobile eye clinics to schools and to other neighborhood youth and community organizations.

On November 8, 2022, California voters approved Proposition 28: The Arts and Music in Schools Funding Guarantee and Accountability Act. The measure requires the state to establish a new, ongoing program supporting arts instruction in schools beginning in 2023–24. Beutner authored the bill and spent nearly $4.2 million of his own money to support the bill. Californians overwhelmingly passed the Proposition.

Beutner established the Beutner Family Award for Excellence in the Arts, providing scholarships to support 20 students at the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles County.