Foundation Center Appoints Lawrence T. McGill to
Lead New Research Initiative
New York, NY — December 19, 2006. The Foundation Center, the nation's leading authority on organized philanthropy, today announced that Lawrence T. McGill will join the organization as senior vice president for research starting January 1, 2007. McGill will oversee the Center's research program and direct its Research Institute initiative, which calls for a wide range of new research efforts aimed at shedding further light on grantmaker trends and practices and on emerging issues in the field. The initiative is a key priority of the Center's strategic plan, which was adopted by its Board of Trustees last year and is being funded by a $15-million capacity-building campaign.
McGill currently serves as deputy director of the Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies and director of research and planning for the Cultural Policy & the Arts National Data Archive (CPANDA) at Princeton University.
In announcing his appointment, Foundation Center President Sara Engelhardt said, "The Foundation Center is fortunate indeed to have attracted someone with Larry McGill's background and expertise to move our research program to the next level of service to philanthropy. Larry's personal qualities as a strategic thinker who is also a keen listener and energetic collaborator make him particularly suited to lead our research initiative. His deep experience with databases and with survey-based applied research, together with his ability to make them accessible to funders, nonprofits, academic researchers, and the media, will be valuable assets not only to the Center in fulfilling our mission but to the entire field, which looks to us to expand knowledge about organized philanthropy as a means to help it become more transparent and effective."
According to McGill, "The Foundation Center already has a strong legacy of research on American philanthropy, and I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to work with Loren Renz and the talented research team she has assembled to continue to broaden and deepen this research, which has so successfully extended the boundaries of knowledge about U.S. foundations."
"At the same time," added McGill, "I'm excited about the Center's new research initiative, which seems to grow organically out of the Center's mission. I am eager to work with Center staff and with colleague organizations to conduct research on many more facets of organized philanthropy and on emerging issues — to fill knowledge gaps and to stimulate debate on where the field is or should be heading in the 21st century."
Engelhardt also announced a new role for Loren Renz, who started up the Center's research division in 1987 and currently serves as vice president for research. "Last year, Loren asked to change her role at the Center in 2007, to allow her to focus more of her time on individual projects," said Engelhardt. "As senior researcher for special projects starting January 1, Loren will continue her leadership on a number of ongoing studies, while also initiating new areas of research for the Center."
About the Foundation Center
Established in 1956 and today supported by more than 600 foundations, the Foundation Center is the nation's leading authority on organized philanthropy, connecting nonprofits and the grantmakers supporting them to tools they can use and information they can trust. The Center maintains the most comprehensive database on U.S. grantmakers and their grants and conducts research on trends in foundation growth and giving. It also operates education and outreach programs that help nonprofit organizations obtain the resources they need. Its web site receives more than 40,000 visits each day, and thousands of people are served in its five regional learning centers and through its national network of close to 300 Cooperating Collections. For more information, visit foundationcenter.org or call (212) 620-4230.
About Lawrence T. McGill
Lawrence T. McGill is deputy director of the Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies and director of research and planning for the Cultural Policy & the Arts National Data Archive (CPANDA) at Princeton University. His work with CPANDA has involved identifying, evaluating and analyzing key social science data sets for inclusion in the Archive, on topics related to artists, arts audiences, arts organizations, and public support for the arts. He has also conducted research and written extensively on arts-related topics such as the state of art and architectural history publishing, art criticism, and the arts in higher education settings. He has consulted on research projects with the Urban Institute; the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy at Vanderbilt University; the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University; the Columbia University department of art and architectural history; the Institute of Fine Arts (NYU); the American Society of Newspaper Editors; NBC News and CBS News, among others. Prior to his work at Princeton, McGill was director of research for the Freedom Forum, a nonpartisan foundation dedicated to issues of free press and free speech, from 1994 to 2001, and before that, he was manager of news audience research for the National Broadcasting Company from 1989 to 1994. He has taught in the departments of sociology and journalism at Northwestern University, where he received his Ph.D. in sociology in 1987.
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