KATHLEEN D. McCARTHY, Ph.D. , is professor of history at The City University of New York Graduate Center and director of the Center on Philanthropy & Civil Society. She received her Ph.D. in history from the University of Chicago. McCarthy is  the author of American Creed: Philanthropy and the Rise of Civil Society, 1700-1865 (University of Chicago Press, 2003, 2005); Women’s Culture: American Philanthropy and Art, 1830-1930 (winner, ARNOVA Distinguished Book Award) as well as many other books, edited volumes and articles on local, national, and international philanthropy, and has lectured on these topics worldwide.

McCarthy has served as Visiting Research Fellow with the Rockefeller Foundation; a consultant to The Ford Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities; Assistant Secretary of the Metropolitan Life Foundation; President of the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action; a member of the board of Independent Sector, and the advisory boards of the National Center on Nonprofit Law at New York University and the Rockefeller Archive Center; Treasurer and board member of the International Society for Third-Sector Research and the Editorial Board of VOLUNTAS. She was also a member of the informal planning group of, and delegate to, the first White House Conference on Philanthropy in 1999.