McCully, George

GEORGE McCULLY served for twenty years as professor of European intellectual and cultural history, from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, and for twenty-five years as a professional philanthropist—fundraiser, strategic planner, executive director, trustee, and advisor to charities, foundations, families and individual donors. In 1997 he created the highly respected and influential Massachusetts Catalogue for Philanthropy, to promote charitable giving and strengthen the culture of philanthropy through donoreducation. His book, Philanthropy Reconsidered (2008), presents a comprehensive overview of the "vocabulary, conceptualization, and rhetoric" of philanthropy from the ancient coinage of the term in Prometheus Bound, to its essential role informing the American Revolution and Constitution, to the paradigm-shift transforming philanthropy today. His latest work is the Massachusetts Philanthropic Directory—an on-line, systematically taxonomized, analytical, Directory to all the philanthropic charities of (initially) Massachusetts, which comprise only 1/7th of the state's "nonprofits". This dramatically innovative Directory system will be extended nationwide over the next two years. He is also a contributing editor to Conversations on Philanthropy. (REV. 2010)