Foundation Center Research Team
Lawrence T. McGill, Ph.D.
Lawrence T. McGill, Ph.D., is the Foundation Center’s senior vice president for research. Under Dr. McGill, the Center’s research department has significantly expanded its research capacity while continuing to produce definitive analyses of philanthropic sector trends.
Previously, Dr. McGill was director of research and planning for the Cultural Policy & the Arts National Data Archive (CPANDA) and deputy director of the Princeton University Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies (CACPS). His work with CPANDA 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. By the end of 2006, the archive held more than 200 such data sets. He served as director of research for the Freedom Forum from 1994 to 2001 and manager of news audience research for the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) from 1989 to 1994.
Dr. McGill 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; and NBC News and CBS News, among other organizations. He has taught in the departments of sociology and journalism at Northwestern University, where he received his Ph.D. in sociology in 1987.
Steven Lawrence
Steven Lawrence joined the Foundation Center’s research staff in 1991 and currently serves as senior director of research. He manages the publication of numerous annual and special project reports. He also develops and delivers public presentations and trainings on foundation trends; facilitates custom consulting services for external clients; and promotes Foundation Center research activities to the media, grantmakers, and the nonprofit community.
A seasoned researcher, writer, and communicator with 15 years of experience in the nonprofit sector, Mr. Lawrence is the principal author of the annual Foundation Growth and Giving Estimates and Foundation Yearbook reports and multiple special studies on the foundation field, such as California Foundations, Foundation Funding for Children’s Health, Update on Foundation Health Policy Grantmaking, and Giving in the Aftermath of the Gulf Coast Hurricanes: Update on the Foundation and Corporate Response. In addition, he is the editor and co-author of Social Justice Grantmaking: A Report on Foundation Trends.
Mr. Lawrence serves on the Giving USA advisory committee, the Grantmakers in the Arts research committee, and the board of directors of Funders for Lesbian and Gay Issues. He received a bachelor’s degree in communication arts from Cornell University and a master’s degree in sociology from the University of Chicago.
Loren Renz
A leading expert on institutional philanthropy in the United States, Loren Renz has studied foundation and corporate giving for more than 25 years. She joined the Foundation Center in 1980, and in 1987 she started the Center’s research program and was appointed its first director of research. In 1992, she became vice president for research, a post she held until 2007 when she became senior researcher for special projects. Throughout her tenure, Ms. Renz’s primary responsibilities have included examining philanthropic growth and giving patterns, promoting research using the Center’s databases, and producing a series of benchmark studies in philanthropy.
Ms. Renz is the creator of Foundations Today, an annual series of reports covering broad trends in private, corporate, and community foundations. In addition, she has produced longitudinal studies of grantmaking trends in fields ranging from the arts, to program-related investments, to international funding trends. Her recent publications include More Than Grantmaking: A First Look at Foundations’ Direct Charitable Activities (2007), International Grantmaking Update: A Snapshot of U.S. Foundation Trends, Giving in the Aftermath of the Gulf Coast Hurricanes: Report on the Foundation and Corporate Response, and Social Justice Grantmaking. Since 2004, Ms. Renz has led the Center’s work on a national study of foundation administrative expenses, and she co-authored the resulting reports: Foundation Expenses and Compensation: How Operating Characteristics Influence Spending and What Drives Foundation Expenses and Compensation? Results of a Three-Year Study, which was released in early 2008.
Ms. Renz has served on national research advisory committees of the Council on Foundations, Independent Sector, Giving USA, Grantmakers in the Arts, Aspen Institute’s Nonprofit Sector Research Fund, and the Urban Institute’s Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy. Most recently, she served on the 990-PF Reform Advisory Committee of the Independent Sector’s Panel on the Nonprofit Sector. She is a longstanding member of the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA), a nonprofit research membership association, and has served as that organization’s secretary and as a board member. She received a bachelor’s degree from the Georgetown University Institute of Languages and Linguistics and a master’s degree from Hunter College in the same discipline. She also holds a Certificat d’Etudes from L’Universite de Grenoble, France.
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