Doug White
Biography
Doug White is a national leader in the philanthropic community. Since 1979 he has worked with charities of all types and sizes on planned and major giving, as well as on the many issues related to organizational development. A sample of recent and current clients includes: the Smithsonian Institution, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Jewish Recovery Houses, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the Wilderness Society, Greenpeace, Children’s Hospital Boston, and BoardSource (where he is a Senior Governance Consultant for its clients). He also advises individuals with their charitable planning.
In addition to his consulting work, Doug is an adjunct assistant professor of philanthropy and fundraising at New York University, where he teaches ethics-based philanthropy. Although expert in every area relating to nonprofits and philanthropy, the primary prism through which his consulting work is conducted is ethics.
A graduate of Dartmouth College, Doug is the author of Charity on Trial, which was published in 2007 by Barricade Books. In addition to describing how some charities have betrayed their public trust, Charity on Trial examines what donors should know before they give and how charities can better communicate with their constituencies. In 1996 his first book, The Art of Planned Giving: Understanding Donors and the Culture of Giving (John Wiley & Sons), was awarded the Staley/Robeson/Ryan/St. Lawrence Prize for Research by the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP). He has written several articles for a variety of magazines and periodicals, including Trusts and Estates, the Journal of Gift Planning, Charitable Gift Planning News, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, and several others.
He has served in leading roles with two national planned gift and endowment investment firms, Kaspick & Company and Swerdlin-White, both of which have since been purchased by other investment firms. As a consultant with a unique, personal, critical and comprehensive perspective, he has helped charities analyze ethics, donor relations, marketing, planned and major giving, gift acceptance policies, capital campaign potential, finance and investments, board governance and key-employee succession strategies. He also was the originating developer of the site that became the charity watchdog Charity Navigator.
For five years, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Doug worked as the development director at the Holderness School in New Hampshire. From 1982 to 2000, he served on the Capital Giving Committee at Phillips Exeter Academy and was its national chair for over a decade during that time. As a long-term consultant to Blackbaud in the 1980s and 1990s, he developed ParaGon, one of the first planned giving software programs. He has served as a trustee at several charities.
Doug is a past member of the Board of Directors of the Partnership for Philanthropic Planning (PPP; formerly the National Committee on Planned Giving). During his tenure at PPP he founded the national initiative of Leave A Legacy. He is also a past chair of the PPP Ethics Committee and chaired the 1995 National Conference. He is a past president of the Planned Giving Group of New England and a past president of the New Hampshire/Vermont chapter of AFP. In 2002 the National Capital Gift Planning Council (Washington, DC) presented Doug with its Distinguished Service Award. Today he chairs that council’s Ethics Committee.
In 1995, Doug testified before a Congressional committee in support of the Philanthropy Protection Act (PPA), and served as an expert witness for the charitable defendants in a national lawsuit – which gave rise to the federal legislation that resulted in the PPA and the Charitable Gift Annuity Antitrust Relief Act of 1995 – that threatened the way charities raise money.
Since 1981 he has spoken at over 750 conferences and classes on philanthropy, including the Association for Fundraising Professionals, The Council for the Advancement and Support of Education, the Partnership for Philanthropic Planning, the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy, United Jewish Communities, New York University, dozens of local professional organizations and fundraising councils, as well as many donor audiences sponsored by local charities and other groups.
Contact Details
Doug White (dwhitepg@gmail.com)
1440 Church Street, Suite 402
Washington, DC 20005
Phone: (202) 483.3636