Doug White

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Doug White
202.255.6680

AUTHOR * PROFESSOR * ADVISOR




Doug White, a long-time leader in the nation's philanthropic community, is an author, professor, and an advisor to nonprofit organizations and philanthropists.  He teaches board governance, ethics and fundraising at Columbia University's Master of Science in Fundraising Management program.  He is the former academic director of New York University's Heyman Center for Philanthropy and Fundraising where, in addition to his management responsibilities, he taught ethics-based fundraising and board governance.  He has also been an advisor to BoardSource, the nation's leading organization dedicated to "building exceptional nonprofit boards and inspiring board service." 

Doug is the author of three books.  His most recent, "The Nonprofit Challenge: Integrating Ethics into the Purpose and Promise of Our Nation's Charities" (2010, Palgrave Macmillan), examines charities in an ethical context.  The other two are "Charity on Trial: What You Need to Know Before You Give" (2007, Barricade Books), and "The Art of Planned Giving: Understanding Donors and the Culture of Giving" (1996, John Wiley & Sons), which was awarded the 1996 Staley/Robeson/Ryan/St. Lawrence Prize for Research by the Association of Fundraising Professionals. 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, and the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Since 1979 Doug has advised hundreds of charities of all types and sizes. Today, he works closely with select organizations on ethics decision-making, board governance, and fundraising. A few of the more interesting organizations with which he has worked include:
  • Ambassadors for Philanthropy
  • American Association of University Women
  • American Israel Education Foundation
  • American Legacy Foundation
  • Center for Science in the Public Interest 
  • Children's Hospital Boston
  • Greenpeace, USA
  • Military Order of the Purple Heart Service Foundation
  • Resources for the Future
  • Smithsonian Institution 
  • United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
  • University of Sagrado Corazon
  • The Wilderness Society
  • Young Pioneers
A graduate of Dartmouth College, Doug has worked as the development director at Holderness School (NH), and has served as a trustee at several charities. For almost two decades (1982 – 2000) he served on the Capital Giving Committee at Phillips Exeter Academy and as its national chair for several years during that time. He has served in leading roles with two national planned gift and endowment investment firms. As a long-term consultant to Blackbaud, Inc. in the 1980s and 1990s, he developed one of the first planned giving software programs.

Doug is a past member of the Board of Directors of the Partnership for Philanthropic Planning (formerly the National Committee on Planned Giving). In 1996, while on the NCPG board, he founded the national initiative of Leave A Legacy. He is also a past chair of the NCPG Ethics Committee and the 1995 NCPG 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 presented Doug with its “Distinguished Service Award.” Today he chairs that council’s Ethics Committee and writes the "Ethics Corner," a monthly column on ethics and fundraising.

In 1995 Doug testified before a Congressional committee in support of the Philanthropy Protection Act, and served as an expert witness for the charitable defendants in a national lawsuit - the "Texas Lawsuit" - that threatened the ability of charities to raise money.

Since 1981 he has spoken at over 750 conferences 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, and hundreds of local professional organizations and planned giving councils, as well as many audiences sponsored by local charities and other groups.