Larry McGill

Larry runs Candid’s research program. His team is dedicated to developing insights about the scope and work of the social sector worldwide using Candid’s unparalleled data on global philanthropy and civil society. He joined Foundation Center as vice president for research in 2007.

With a PhD in Sociology, Larry has spent his life solving research problems through the creative use of data. Early in his career, from 1989 to 1994, he was manager of news audience research at NBC. From 1994 to 2001, he was director of research for the Freedom Forum and its operating programs, the Media Studies Center and the First Amendment Center. He served from 2001 to 2006 as director of research and planning for the Cultural Policy and the Arts National Data Archive (CPANDA) at Princeton University. At Foundation Center, he oversaw research on foundation giving trends, practices and emerging issues in the field. He rapidly expanded research programs to embed data and research findings into dynamic online platforms for aggregating and visualizing global data on philanthropy and placing it in the larger context of emerging needs and international aid flows. As vice president for knowledge services, he oversaw Global Projects & Partnerships, CF Insights and Philanthropy News Digest.

He earned a B.S. in Mathematics at the University of Oklahoma in 1977. He has taught at Northwestern University, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1987.  He lives in Princeton Junction, NJ, with his wife, Lori Morris.  They have two sons and a daughter.