Carol Farquhar Nugent, long-time executive director of Grantmakers In Aging (GIA), retired December 31, 2011 following a 12-year career with GIA.

As the organization’s first full-time Executive Director, she led a rapidly growing nonprofit membership organization for senior staff and trustees from all sizes and types of foundations involved directly or indirectly with aging. GIA is the only national professional organization of grantmakers active in the field of aging. Through educational activities, programs and publications, GIA serves its members’ needs as a national resource center on aging. Networking and collaboration are the cornerstones of GIA’s work in the philanthropic community. The mission of GIA is: “To Promote and Strengthen Grantmaking for an Aging Society.”

Prior to this appointment in 1999, Ms. Nugent held the position of Program Officer at the Kettering Foundation based in Dayton, Ohio. The Kettering Foundation is an operating foundation with research focused on learning how democracy can work better. Her responsibilities included expansion and support of the National Issues Forums program to promote deliberative democracy.

Since retirement, she has continued to address the needs of local and national nonprofit organizations by serving on the boards of the National Issues Forums Institute and The Dade Fund, a donor advised fund of the Miami, FL Community Foundation. As an active member of SCORE (Senior Corps of Retired Executives), she is working with other volunteers to design and implement a capacity building series of workshops for small nonprofit organizations.

Under her leadership as Executive Director, GIA was the recipient of the National Council on Aging’s Arthur Fleming Award; she was a delegate to the White House Conference on Aging; and selected as the Dayton Daily News’ Top Ten Women.

Ms. Nugent received her Bachelor of Arts in Humanities at the McGregor School at Antioch University, Yellow Springs, Ohio.