Occupation CEO Spouse(s) Ann Brown O'Connell | ||
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Known for Co-founding Independent Sector, helped found Civicus: World Alliance for Civic Participation, helped found the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts University Children Todd O'Connell, Tracey O'Connell Sperry, Matthew O'Connell Residence Chatham, Massachusetts, United States People also search for Jason R. Lamb, Roger D. Petersen Books The Career Survival Guide, Civil Society: The Unde, The board member's book, The Fat Boy with the Bomb, B2BCom | ||
Brian O'Connell (23 January 1930 – 21 March 2011) was an American author, academic, and public administrator who helped found Independent Sector, an organization that represents the interests of charities, foundations and nonprofit giving programs in the United States.
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In 1980, O’Connell joined John W. Gardner, the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare in the Johnson administration and the founder of Common Cause, to create Independent Sector, which now (2012) has 550 member nonprofit organizations. O’Connell and Gardner, who died in 2002, saw the need for an umbrella organization that could speak for all charities and other nonprofit groups and represent their interests in Washington.
Early life and education
Brian O’Connell was born on Jan. 23, 1930, in Worcester, Mass. After earning a bachelor’s degree from Tufts University in 1953 he did graduate work in public administration at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University.
Career
He went to work for the American Heart Association as a field representative, then became director of its operations in Maryland and California.
In 1966 he was named the executive director of the National Mental Health Association (now Mental Health America), where he was a leader in promoting new ideas about community care and educating the public about new research on depression. He also helped organize the National Committee on Patients’ Rights.
After leaving the association in 1978 he became the president of the National Council on Philanthropy and the executive director of the Coalition of National Voluntary Organizations.
While at Independent Sector, he helped found Civicus: World Alliance for Civic Participation.
After retiring from Independent Sector he spent the next decade as a professor of citizenship and public service at Tufts. He helped found the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts, where he established the Brian O'Connell Library.
Public service
He was a trustee of Tufts University and a board member of Tisch College.
He also served on the boards of The Bridgespan Group, The Cape Cod Foundation, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the National Academy of Public Administration, Points of Light Foundation, Ima Hogg Foundation, and the National Assembly of Health and Social Welfare Organizations (now National Human Services Assembly). He was also chairman of the 1989 Salzburg Seminar on non-governmental organizations.
Honors and death
He was an elected Fellow of the American Public Health Association and the National Academy of Public Administration and received several honorary degrees, including a doctorate of humanities from Fairleigh Dickinson University and doctorate of laws from Indiana University.
He won a number of awards including a special John W. Gardner Leadership Award when he retired from Independent Sector; Weston Howland Award for Citizenship from the Lincoln Filene Center; Gold Key Award of the American Society of Association Executives; United Way of America’s Award for Professionalism; the Chairman’s Award of the National Society of Fund Raising Executives, the Tufts Presidential medal, and with John W. Gardner, the 1998 Tiffany Award for Public Service.
O'Connell died in 2011 in Chatham Mass. where he had lived since retiring from Independent Sector.