Mary Ellen Capek is principal of Capek Consulting. She is co-author of Effective Philanthropy: Organizational Success through Deep Diversity and Gender Equality (MIT Press, 2006, www.effectivephilanthropybook.org), which won the 2007 Independent Sector/ARNOVA Virginia A. Hodgkinson Research Prize for the best book on philanthropy in the nonprofit sector that informs policy and practice. Mary Ellen is also lead author of The Nonprofit and Philanthropic Sector Scan (2006), written for the Rutgers University Institute for Ethical Leadership.

A founding officer of the National Council for Research on Women, a 34-year-old coalition of 120 US-based research and policy centers recently merged with the International Center for Research on Women, Mary Ellen served as NCRW executive director from 1989-1996 and edited the prize-winning Women’s Thesaurus (Harper & Row, 1987). She has served on numerous boards and committees, including the Aspen Institute’s Nonprofit Sector Research Fund, the Independent Sector Research Committee, The Conference Board Work/Life Leadership Council, and Funders for Lesbian and Gay Issues. Since 2011, she has served as Publisher of Arbor Farm Press, a press she helped to launch in 2010 (www.arborfarmpress.com).

Mary Ellen’s papers are archived at the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe (NCRW-related publications, speeches, and correspondence); the Rockefeller Archive Center (the Rockefeller Brothers Fund research, locked for 20 years); Indiana University/Purdue University Indianapolis  Library (women in philanthropy/diversity in philanthropy research, speeches, correspondence and notes); and the University of Denver (women in higher education research and materials).