Jan McElwee, is principal of the McElwee Group. For more than a decade she directed corporate giving and external affairs for a leading national retailer and, since 1992, has headed her own consulting firm. An active member of the philanthropic community for more than twenty-five years, she is the former chair of Southern California Grantmakers and serves as a senior advisor to many of the country’s leading philanthropic institutions.

      The McElwee Group counsels foundations, corporate giving programs and philanthropic organizations that strengthen the sector, as well as nonprofit organizations, on issues ranging from funder collaboration to board development and fundraising.  Jan McElwee has successfully designed and led numerous capital campaigns for a variety of nonprofit groups. She has also focused on individual donors and co-authored the report, “What California Donors Want: In their Own Words,” published by the National Center for Family Philanthropy.

     Prior to having her own firm, she managed external affairs, including the national corporate giving program, for Carter Hawley Hale Stores and supervised the corporate giving of such diverse store groups as Neiman-Marcus, The Broadway & Bergdorf Goodman, working closely with other funders and nonprofit organizations throughout the country.

     Currently she serves on the USC Board of Councilors for Civic Engagement and California State Northridge, Center for Southern California Studies. She also serves as Board Chair for Emerging Markets Development Corporation and serves on the Jonas Center for Nursing and Veterans Healthcare, California Advisory Board. She was a founding board member of Community Partners and served on the board of The Asia Society/California Center. As an active member of the Los Angeles philanthropic community, she was founding Chair for the LA Mayor’s Advisory Council on Volunteerism and participated on the Governor’s Commission on Arts Education. She has served as an evaluating panelist for the California Arts Council and for the National Endowment for the Arts.

    Earlier in her career, she served on the faculties of Oberlin College, Conservatory of Music and Edinboro State University. She was a guest lecturer at SNDT Women’s University in Mumbai, India. Her undergraduate degree in music is from Eastern Nazarene College in Boston with a masters from Kent State University and doctoral work at UCLA in the field of ethnomusicology,