Join the Margaret Ellerbe Mahoney Society

Who was Margaret Ellerbe Mahoney? (1924-2011)

Widely respected in philanthropic circles as the “Grande Dame” of philanthropy, Margaret Ellerbe Mahoney devoted her career to working with philanthropies focused on health, education, arts and the humanities. A native of Nashville, Tennessee and a magna cum laude graduate of Vanderbilt University, Ms. Mahoney served as a Foreign Affairs Officer for the U.S. Department of State from 1946 to 1953 before entering the field of philanthropy. Margaret Mahoney served as a senior executive of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and of the Carnegie Corporation, ultimately becoming the first woman to head a major U.S. philanthropic foundation as president of the Commonwealth Fund in New York City in 1980. Upon her retirement from the Commonwealth Fund in 1995, Ms. Mahoney served as president of MEM Associates, a New York-based nonprofit consulting firm dedicated to improving the health and well-being of Americans, where she created the Healthy Steps for Young Children, a national initiative encouraging pediatricians to focus on developmental issues in the first three years of a child's life. In a career spanning more than four decades, Ms. Mahoney helped redefine and reenergize American health philanthropy.

Ms. Mahoney’s leadership was also instrumental during the earliest days of the CDC Foundation. She was a founding member of the CDC Foundation board of directors, serving from 1994-2004, including a term as chair from 1996-1998. Ms. Mahoney served on numerous other nonprofit boards, including those of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Columbia University, the Alliance for Aging Research, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, the Dole Foundation, the New York Academy of Medicine and the Dartmouth Medical School/Koop Institute Board of Overseers. She was a member of the National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine, which she helped create in the 1970s, and she received honorary degrees from many colleges and universities, including Smith College, Williams College, Brandeis University and the Medical College of Pennsylvania.

The CDC Foundation board of directors created the Margaret Ellerbe Mahoney Society in 1998 to honor Ms. Mahoney for her service to the board and her vital support of CDC Foundation initiatives since its inception. A true visionary and changemaker, Margaret Ellerbe Mahoney exemplified the dedication and conscientiousness of our most loyal supporters.