Kathy Calvin, CEO, United Nations Foundation (CGI 2010)
The UN Foundation, a public charity, was created in 1998 with entrepreneur and philanthropist Ted Turner’s historic $1 billion gift to support UN causes and activities. We are an advocate for the UN and a platform for connecting people, ideas and resources to help the United Nations solve global problems.
We help the UN take its best work and ideas to scale—through advocacy, partnerships, constituency building and fund-raising.
Partnerships because we have learned what can be achieved when the public and private sectors work together through the United Nations;- Advocacy because we know the leverage and impact that sound policy can have on the kind of social, economic and environmental change the UN seeks;
- Community-building because the UN was created for “we the people,” and all of us can give back and contribute to a better world; and
- We need new and additional resources to power solutions to global challenges.
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Kathy (Bushkin) Calvin is the Chief Executive Officer of the United Nations Foundation. The UN Foundation was created in 1998 with entrepreneur and philanthropist Ted Turner’s historic $1 billion gift to support UN causes and activities. The UN Foundation advocates for the UN and connects people, ideas, and resources to help the United Nations solve global problems. As a public charity with many other partners, the UN Foundation’s work is focused on decreasing child mortality, empowering women and girls, creating a clean energy future, protecting diverse cultures and environments, using mobile technology for development, and improving US-UN relations.
Prior to joining the UN Foundation, Kathy served as President of the AOL Time Warner Foundation, guided AOL Time Warner’s other philanthropic activities and was the chief architect of the company’s corporate responsibility initiatives. She joined America Online in 1997 as Senior Vice President and Chief Communications Officer.
Immediately prior to joining AOL, she was a Senior Managing Director at Hill and Knowlton, a global public relations company, where she led the U.S. Media Relations practice. For 12 years before that, she was the Director of Editorial Administration for U.S. News & World Report. From 1976 through 1984, Kathy served as Senator Gary Hart’s press secretary in his Senate office and 1984 Presidential campaign.
Throughout her career, Kathy Calvin has taken an active role in a range of philanthropic activities, including the boards of the International Women’s Media Foundation, City Year, Internews, Share Our Strength, and the United Nations Association of the United States of America. In 1999 she and Art Bushkin founded the Stargazer Foundation to provide free online tools for nonprofits.
Kathy is a graduate of Purdue University and the recipient of numerous awards for leadership and philanthropy.
