EVENTS OF NOTE

The American Textile History Museum will present GMA Foundations’ founder Newell Flather with its 2012 Community Service Award  at a Gala on Friday, November 2nd.

The Community Service Award honors an individual or individuals who  have shown outstanding community service through their good works, exemplary  volunteer service, compassion, and involvement with the American Textile  History Museum (ATHM) and the community.   Past honorees include Nancy and Richard Donahue, John H. Pearson Jr., George and Carol Duncan, Michael Creasey and the Lowell National Historical Park and Brenda Costello.

Newell Flather has been an originator and leader in the field of philanthropy for over 40 years. He was Second Marshal of his Harvard class, chaired his Class Alumni Committee since 1971, and served three terms as Director of the Harvard Alumni Association. He taught high school in Ghana from 1961-63 as a member of the first Peace Corps volunteers. “By being first, we got to break everything that became the Peace Corps rules.”

In 1974, he was a founding trustee of Oxfam America, which today raises over $75 million annually for projects in the developing world. While Chair of Oxfam, in 1980, he visited the massive refugee camps on the Thai-Cambodian border, where he had his first contact with many courageous Cambodians who are citizens of Lowell today.

With two colleagues, he established GMA Foundations in 1982 – believed to be the first, and one of the largest, philanthropic advisory firms in the USA now serving some 35 foundations.  Newell is President of the Parker Foundation, and trustee of the Pomroy Foundation, the Fund for the Arts, and the Susan A. and Donald P. Babson Charitable Foundation. He is also active with the MA Historical Society, the Boston Study Group and Landmarks Orchestra. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, a MA in History and African studies from Columbia where he was a Ford Foundation International Fellow.

Newell is proud to have been raised by the “village” of Lowell.