Mary Mountcastle

Mary Mountcastle is a trustee of the Z. Smith Reynolds, Mary Reynolds Babcock, and Triangle Community Foundations. She is a Senior Fellow at Self-Help, a nonprofit community development lender that has made over $5 billion in loans to over 55,000 low-wealth families across the U.S. She currently serves on the boards of the Neighborhood Funders Group, the National Center for Family Philanthropy, the North Carolina Network of Grantmakers and the Corporation for Enterprise Development. She previously was President of the Center for Responsible Lending, Vice President of Economic Development for MDC Inc, a nonprofit policy research center, and Director of the Social Investment Program for MetLife Insurance Co. She has also worked at various levels of government. In 1992, she received the Scrivner Award for Creative Grantmaking from the Council on Foundations. She holds a MBA from the Yale School of Management and a BA from Williams College.

Contributions

From the NCFP Fellows

Why It Matters to Turn the Mirror on Ourselves

Posted on June 4, 2019 by Kelly Nowlin, Mary Mountcastle

a white woman looks in a mirror; in grayscale

Our intention is to share lessons learned that have helped us grow our skills as philanthropists who seek to be more effective in changing the status quo. Our hope is that you might push yourselves in new ways, too—or teach us what has made a difference in your own journey around racial equity… Read More

From the NCFP Fellows

Courage and Commitment: Our Personal Journeys for Racial Equity

Posted on April 2, 2019 by Mary Mountcastle, June Wilson, Kelly Nowlin

There's a blackboard with "are you ready?" written on it in white writing

As NCFP’s 2020 Class of Fellows, we’ve been sitting down and doing a lot of listening. Not the kind of listening you do at a plenary session or on a webinar. The kind of listening that requires some courage. Courage to be in spaces and conversations that are often uncharted waters and make us entirely uncomfortable. Welcome to three women’s journeys around racial equity in the field of family philanthropy… Read More

2019 National Forum on Family Philanthropy

Posted on February 16, 2019 by Wendy R. Ulaszek, Ph.D., Virginia M. Esposito, Ira S. Hirschfield, David Dodson, Dinaz Mansuri, Edgar Villanueva, Lois Mitchell, Richard Woo, Mary Mountcastle, June Wilson

NCFP’s National Forum on Family Philanthropy brings philanthropic families and leaders together for two and a half days of peer networking and thought provoking conversations led by some of the greatest thought leaders in family giving… Read More

Building Bridges: A Conversation with NCFP’s New Fellows on Racial Equity

Posted on December 13, 2018 by Mary Mountcastle, June Wilson, Doug Bitonti Stewart, Kelly Nowlin

Are you breaking or bridging? We all have been affected by structural racism. NCFP’s own 2019 Fellows have dedicated themselves to getting proximate to the people, to the issue, to our families, to the field, and to thinking about how we have been impacted by racial injustice and inequity. From our Imagining the Future cross country focus groups we have heard… Read More

15 Years of Advancing Excellence in Family Philanthropy

Posted on July 11, 2013 by Virginia M. Esposito, Caroline Avery, Mary Mountcastle, Thomas Lambeth, Valerie Lies

How has the field of family philanthropy evolved over the past 15 years? And where is it headed in the future?… Read More

The Right Way to Handle Conflicts of Interest

Posted on March 11, 2010 by Diana Gurivera, Kelly Shipp Simone, Mary Mountcastle

National Center research shows that only about half of family foundations have a conflict of interest policy. Yet conflicts often arise if, for example, a board or staff member volunteers for or serves on the board of a nonprofit that seeks funds from the foundation… Read More