Tullia B. Hamilton has over 20 years experience in philanthropy and the nonprofit sector. The recipient of a Ford Foundation Fellowship for graduate study, she received a Ph.D. from Emory University in American Studies in 1978. Her frequently cited dissertation remains one of the seminal scholarly works in the history of African American women. She has taught Women’s History and African-American History at the Ohio State University.
In 1981, she left academia to work as a program officer at the Columbus Foundation where she eventually reached the rank of vice president. In this position she was responsible for distribution of over $20 million annually and supervising a program staff of ten. She created several program initiatives including: a funding program for small arts organizations, a nonprofit computer consortium, a public teacher awards program, and a program to stimulate coordinated services to families in the central Ohio region.
In 1992, she assumed the reins of the St. Louis Community Foundation. She was responsible for raising the foundation’s assets (from $11 to $70 million) and profile in the community. She was also responsible for organizing efforts that brought funding from the Robert Wood Johnson and Kellogg Foundation to St. Louis. Throughout her career she has been active with the Council on Foundations and numerous other foundation affinity groups. She helped to develop the first training materials for community foundation staff and was a founding member of Community Foundations of America.
Dr. Hamilton currently works as a nonprofit consultant and is on the boards of several foundations. In addition to consulting, she has also taught a course on the history and development of the nonprofit sector at Washington University in St. Louis.
She is the author of Up from Canaan, a history of the African American town of Mound
Bayou.