The Author

Joel J. Orosz is a program director in the Philanthropy and Volunteerism programming area of the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, of Battle Creek, Michigan. He earned his B.A. degree in American history (1979, cum laude) from Kalamazoo College, and both his M.A. degree in history and museum studies (1981, magna cum laude) and his Ph.D. degree in nineteenth-century American social history (1986) from Case Western Reserve University.

Before joining the Kellogg Foundation, Orosz was employed by the Howard Dittrick Museum of Historical Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio, as a curatorial assistant and by the Kalamazoo Public Museum in Kalamazoo, Michigan, as curator of interpretation. His main research activities have focused on museology and philanthropy. In 1990, the University of Alabama Press published his doctoral dissertation, Curators and Culture: The Museum Movement in America, 1740–1870. He served as the editor of For the Benefit of All: A History of Philanthropy in Michigan (Council of Michigan Foundations, 1997), which won the first-ever special award for merit in communications from the Council on Foundations in 1999. He has also authored a number of articles in both fields. In addition, he has written two books and numerous articles about his avocation of numismatics, three of which have won awards from the American Numismatic Association and the Numismatic Literary Guild.

Orosz has served on a number of professional committees, including chairing the Council on Foundations' Committee on Legislation and Regulations, and he holds memberships on the Program Committee of the Points of Light Foundation, the Government Relations Committee of the Council of Michigan Foundations, and the Michigan Nonprofit Research Program Advisory Council of the Aspen Institute Nonprofit Sector Research Fund. He is also a charter commissioner on the Michigan Community Service Commission.

Orosz is married to Florence Upjohn Orosz, and they have four children: Carly, Anita, Marianna, and Andrew. The Orosz family makes their home in Kalamazoo, Michigan.