Conn Nugent

Conn Nugent (born September 13, 1946) is an Irish American writer and policy analyst who works with personal and family philanthropies to uncover domestic and international grantmaking opportunities. He is particularly experienced in enviornmental protection and historic preservation. Nugent is best known for having been Excutive Director ofInternational Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW). He was the first to hold that position and was in office when the organization was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Conn Nugent was born in Dublin, Ireland of Irish-American parents: James P. Nugent, a civil engineer, and Polly O'Donnell, a fashion model. Nugent's paternal grandfather, James J. Nugent, worked as a labor-union organizer and Tammany politician. His maternal grandfather was a coal industry lobbyist in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Nugent and his four siblings were raised in Larchmont, New York. He graduated with honors from Harvard College and Harvard Law School. In between, Nugent served two years with the Peace Corps in Costa Rica. His appointment in 1977 as executive director of the VingoTrust - a family foundation endowed by Boston investor WIlliam Appleton Coolidge - marked the first step in what was to become a back-and-forth pattern of running both foundations and the non-profits that rely on them.

Nugent has served as executive director of a variety of non-profits: they include New Alchemy Institute (solar energy); International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW); Five Colleges, Inc. (curriculum development and retiree education);Liberty Tree Alliance; Citizens Union of the City of New York (monitoring municipal government); and the Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment (carbon pricing and federal tax policy).

On the philanthropy side, Nugent was the Founding Environmental Program Director at the Nathan Cummings Foundation (1990-1995), and served as Executive Director of the JM Kaplan Fund (2000-2012). His Cummings portfolio concentrated on carbon-intensiveness in US transportation and agriculture. At JM Kaplan he developed a program that concentrated on North American cross-border ecosystems (grasslands in New Mexico and Chihuahua; hunting waters off Alaska and Yukon; fish larvae migration pathways in US, Mexican, and Cuban waters). The cross-border emphasis also informed Kaplan’s Historic Preservation Program (prairie churches in North Dakota and Saskatchewan; cliff dwellings in Arizona and Sonora; Art Deco buildings in Miami and Havana).

Nugent has been a Member of the Board of Directors of The Land Institute (Salina, Kansas) for 24 years. He served as Chairman for eight years. He was also a Board Member of the Association of Massachusetts Grantmakers, the Environmental Grantmakers Association and the Biodiversity Funders Group, and a Senior Fellow at the Ocean Foundation.

In 2015, Nugent was asked by The Pew Charitable Trusts to a) assess the possible environmental consequences of mining the ocean seabed; and b) consider the advisability of a new Pew program on the subject. His reports informed the decision of the Pew Board to establish that program and set as its objective the first-in-history approval of an environmental protection rulebook to govern an industry before it begins. Nugent then agreed to become the first director of the Pew Seabed Project and remained at its head for four years.

Most of Nugent’s writing output has taken the form of private reports on philanthropic initiatives, usually on environment and historic preservation. Beginning with his tenure as Narthex of the Harvard Lampoon, he has also kept up a side career writing for newspapers and magazines. Nugent was a frequent contributor to Stewart Brand’s CoEvolution Quarterly, and designed and guest-edited that journal’s “When Things Go Wrong” issue. His articles have appeared in the Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Newsday, and the New England Monthly.

Nugent devised and managed two award-winning websites of the 1990s: Liberty Tree Alliance (environmental news) and The Gotham Gazette (New York City politics). In 2003 Nugent and DJ LaChapelle produced one of the first wildfire crazes of the Internet: WeLoveTheIraqiInformationMinister.com, a site that showcased the hapless spokesman as a hero of French deconstructionists and Hollywood press agents. Nugent's writings include:

Environment

• "Starting an Enviro Program," Nathan Cummings Foundation Annual Report, 1993.
• "Culture & Consumption," Nathan Cummings Foundation memorandum, 1994.
• "Talking About Biodiversity," Communications Consortium Media Center, 1996.
• Liberty Tree, 1997-98 (>200 pieces), Archived May 23, 1997, at the Wayback Machine.
• "Fuels & Prophecy," from The Virtues of Ignorance, Jackson and Vitek, eds, Univ of Kentucky Press, 2008.
• "Optimism Versus Hope," Conservation Biology, 2007-8.

Nuclear weapons

• "Greetings, Gorbachev," Boston Globe Op-Ed, April 2, 1985.
• Nobel Self-Description, from NobelPrize.org, 1985.
• IPPNW Manifesto, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, 1986.
• "Good News in What Might Have Been," LA Times Op-Ed, 1986.

New York City

• Gotham Gazette Homepage, 1999.
• "Virtues of Tammany," GothamGazette.org, 1999.
• "Think Small. Think Big.," Citizens Union, 2000.
• "Lest We Forget, Rudy's Feet of Clay," Newsday Op-Ed, 2002.

Philanthropy

• "Money Out the Door: Seven Steps to a Happy, Healthy Family Foundation," The American Benefactor, 1997.
• Cross-Border: JM Kaplan Fund, 2000-2005. (109 mb)

Miscellaneous

• "Havana Province, 1977: Conversations with Cubans," Co-Evolution Quarterly, 1977.
• Good Work, Good Rest: Some Ideas From William Morris, Co-Evolution Quarterly, 1978.
• Original Fantasy Baseball, Harvard Magazine, 1981.
• Guest Editor Issue, The Co-Evolution Quarterly, 1982.
• "Central Square: My Part in Urban Decay," Co-Evolution Quarterly, 1982.
• "Old Sox: The One New England Yankee," New England Monthly, 1986.
• "Thinking Big Thoughts," interview, Whole Earth Review, 1988.
• "The Seven Mysteries of the Universe," commencement address, Buckley School, New York City, June 12, 2002.

Nugent has four children with his wife, actor and writer Katherine Kormendi. Two are in college and two attend public middle school in Washington DC. Nugent has two older children from his first marriage: Benjamin Nugent, a novelist and short-story writer, and Annie Baker, a playwright. Nugent’s brother Rory Nugent is a writer and reporter.