Career
McCaffrey was born in 1968 in Northern Ireland, and is a graduate of Saint MacNissi's College, Garron Tower in County Antrim and Selwyn College, Cambridge (1986–90) where he read Law and History.
He has worked for the Victoria and Albert Museum as Director of Development from 2002–2005, as a consultant to the Royal National Institute for Deaf People from 2005-6, and the National Museums of Scotland. He also established the University of Ulster's first Development Office in Belfast and has worked for Guinness plc (now Diageo) as PR and as a director in Belfast of ABSA (now Arts and Business). His current client list includes the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, Edinburgh College of Art, the Vatican Museums, The Rosslyn Chapel, Worth Abbey and the World Monuments Fund (GB)amongst others. The Irish Episcopal Conference have retained McCaffrey as their fundraising advisor for the International Eucharistic Congress which takes place in Dublin in 2012.
He played a major part in securing the UK's largest ever charitable gift, $230M given by the Gates Foundation to Cambridge University in 1999. He was involved in the first visit to Northern Ireland by President Bill Clinton and subsequent visits by Hillary Rodham Clinton, and helped to organise the second Millennium Lecture in the White House by Professor Stephen Hawking, hosted by the Clintons.
McCaffrey also advises wealthy philanthropists and some hedge fund donors about their philanthropic giving and steered a number of high net worth individuals towards a Michelangelo chapel restoration project in the Vatican called the Pauline Chapel as well as towards the charities of HRH The Prince of Wales. In 2009 he assisted Sir Tom Shebeare, head of the Prince's Charities, in establishing the Prince's Charities Council.
In May 2006, Pope Benedict XVI recognised his service to the Roman Catholic Church by bestowing the Order of St. Gregory the Great on McCaffrey, with the title Knight Commander. He first met the then Cardinal Ratzinger while a student at Cambridge in 1988, interviewing the future Pope for the student paper 'Varsity'. The interview also appeared in The Irish Times and The Universe. In 2005, McCaffrey was a commentator for Sky during the period spanning the death and funeral of Pope John Paul II and the election of Pope Benedict XVI. He is a writer and photographer as well as a donor to various charitable causes, including the work of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, The Terrence Higgins Trust and Bethlehem University.
Read more about this topic: John McCaffrey (fundraiser)
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