Patricia Moore Nicholas is a program officer in Carnegie Corporation of New York’s International Peace and Security program, focusing on a range of peace and security issues. Nicholas heads the Corporation’s Expanding Congressional Knowledge grantmaking, which works to deepen congressional understanding of foreign policy issues while strengthening the capacity of congressional members and staffers. She also oversees and manages Requests for Proposals for the Emerging Security Challenges portfolio, whose grantees assess the impact of developing trends in the field, and she continues to work on Russia-relevant grants within the Euro-Atlantic Security program area. Earlier in her Corporation tenure, Nicholas developed and implemented a grantmaking program on the nonproliferation of biological weapons, including advancing a partnership of grantees and funding organizations that produced scientifically competent experts versed in policy formation regarding biosecurity.
Nicholas has a longstanding familiarity with and interest in the nonprofit sector. She was Steering Committee cochair for the Peace and Security Funders Group, an international affinity association of foundations, charitable trusts, and philanthropists who fund in the field; she serves as a mentor for the Women’s Foreign Policy Group, which promotes the global engagement with and participation of women in international affairs; and she worked as a consultant for the New York–based Center for Nonprofit Success. Nicholas also helped establish the International Grantmakers Network of Philanthropy New York, a regional association of grantmakers, and is the network’s outgoing chair. Her early experience in the nonprofit arena was in the performing arts: at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Chelsea Theater Center, as well as with the labor union for theatrical directors.
Nicholas has studied at Georgetown University’s Center for Public and Nonprofit Leadership. She earned a master’s in public administration from Marist College and an undergraduate degree from Fordham University’s College at Lincoln Center in New York City.
