About Tim McCarthy

Entrepreneur, Engaged Philanthropist, Writer, and Coach

Tim is the 9th of 10 children raised by an MD and a journalist in a small town on Lake Erie.  He did 12 years of parochial schools, then wound up at Ohio State where he received his BS in Political Science while working campaigns to pay for school.

After four full time professional years in Michigan politics followed by 10 years in NYC-based advertising agencies, Tim started his own marketing business in 1988.  Nineteen years later, he sold that business to private equity.  As he wound down that business, he helped his son in 2004 establish the Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers brand in Ohio. Seventeen years and 44 restaurants later, they sold that operations back to the franchisor.

Now, at 71, he is 20+ years into using the wealth gained from these businesses in service via his private 501c3, The Business of Good Foundation.  

As you’ll learn on these pages as well as in Tim’s writing, his life and foundation are now fully dedicated to economic inclusion.  This is compelling to him both as a societal issue and because there are solutions that address the issue:  

1. Lending to unbankable entrepreneurs

2. Helping first gen and low income college students persist to graduation and

3. Coaching social enterprise entrepreneurs into business    

Blessed by 48 years with Alice, three forty-something children and five grandchildren ages 5 to 11, Tim is now back home in a small town on Lake Erie. 

“I’ve overcome a lot of issues by learning how to compartmentalize; look at the good and the bad dispassionately as possible, then put each where they belong.  Think of your life as a two-story home…two thirds of what you need sits on the second floor or the basement”.

Tim McCarthy the Business of Good Foundation

Tim McCarthy

Tim's Career

  • 1975-1987 | Professional political organizer, advertising agency executive and Chief Marketing Officer of 650 restaurant chain
  • 1988-2007 | Founder, CEO of WorkPlace Impact, "We Deliver Where People Work"; sold to Riverside Company
  • 1997-present | Founder, Mission Officer; The Business of Good Foundation, "Serving Those Who Serve the Poor"
  • 2003-2021 | Investor, Minority Owner; Raising Cane's of Ohio; 44 restaurant franchisee of national chicken finger brand based in Dallas, TX and Baton Rouge, LA
  • 2014-present | Founder, Kara Zale Partners, Investors in Real Estate Development, Construction, Banking, and Student Housing
image010
1 Speaking at VISTAGE
image011
2 Being silly with my grandchildren
Jan_23_2024_18_16_57_6
3 My lovely, kind, and wise wife, Alice
Jan_23_2024_18_16_57_5
4 Laughing with my granddaughter and goddaughter
Tim-bio-photo-1
5 One of my proudest moments
Tim's Blog
Tim's Good Resources
New call-to-action