 | |
| Founded | 1970 |
|---|---|
| Focus | Climate change, mass incarceration, nuclear challenges, non-profit journalism, local issues in Chicago |
| Location |
|
President
| John Palfrey |
Key people
| John D. MacArthur (co-founder) Catherine T. MacArthur (co-founder) |
| Endowment | $7.0 billion (12/31/2017) |
| Website | macfound |
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is a private foundation that makes grants and impact investments to support non-profit organizations in approximately 50 countries around the world. It has an endowment of $7.0 billion and provides approximately $260 million annually in grants and impact investments. It is based in Chicago and is the 12th-largest private foundation in the United States. It has awarded more than US$6.8 billion since its first grants in 1978.
The Foundation's stated aim is to support "creative people, effective institutions, and influential networks building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world." MacArthur's current grant-making priorities include mitigating climate change, reducing jail populations, decreasing nuclear threats, supporting nonprofit journalism, and funding local priorities in its hometown of Chicago. The MacArthur Fellows Program, also referred to as "genius grants", awards $625,000 no-strings-attached grants annually to about two dozen creative individuals in diverse fields. The Foundation's 100&Change competition awards a $100 million grant every three years to a single proposal.
History
John D. MacArthur owned Bankers Life and Casualty and other businesses, as well as considerable property holdings in Florida and New York. His wife, Catherine, held positions in many of these companies. Their attorney, William T. Kirby,
and Paul Doolen, their CFO, suggested that the family create a
foundation to be endowed by their vast fortune. One of the reasons
MacArthur originally set up the Foundation was to avoid taxes.
When MacArthur died on January 6, 1978, he was worth in excess of
a billion dollars. He left ninety-two percent of his estate to found
the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The composition of the Foundation’s first board of directors, per MacArthur’s will, also included J. Roderick MacArthur, John's son from his first marriage, two other officers of Bankers Life and Casualty, and radio commentator Paul Harvey. Jonas Salk, the inventor of the polio vaccine, later joined the Foundation's board of directors.
MacArthur believed in the free market.
However, MacArthur did not spell out specific parameters for how his
money was to be spent after he died. MacArthur told the Foundation's
board of directors, "I figured out how to make the money. You fellows
will have to figure out how to spend it."
Between 1979 and 1981, John's son J. Roderick MacArthur, an
ideological opponent of his father with whom the elder MacArthur had an
acrimonious relationship, waged a legal battle against the Foundation
for control of the board of directors. The younger MacArthur sued eight members of the board, accusing them of mismanagement of the Foundation's finances.
By 1981, most of the original board had been replaced by members
who agreed with J. Roderick MacArthur's desire to support liberal
causes. This ultimately resulted in the creation of what, in 2008, historian and conservative commentator Martin Morse Wooster called "one of the pillars of the liberal philanthropic establishment."
In 1984, MacArthur again sued the board of directors, asking a Cook
County circuit court to liquidate the entire MacArthur Foundation. He
dropped the suit later that same year when he was diagnosed with
pancreatic cancer.
Leadership
John E. Corbally, the first president of the Foundation and later board chairman from 1995 to 2002, was followed in 1989–99 by Adele Simmons, who was the first female dean at Princeton University. Jonathan Fanton, president of American Academy of Arts and Sciences, served as the Foundation's next president. Robert Gallucci, formerly dean of Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, served as the Foundation's fourth president from 2009 to 2014. Gallucci was fired in 2014, with the Foundation's board announcing it was "looking for a new kind of leadership."
Julia Stasch, who formerly served as MacArthur's vice president for
U.S. Programs, was named the Foundation's president in 2015. Stasch had formerly served as chief of staff to Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley. She announced that she would step down in 2019. In March, 2019, John Palfrey was named the next president of the foundation, effective September 1, 2019.
MacArthur Fellowship
The MacArthur Fellowship
is an award issued by the MacArthur Foundation each year, to typically
20 to 30 citizens or residents of the United States, of any age and
working in any field, who "show exceptional merit and promise for
continued and enhanced creative work." The program was initiated in
1981.
According to the Foundation, the fellowship is not a reward for past
accomplishment, but an investment in a person's originality and
potential. MacArthur Fellows receive $625,000 each, which is paid out in
quarterly installments over five years. The Chicago Foundation for Women was one of the nonprofit organizations to receive a US$1million four year grant in 2017.
No one can apply for the program, and, generally, no one knows if he or
she is being considered as a candidate. Nominators, serving
confidentially, anonymously and for a limited time, are invited to
recommend potential Fellows. Candidates are reviewed by a Selection
Committee, whose members also serve confidentially, anonymously and for a
limited time. Ultimately, the Committee makes recommendations to the
Foundation's Board of Directors for final approval.
100&Change
In
June 2016, the foundation put out a call for "proposals promising real
progress toward solving a critical problem of our time in any field or
any location." The winning proposal would receive a $100 million grant.
Almost 2,000 proposals were submitted. In December 2017, the foundation
announced that the winning proposal was submitted by the Sesame Workshop
and the International Rescue Committee. The grant was put toward
educating Middle Eastern refugee children.
