MacArthur Foundation
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| Founded | 1970 |
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| Focus | Climate change, mass incarceration, nuclear challenges, non-profit journalism, local issues in Chicago |
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President
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Julia Stasch |
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Key people
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John D. MacArthur (co-founder) Catherine T. MacArthur (co-founder) |
| Endowment | $6.2 billion (12/31/2015) |
| Slogan | "Committed to building a more just, verdant & peaceful world." |
| Website | macfound |
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is the 12th-largest private foundation in the United States. Based in Chicago, the Foundation makes grants and impact investments to support non-profit organizations in Chicago, across the U.S., and in approximately 50 countries. MacArthur reports that it has awarded more than US $6 billion since its first grants in 1978. According to the Foundation, it has an endowment of $6.2 billion and provides approximately $250 million annually in grants and impact investments.
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 Chicago. The MacArthur Fellows Program, also referred to as "genius grants", makes $625,000 no-strings-attached awards 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 that addresses a critical problem of our time.
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 T. MacArthur, 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 $1 billion and was reportedly one of the three richest men in the United States. MacArthur left 92 percent of his estate to begin 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.
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