MacArthur Foundation

Book Profile
Participatory Philanthropy in Grantmaking Examines Shift Away from Top-Down Power of Elite Foundations
Participatory Grantmaking in Philanthropy: How Democratizing Decision-Making Shifts Power to Communities, forthcoming in December from Georgetown University Press, features several case studies of and perspectives on what its proponents call…
by Michael E. Hartmann on November 27, 2024

CRC in the News
Scott Walter Talks About Arabella with Ron Jolly
Arabella Advisors is a for-profit company in Washington, DC, that controls a network of six nonprofit organizations. These six sisters in turn control several hundred small projects masquerading as grassroots…
by Scott Walter on May 8, 2024

Philanthropy
Big Philanthropy to the Rescue? Think Again.
As the media and elites across America take up a fight to “save democracy,” Big Philanthropy is casting itself in the role of superhero. Since 2011, the University of Pennsylvania’s…
by Jeffrey Cain on April 19, 2024

Podcast
InfluenceWatch Podcast #293: Half a Billion for Liberal Journalism (w/Scott Walter)
As if the national press were not liberal enough or sufficiently committed to the national left-wing agenda, Big Philanthropy is throwing hundreds of millions of dollars to make local journalism…
by Parker Thayer, Michael Watson, Scott Walter on November 10, 2023

Special Report
Martin Morse Wooster: Book Man
An entire library was to Martin but an “after-dinner mint.” He daily consumed oceans of books, newspapers, and magazines on every subject imaginable and several beyond the imaginations of most…
by Scott Walter on February 16, 2023

Special Report
Martin Morse Wooster: Martin’s Genuine “Civic Participation”
Martin understood what real civic participation is—love of your neighbors, your local sports teams, and your local civic festivals. Hazlett recalls how Martin “viewed every parade, and devoured each spectacle.”…
by Scott Walter on February 16, 2023

Special Report
Martin Morse Wooster: Big Martin vs. Big Philanthropy
Martin relentlessly hammered Big Philanthropy. On the one hand, he could write with deep appreciation of titans whose entrepreneurial genius allowed them to amass a fortune that would later be,…
by Scott Walter on February 16, 2023

Green Watch
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation: A Circular Economy Opposed to Conservation
The membership network of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF) includes more than 200 corporations, governments, funders, and other familiar entities. EMF claims to be dedicated to conservation and protecting the…
by Ken Braun on August 16, 2022

Foundation Watch
Foundations Destroying American Public Education: The Hydra
The world of K–12 education policy has long been dominated by philanthropic foundations. Much of the education “reform” sweeping across America has been financed and pushed by elite, well-heeled foundations.
by Luke Rosiak on May 20, 2022

Foundation Watch
Foundations Destroying American Public Education: Equity Initiatives
The 1619 Project, Nikole Hannah-Jones’s 2019 New York Times series turned grade school curriculum, might never have seen the light of day if not for the MacArthur Foundation. In 2014,…
by Luke Rosiak on May 20, 2022