he John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation makes grants and program-related investments to organizations and individuals in the U.S. and internationally to help improve the human condition.  In 2005, the Foundation paid out $194.5 million in grants and program-related investments. 

The tables below show how much the Foundation paid out annually from 2001 to 2005, as well as the distribution of grants paid by program in 2005.

The Foundation’s grant budget is $200 million per year. Actual cash paid out from year to year varies depending upon payment schedules of larger grants.

To focus its grantmaking and increase its impact, MacArthur has reduced the number of grants by nearly 40 percent over the last five years, while increasing the size of the average grant by more than 25 percent.  As the tables below show, in 2005 the Foundation authorized 415 grants to organizations. The average size of those grants was $426,000.

PROGRAM ADMINISTRATIVE EXPENSES

The Foundation's charitable administrative costs totaled $27.1 million in 2005, less than two percent above their 2001 level.  This represents 12 percent of total charitable expenditures.  The table below shows charitable administrative expenses over the last five years.

INVESTMENT SUMMARY

The Foundation invests for the long term with the objective of earning a real rate of return, net of expenses, sufficient to fund its charitable giving and operations. The underlying principles to the Foundation's investment approach may be summarized as follows:

• The Foundation maintains a broadly diversified portfolio with allocation to a variety of asset classes, both public and private.
• The broad diversification, combined with rigorous analytical research, is intended to enable the Foundation to manage risk so that it can perform well in strong markets while protecting against substantial capital loss in weak markets.
• The Foundation seeks to achieve strong net returns over time at a cost comparable to other institutions with similar asset allocations.
• The Foundation's net returns have been strong over various periods of time as demonstrated below.

The investment portfolio had a return of 15.5 percent in 2005 net of investment management costs.  The first table below shows assets at the end of each of the last five years and the annual investment return for those years. 


*Changes in assets result from increases or decreases in the value of the investment portfolio, as well as grant and administrative spending.

The following tables show the Foundation’s asset allocation over the past five years and provide details of the 2005 asset allocation.