MacArthur has named John S. Bracken Program Officer in the General Program, which carries out the Foundations media grantmaking and special initiatives.
In this position, Brackens responsibilities will include grantmaking related to public interest media and to intellectual property rights and the public domain.
Johns background in media policy, his experience in both philanthropy and the nonprofit world, and his intellectual breadth and flexibility, make him a welcome addition to our team, said Elspeth Revere, Director of MacArthurs General Program.
Before joining the Foundation, Bracken served as Assistant Director of the American Friends of Neve Shalon/Wahat al-Salam, an Israeli-Arab peace project. From 2000-2002 he was a Program Associate in the Ford Foundations Media, Arts & Culture unit, where he specialized in grants related to the news media, media policy, and technology. For two years prior to this, Bracken managed a series of media research projects for the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania and consulted for the Center for Media Education in Washington, DC, analyzing the social impact of new technologies. Beginning in 1993, Bracken spent five years as a volunteer delivering humanitarian aid to nongovernmental organizations in Latin America.
Bracken is a native of Chicago. He earned his Bachelors degree from the Claremont Colleges Pitzer College in Claremont, California, and has a Masters degree from the Annenberg School for Communications at the University of Pennsylvania.
