Login into your grantee account, reset your password, or submit an idea to the MacArthur Foundation.
We have three intentionally broad and flexible approaches to our field support for Philanthropy. This allows us both to direct our work and to be responsive to the needs of the moment. We emphasize that funders are not the experts and aim to lead by example, striving to be open to feedback and transparent about how we work.
This includes organizations that innovate and promote best practices for ourselves and our peers in philanthropy that help lessen the burden on grantees and increase impact.
We also seek to better understand and participate in the growing trend of donor collaboratives and funder learning communities.
This includes work to increase transparency and feedback among and between funders, nonprofits, and the public.
We also aim to promote values-aligned ways of working, emphasizing MacArthur’s values of Creativity; Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; Empathy; Integrity; and Learning.
This includes organizations that provide publicly accessible nonprofit resources.
We support professional growth for development and fundraising professionals, particularly individuals and organizations serving underfunded communities.
Across the three approaches above, we have two types of grantmaking:
We have funded field building in the philanthropic sector for over four decades. We believe a strong philanthropic and nonprofit sector that leads with values can help society meet its biggest challenges. By this we mean a sector that invites in, respects, and values people across the full spectrum of backgrounds and lived experiences, and encourages multiple ways of thinking. With philanthropic support, the organizations and individuals who are innovating and advocating for a more representative and responsive sector have the power to change the world.
We aim to increase transparency and feedback between funders, nonprofits, and the public; to reduce burdens on nonprofits to increase their impact; and to strengthen skills for philanthropic and nonprofit professionals. As a philanthropy ourselves, we aim to lead with our values of Creativity; Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; Empathy; Integrity; and Learning.
We believe that our work in the philanthropic sector can:
Shift norms in philanthropy that help lessen the burden on grantees and increase their impact.
Increase funding of and for underfunded populations.
Move toward a dynamic that recognizes that donors are not the experts and should follow the lead of people doing the work.
Strengthen communities of underrepresented groups in the sector and increase the diversity of philanthropic professionals.
Increase funder transparency and responsiveness to feedback.
Increase comfort with risk taking.
We fund organizations working at the national level in the U.S., India, and Nigeria working across our three approaches.
In India and Nigeria, grantmaking as part of our Philanthropy strategy seeks to strengthen the domestic, homegrown sector in both countries, investing in philanthropic infrastructure and learning with and from communities.
While we are not accepting unsolicited proposals at this time, we are always eager to hear new ideas and perspectives.
Evaluation of our work is a critical tool for informing our decision making, leading to better results and more effective stewardship of resources. We develop customized evaluation designs for each of our programs based on the context, problem, opportunity, and approach to the work. Evaluation is not a one-time event. It is an ongoing process of collecting feedback and using that information to support our grantees and adjust our strategy. Findings and analyses from evaluation activities are posted publicly as they become available.
