A Peek Behind the Curtain: MacArthur’s $100M Grant Competition

Ruth McCambridge and Cecilia Conrad

October 5, 2017

NPQ Needs your Feedback

Yesterday, NPQ piloted a new feature on Facebook Live. In this installment of “A Peek behind the Philanthropic Curtain,” we interviewed Cecilia Conrad of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation about its unusual 100&Change grant program. While this interview explores the thinking and practices behind the grant form being used, the series is intended to help nonprofits understand how various types of foundations approach their grantmaking. This may be the first in a series but you are our focus group so feedback is welcome!

We welcome all feedback on this pilot.

Nonprofit Quarterly would like to thank Blackbaud for sponsoring our new Facebook Live series!

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About the authors

Ruth McCambridge

Ruth is Editor Emerita of the Nonprofit Quarterly. Her background includes forty-five years of experience in nonprofits, primarily in organizations that mix grassroots community work with policy change. Beginning in the mid-1980s, Ruth spent a decade at the Boston Foundation, developing and implementing capacity building programs and advocating for grantmaking attention to constituent involvement.

Cecilia Conrad

Cecilia Conrad is managing director at the MacArthur Foundation, where she leads the MacArthur Fellows Program, the MacArthur Awards for Creative and Effective Institutions, and 100&Change, a competition for a single $100 million grant to help solve a critical problem of our time.