J. Roderick MacArthur: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 11:49, 10 March 2010

Revision as of 05:07, 1 June 2010

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Largely due to Rod MacArthur’s efforts, the board was expanded to thirteen members in 1979. The new members had backgrounds from academia, science, government, and business. This board now openly and publicly fought over the grants that were made to favorite board member causes, often trading votes among themselves. Even though there was support for each board member’s causes an extremely bitter and public argument erupted between Rod MacArthur and former U.S. Treasury Secretary [[William E. Simon]] over board grants to a number of conservative causes Simon supported. Eventually Simon resigned from the board.

Rod MacArthur continued to be unhappy with the foundation and its management. He launched two lawsuits, the first in February 1984 against his fellow board members charging in essence that board members were acting as executives of Bankers LifeandLife and were looking out for their own best interest and not the needs of the foundation. His suit also alleged that the foundation was not managing its assets properly. MacArthur further claimed that high fees were being paid to board members for their foundation work and he felt that Bankers Life was not being managed well and had lost value. He requested that the foundation be either dissolved or that the court appoint a receiver to manage and sell Bankers Life.

After Rod MacArthur blocked the sale of the company for $116 million less, the board found a buyer for Bankers Life that was willing to pay $384 million for the company.[http://www.learningtogive.org/papers/index.asp?bpid=152&print=yes] Although this removed the Bankers Life issue from the suit, there were still Rod MacArthur's allegations that board members and key foundation executives were profiting at the expense of the foundation.

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Rod MacArthur made two further lasting and important contributions while on the board of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. First, he is the person who pushed the Board to offer the famous MacArthur fellowships, also called “Genius Grants”[http://www.macfound.org/site/c.lkLXJ8MQKrH/b.959481/k.7895/Frequently_Asked_Questions.htm]. Second, in 1980 at the urging of his son John R. “Rick” MacArthur, then 23, Rod persuaded the Board to partner in creating and funding a Harper's Magazine Foundation to acquire and operate the magazine of the same name. This new entity acquired ''[[Harper's Magazine]]'' (which was then losing nearly $2 million per year and was on the verge of ceasing publication) for $250,000. Eventually Rick MacArthur took over the foundation that owned Harper's.

Two years before John D. MacArthur died and set up his foundation, Rod MacArthur used his substantial fortune from the Bradford Exchange, to form his own foundation. As of 2004, the J. Roderick MacArthur Foundation had $22 million in assets [http://macarthur.uchicago.edu/about/roderick.html] and supports liberal causes, including the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C., and the J. Roderick MacArthur Justice Center at the [[Northwestern University School of Law]] [[Northwestern University School of Law]]. In the philanthropic world, the J. Roderick MacArthur Foundation is known colloquially as "Little Mac," and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is known as “Big Mac”.

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