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Arcus Foundation is a global private foundation with a focus on social justice and conservation. Arcus supports work that advances equality and human rights for people of all sexual orientations and gender identity. The Foundation also funds projects focused on conservation and preservation of the great apes and their habitats.[1] The Foundation's named is derived by its founder from "arc" or "arch", in order "to portray the bridging of a gap, the offer of shelter, and rainbows as a symbol of diversity".[2]
Headquarters 44 West 28th Street, 17th floor, New York, NY 10001 Mission Arcus Foundation's mission is "to achieve social justice that is inclusive of sexual orientation, gender identity and race, and to ensure conservation and respect of the great apes."[3]. History Arcus Foundation was founded by Jon Stryker, a U.S. architect, philanthropist, social and species cause activist, billionaire stockholder,[4] and heir to the Stryker Corporation medical supply company fortunes of grandfather Homer Hartmen Stryker, M.D.[5] As a teenager, Stryker kept a monkey as a pet, until keeping it domestically seemed inhumane, at which point he donated the monkey to the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, Illinois.[6] In 2006, the Foundation's donation of US $450,000 went to establishing the Jane Goodall Institute's advocacy department. Primatologist Jane Goodall noted that this development "has enabled me to get a higher profile in the [U.S.] Senate and the House".[7] In May, 2010, Urvashi Vaid's departure as Executive Director of the foundation was announced, and Fred Davie, a former member of the Advisory Council of the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships, and already involved with the foundation, became its Executive Director.[8] In April 2012, Annette Lanjouw was appointed as interim Executive Director.[9] Through a biological survey supported by the Arcus Foundation, in 2010 the Myanmar Snub-nosed Monkey was given the binomial name Rhinopithecus strykeri, in honor of the foundation's president, Stryker, upon its discovery during an Arcus Foundation co-funded study of Hoolock Gibbons in Myanmar. In January 2011, the Foundation made a $23 million grant to establish the Arcus Center for Social Justice at Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, Michigan.[10] References External links
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