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wombatlife's avatar

Interesting. One thing that stands out is how these kind of patronage funds today all focus on business and problem solving. I would like to see more focus on art and basic research. Perhaps they exist and I'm unawares.

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Bill Benzon's avatar

Forget the MacArthurs. Despite Rod MacArthur's intentions when he set up the foundation, to give to people missed by the other foundations, to people who really need the money, etc., the foundation gives money to the same people everyone else funds. Yes, the money comes without strings, which is nice, but for the last ten years (which I've been tracking) the majority of the grants go to people who have secure gigs, mostly at universities. They don't need the grant money either to survive or to do good work.

The Mac Fellows program gets the foundation a LOT of press annually, more than any other program by the foundation, or any other foundation for that matter. But it's a relatively small percentage of their annual outlay. Think of it as overhead expense for PR. The "Genius Grant" moniker is worth a lot, and the foundation didn't even come up with it. So they can be coy about it.

I did a bit of research on the "Big Macs" (my term) a decade ago and wrote it up as <a href="https://www.academia.edu/7974651/The_Genius_Chronicles_Going_Boldly_Where_None_Have_Gone_Before">The Genius Chronicles: Going Boldly Where None Have Gone Before?</a> That includes annual updates through 2018, when I stopped doing updates because they were so predictable.

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