On Oct. 18, 1970, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation was founded. The MacArthur’s business interests included Bankers Life and Casualty and real estate holdings in Florida, New York, and Chicago.

John intentionally left the business of what to fund to the Foundation’s first Board of Directors, which included Catherine; Kirby; his son, Roderick; radio commentator Paul Harvey, a friend from Chicago whose popular program carried ads for Bankers Life; and Louis Feil, a business associate from New York. “I made the money; you guys will have to figure out what to do with it,” MacArthur told the Board. This direction presented the Foundation’s first Board with two challenges: how to divest the assets responsibly and how to shape a forward-looking organization that could change with society’s evolving challenges.

When John died of cancer on January 6, 1978, the Foundation assumed his assets, estimated at $1 billion, and made its first two grants of $50,000 each to Amnesty International and the California League of Cities. Today, MacArthur is one of the nation’s top twenty largest independent foundations that since its founding has awarded $9.19 billion in grant funding to nearly 11,000 organizations and individuals in 119 countries.