The John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation has announced an enormous philanthropy contest, rewarding the winner of $100M for a great, vague solution to a nondescript, big problem.
"One can only hope that the MacArthur board is able to really get the futility of a wonderful idea without community roots—a hard lesson Zuckerberg learned from his unsuccessful attempt to reform New Jersey public education.
"Furthermore, we are forced to juxtapose this announcement with yesterday’s NPQarticle about Chicago’s schools. While they are searching the globe for something new and worthy to invest in, Chicago is imploding with a racial sub-narrative deeply embedded everywhere you look. How about just $10 million to lobby the Illinois state government to resolve that pesky budget conflict?"--Ruth Cambridge, Nonprofit Quarterly