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- Assets: $59,829,824 (2004)
- Grants Awarded: $2,982,017 (2004)
The Arca Foundation was established in 1952 as the Nancy Reynolds Bagley Foundation by Nancy Susan Reynolds, whose father founded the R. J. Reynolds tobacco company. In 1968, the Foundation changed its name to Arca (Italian for "ark" - to evoke an image of "something that affords protection and safety"). It was around this time that Arca, like many other U.S. foundations, took a decidedly left turn, beginning to earmark grants for radical environmentalism. In the 1980s, funding for pro-Cuba, pro-Sandinista, and anti-corporate groups emerged as additional priorities.
In recent times, the Arca Foundation website has featured high praise for such leftist icons as Michael Moore and Howard Dean, and the TomPaine.com website. A staunch opponent of capital punishment, the Foundation lauds the success of one of its grantees, the Illinois Death Penalty Education Project, in persuading Illinois Governor George Ryan in 2000 to declare a moratorium on executions in his state, thereby sparing the lives of some 167 death-row inmates. Today the Arca Foundation identifies its main fields of interest as "international affairs, foreign policy, international human rights, public policy (particularly campaign-finance reform), and research." The Foundation also advocates increased funding for public schools, tax hikes for higher income earners, the implementation of a government-run health care system, and the redistribution of wealth.
Members of the Bagley family remain prominent in the Foundation's leadership to this day. Smith Bagley (the son of Nancy Reynolds Bagley) is the current President. Nancy Bagley, his daughter and Foundation Vice President, was also on the advance staff for the Clinton-Gore presidential campaign of 1992, and thereafter worked on the health-care initiative in the early Clinton White House.
With her inherited wealth, Nancy Bagley (along with her husband Henry) purchased a 600-acre estate on St. Simons Island, Georgia and dubbed it Musgrove. Today this property is used as a retreat for what the Arca Foundation calls "policy-makers, influential thinkers and progressive activists from around the world." President Jimmy Carter held his first pre-inaugural Cabinet meeting in the seclusion of Musgrove.
A notable Arca Foundation board member is Margery Tabankin of Tabankin Associates, who also sits on the board of the (Barbra) Streisand Foundation and heads Steven Spielberg's Righteous Persons Foundation. Ms. Tabankin is the former director of the Hollywood Women's Political Committee and was director of VISTA under the Carter Administration. Executive director Donna Edwards is the only paid member of the Arca Foundation board; she earned $112,542 in 2002.
The Arca Foundation is a member organization of both the Peace and Security Funders Group and the International Human Rights Funders Group (IHRFG); the latter is a network of more than six-dozen grantmakers dedicated to funding leftist groups and causes. (For a complete list of IHRFG grantmakers, click here.)
Among the many leftist organizations funded by the Arca Foundation are: the Tides Foundation; the Tides Center; Public Citizen; U.S. Public Interest Reseach Group; Earth Island Institute; the Project on Government Oversight; Global Exchange; the New America Foundation; the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN); the American Civil Liberties Union; Alliance for Justice; the Center for Economic and Policy Research; the Gamaliel Foundation; the National Security Archive Fund; Pax Christi USA; the William J. Brennan Center for Justice; Human Rights First; Democracy Now Productions; Independent Media Institute; Women's Action for New Directions; the NAACP; Veterans for Peace; Media Matters for America; The Nation Institute; Earth Day Network; Partners for Peace; the Mexico Solidarity Network; the Economic Policy Institute; the Alliance for Global Justice; the Ocean Conservancy; the International Forum on Globalization; the Maurice and Jane Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice; the Center for Health, Environment and Justice; the Natural Resources Defense Council; the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy; People for the American Way; Common Cause; the League of Conservation Voters Education Fund; the Center for Marine Conservation; the Illinois Death Penalty Education Project; Citizen Action; Immigrant Workers Citizenship Project; EcoLogic; the Institute for Policy Studies; the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP); the Worker Rights Consortium; the Fund for Constitutional Government; the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights; the National Network of Grantmakers (NNG); the Council on Foundations; the Funders Committee for Civic Participation; the Center for Defense Information (pro-Cuba); Planned Parenthood; the Center for International Policy (pro-Cuba); USAction Education Fund; the Fund for Peace; the Fair Trial Initiative; the National Voting Rights Institute; the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy; the Proteus Fund; the Public Justice Foundation; Quixote Center Incorporated; the Institute for Media Analysis; Cuban Committee for Democracy; the Institute for America's Future; the National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice; the Center for Public Integrity; the Center for Community Change; the Youth Vote Coalition; the American Institute for Social Justice; the International Council of Women World Leaders; the Center for the Study of Public Policy; Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Inc.; Environmental Media Services; Vital Voices Global Partnership; the People of Faith Network; the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation (VVAF); the Center for Labor Research and Training; the Lexington Institute (pro-Cuba); the Latin American Working Group Education Fund; the National Labor Committee Education Fund in Support of Human and Worker Rights; TransAfrica Forum; Search for Common Ground; the Ruckus Society; and the Neighborhood Funders Group.
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