Arcadia Fund

Arcadia Fund

Formation	2001 (2001)
Founders	Peter Baldwin Lisbet Rausing
Purpose	Preserve Endangered Cultural Heritage and Ecosystems, Promoting Open Access
Headquarters	London, England, UK
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Professor Peter Baldwin(Trustee)|Lisbet Rausing (Trustee)|Dr Johannes Burger (Trustee)|
Endowment	$570 million (2019)
Employees	9
Website	www.arcadiafund.org.uk

The Arcadia Fund is a UK charity organisation founded by Lisbet Rausing and Professor Peter Baldwin. Established in 2001, the organisation provides grants on a worldwide basis focusing on numerous projects outside the UK. The primary focus of the organisation involves preserving endangered culture, preserving endangered nature and providing open access. Since 2002, the fund has provided in excess of $570 million in projects around the world.

The foundation is controlled by its three trustees (Lisbet Rausing, Peter Baldwin and Dr Johannes Burger) and its team of 9 members. The fund also has an advisory board of 7 members.

History

Talk about its yearly breakdown in grant total, its focus on what type of grants they are primarily aiming for, Describe the change in philosophical views over the years.

Activities

Arcadia’s activities revolve wholly around their grant program in which the Fund aims to look for organisations that are are dynamic, well researched and can deliver on the objectives of endangered culture, nature and promoting open access.

Open Access

In September 2017, Arcadia donated $5 million to the Wikimedia Foundation. This contribution was the largest contribution to the foundation to date and was vital to help support the growth of the Wikimedia Campaign. Further, the Grant was matched by another $5 million in donations from major gifts teams in FY 2016/17. Additionally in 2019 the foundation gave an additional $3.5 million to the endowment bringing their endowment total to $8.5 million.

Grant Statistics/Graphs

Arcadia's Largest Grants ($USD)

Recipiant	Title of Grant	Value ($USD)	Type Of Grant	Description of Grant
School of Oriental and African Studies	Endangered Languages Documentation Programme	33,851,813	Cultural	The Academic Programme to train linguists documenting endangered languages.
University of Cambridge	Cambridge Conservation Initiative:  Endangered Landscapes Programme	31,441,100	Environmental	To develop and support large-scale projects seeking to create habitats that are rich in biodiversity and resilient to environmental change.
Fauna & Flora International	Halcyon Programmes and core institutional support	27,000,000	Environemental	To expand the success of both the Halcyon Land & Sea Fund and the Halcyon Marine Programme to date, increasing focus on long-term sustainability.
Yale University	Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage	25,000,000	Cultural	To build a new cultural conservation and digitisation centre.
Yale University	The Hall of Graduate Studies	25,000,000	Discretionary	To refurbish the Hall of Graduate Studies and to support the programmatic agenda that will transform it into a central home for the humanities at Yale
British Library	Endangered Archives Programme	16,960,153	Cultural	To establish a grants programme that funds projects that digitise neglected, vulnerable or inaccessible archives relating to pre-industrial societies.
School of Oriental and African Studies	Endangered Languages Documentation Programme	11,000,000	Cultural	To continue to support the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme.
Harvard University	College fellows fund	10,000,000	Cultural	To support Harvard College Fellows Program.
University of California Los Angeles	Endowment to Department of History	10,000,000	Cultural	To establish the Endowed History Department Chair and History Department Chair Quasi-Endowment Fund.
University of Cambridge	Cambridge Conservation Initiative: Endowment of Directorship	10,000,000	Environmental	To establish an endowment fund for the Cambridge Conservation Initiative Directorship.
Harvard University	Supporting Open Access with Harvard Library	9,000,000	Open Access	To improve acquisition policies and access to the library's collections.