How MacArthur Wound Down Its Funding in Mexico After 36 Years—and What It Learned
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International Women’s Day demonstration in Mexico City. The MacArthur Foundation recently wound down its grantmaking in Mexico, which focused in part on women’s rights. Reyda Val/shutterstock
Change is never easy. Yet leading philanthropies like Open Society Foundations and NoVo have embarked on major changes to their funding programs in the past year. More are following on their heels as foundations work to align their priorities with the events of the past year.
Strategic shifts are not uncommon, though, even in less turbulent times. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, for example, began honing its new focus long ago, with the intention of exiting in a way that eases the process for everyone it touches.
Foundations can’t be all things to all people, and focus areas are bound to evolve over time. The trick is handling the transition responsibly, which means pulling three levers: communicating transparently to all stakeholders; creating a thoughtful grantmaking exit plan that often spans several years at decreasing levels; and proactively making connections to put those leaving the portfolio in the path of other like-minded funders.
One case study in what it looks like for a large funder to exit a longtime funding area—not to mention what it looks like for a foundation to work in a particular geography for over three decades—is MacArthur’s work in Mexico. After 36 years of funding human rights initiatives in the country, the foundation wound down its presence in Mexico at the end of 2020. Here’s how the transition unfolded.
MacArthur in Mexico
MacArthur first started making grants in Mexico way back in 1984. It opened its first office in Cuernavaca in 1992, and moved to Mexico City in 1996. Between then and 2020, it gave $230 million across 1,237 grants to civil society organizations.
Its grantmaking focus was progressive: human rights, reproductive and sexual health, and the issues of regional migration. Over 36 years, it formed long and deep relationships with thousands of individuals and organizations committed to the ideas of social justice, freedom of expression, democracy, diversity and equality.
The foundation points to some concrete results within its focus areas.
MacArthur’s human rights work helped support the drafting of Mexico’s first Human Rights Plan in 2001. Following the country’s criminal justice reforms in 2008, it advocated for the 2017 Law on Disappearances that offers protections to people hidden intentionally. And from 2017 to 2019, it designed short-term interventions to support autonomy in the criminal justice system.
MacArthur’s transnational Population and Reproductive Health (PRH) program first touched down in Mexico as an effort to strengthen an emerging global movement supporting women’s rights and the paradigm shift from population control to reproductive rights. That shifted to two priorities in the early 2000s: maternal mortality and youth sexual and reproductive health.
Recognizing that migration issues are “central to so many aspects of life in Mexico,” the foundation began funding related solutions in the 1990s, including research and support for refugee rights. Its first Global Migration and Development program made $3.2 million in grants to Mexican-based organizations working in migration rights and economic development. Then MacArthur created a Regional Migration Corridor Initiative that invested $7.9 million in grants from 2012 through 2015. In recent years, it prioritized practical programs on the ground, and helped advance policies that better protected migrant and refugee rights within the justice system.
Big bets
In 2015, MacArthur began the process of consolidating its grantmaking into a “smaller number of big bets” in an effort to spur transformative change. Climate action, criminal justice and nuclear challenges all made the cut. Other areas did not.
Stephanie Platz, managing director of programs, said the transition “forced some very difficult decisions, including ending a dozen programs. Three of these—reproductive and sexual rights, human rights, and migration-related issues—were core to our Mexico grantmaking.”
As a result, MacArthur announced in 2019 that it would close its Mexico City office at the end of 2020 and shift its focus “to exiting responsibly through our final years of grantmaking.”
Exiting responsibly
As part of MacArthur’s effort to exit in the right way, its Mexico-based staff set out to develop a “thoughtful and careful plan” for the final years of grantmaking, one that recognized the work of its partners. “The organizations we worked with over 36 years created meaningful change and impacted countless lives, and we wanted to honor these contributions,” Platz said.
Migration was the first program MacArthur exited, by making a “number of tie-off grants.” Following that, Platz said the foundation became “increasingly more thoughtful in our planning” to ensure they were doing all they could “to secure and sustain our impact.”
In 2020, the foundation made a five-year, $10 million commitment to Acento, Acción Local, an organization it helped create, to support its continued efforts to advance the field of human rights and social justice in Mexico.
Acento works to build equitable access to philanthropic resources for grassroots organizations and uses a combination of financial and technical support to help partners protect the environment, prevent violence against women, find forcibly disappeared persons, and engage young people in civic participation.
In addition to Acento, MacArthur also continues its work with the Repository of Documentation on Disappearances, working through three universities to collect and archive evidence for ongoing investigations.
In its final round of grants supporting reproductive health, MacArthur put a strategic focus on midwifery as a way to improve the quality of reproductive healthcare. Platz reports that MacArthur “co-designed a strategy that included advocacy, mobilization, and research to help establish greater recognition of midwifery as an essential component of the country’s maternal healthcare.”
Successfully sustaining its programs also meant networking with others already in the field—and recognizing that prospective partners aligned on issues like lowering maternal mortality stateside may balk at an onerous rules around giving in-country.
Reaching across the border
Funding internationally always involves added layers of administration, but Mexican anti-money-laundering laws enacted in 2013 set the bar higher. Intended to protect the national economy from the financial ramifications of money laundering, it also restricted the ways nonprofit organizations operate there.
Even so, Mexico is a high-priority geography for many foundations. A 2018 report on global giving by U.S. foundations created by Foundation Center and the Council on Foundations ranked Mexico fifth in terms of overall geographic focus, and first among Latin American countries.
The legal challenges aren’t insurmountable. After 2013, funders leaned into using international intermediaries like the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) and relying on local community foundations along America’s Southern border. Corporations turned to in-country giving through business subsidiaries. And foundations turned to employees on the ground.
Kathleen Enright, president and CEO of the Council on Foundations, said, “Philanthropic organizations based in the United States have always had close ties to Mexico and play an important role supporting Mexican communities, whether through community foundations that straddle the border or private foundations with local staff.”
The structure may even encourage a more culturally sensitive footing. Enright said, “While there are bureaucratic challenges for U.S. foundations that make grants to local organizations in Mexico, we celebrate the ways this work has evolved with time, including that U.S. philanthropies are hiring local staff and more deeply leveraging the expertise of Mexican communities to inform and strengthen their work across the country. Continued cross-border philanthropy provides an opportunity for long-term connection and exchange between American and Mexican funders, nonprofits and communities.”
According to data gathered between 2011–2015, the country attracts heavy hitters like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, Ford Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Gates topped the list of funders at $571.3 million, though Ford made the highest number of grants.
Tapping networks
MacArthur engaged the philanthropic community in sustaining the work. Platz pointed to a “very strong network of donor partners, including Ford, Kellogg, Open Society Foundations, Boll Foundation, American Jewish World Service and Avina, among others,” that it regularly collaborated with on issues of shared interest.
“As we began winding down our grantmaking, we shared detailed information with them about the funding gaps we foresaw for organizations and in the fields of human rights and maternal health more broadly,” she said. MacArthur provided introductions for grantees to tap other donors, and included professional associations like Hispanics in Philanthropy in the consulting process.
Building organizational capacity was also part of the plan. “We also provided an eight-month capacity-building training program for our human rights grantees,” said Platz, “together with grantees of the Ford Foundation, led by Spring Strategies. Our aim was to leave our grantees in the best possible position before our departure.”
The living legacy
Platz said MacArthur hopes that “our past partnerships helped leaders and organizations develop capacity to carry this agenda into the future with resilience in the face of political and socioeconomic change. Often, investment in such leadership has the longest tail and can continue to seed change far into the future.”
For example, within the context of maternal health, MacArthur’s support for growing a professional midwifery movement “branches into the present.”
“Organizations like the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) continue to keep midwifery on the public health agenda and to critically strengthen the field, while civil society leaders that we partnered with continue to press for the integration of midwifery into maternal health services,” said Platz. “We believe that we made significant headway on this issue.”
And all goodbyes aren’t gone. When MacArthur was making decisions on providing relief to those most affected by COVID-19, it directed a half-million dollars in grants to partners working with the Mexico City Health Ministry. Funding will expand access to reproductive care for women via telemedicine and protect vulnerable migrants and asylum seekers who lack the social agency to access support services during the pandemic.
Lessons learned
Asked to share insights for other funders making big shifts, Platz acknowledged the realities that come with change. “All exits bring with them a mix of sadness and celebration of the work accomplished. Our priorities naturally will change with time and changing circumstances, and most of our strategies and initiatives will be time-limited.”
The biggest challenge, she said, was planning for sustainability when preparing to end a grantmaking program. That takes flexibility. Securing gains can “sometimes require a larger investment just before leaving the field,” or “bridging a gap between funding sources.”
Engaging grantees in managing the change is also critical. “Election outcomes, legislative changes and economic trends can all endanger the longevity of impact,” observed Platz. “That is why a donor’s investment in the resilience of its partners should be a key component of exiting.”
