Jon L. Stryker, Founder and Board President
Jon Stryker is the founder and president of the Arcus Foundation, a private grantmaking foundation with offices in Kalamazoo, Michigan, New York City and Cambridge, UK that supports groups advancing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) human rights and groups working globally to promote great ape conservation. He is a founding board member of the Ol Pejeta Wildlife Conservancy in Northern Kenya, Save the Chimps in
Ft. Pierce, Florida and Greenleaf Trust, a trust bank in Kalamazoo.
Mr. Stryker also is a registered architect in the State of Michigan and is President of Depot Landmark LLC, a development company specializing in the rehabilitation of historic buildings. Mr. Stryker earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology from Kalamazoo College in 1982 and a Masters Degree in Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley in 1989.
Read the Chronicle of Philanthropy's profile of Jon Stryker here.
Watch a video excerpt of Jon Stryker accepting the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s Creating Change Award here.
Daniel Schwartz, Board Member
Daniel Schwartz is chief executive officer of Dynamica, Inc., an investment advisory firm. Mr. Schwartz is actively engaged in the nonprofit community and has served on the boards and executive committees of several national and international nonprofit organizations. He helped establish the Presidents’ Action Network, a foundation dedicated to engaging business leaders in global conflict resolution, has participated in the RAND Organization’s Russia-US Business Leadership Forum and the World Economic Forum’s Global Health Initiative. Mr. Schwartz received his BA and MBA degrees from Harvard University, was selected as one of Crain's New York Business' "40 under 40" emerging business leaders, and was named by the World Economic Forum as one of its 100 Global Leaders for Tomorrow.
Dr. Cathy J. Cohen, Board Member
Dr. Cathy Cohen is Deputy Provost for Graduate Education at the University of Chicago where she also serves as the David and Mary Winton Green Professor of Political Science. Dr. Cohen served as the director of the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture at the University of Chicago from 2002-2005, and was Professor of Political Science at Yale University from 1993-2000. Dr. Cohen is the author of The Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown of Black Politics, and the co-editor of a book series from Oxford University Press titled Transgressing Boundaries: Studies in Black Politics and Black Communities. She has served as a board member of several national LGBT / People of Color nonprofit organizations, including the Audre Lorde Project, Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, and the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS) at City University of New York, and was one of the principle organizers of the international conference Black Nations / Queer Nations, held in New York in 1995. Dr. Cohen holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Michigan.
Darren Walker, Board Member
Darren Walker currently serves as Vice President, Foundation Initiatives at the Rockefeller Foundation and brings to the Arcus board extensive experience in management, philanthropy, law, investment banking and community development. Mr. Walker has held positions in international law and banking, was COO of the Abyssinian Development Corporation and worked for a year as full-time volunteer staff for the Children’s Storefront School, serving families in Harlem. Passionate about advancing equality for disadvantaged communities, his board memberships have included the Association for Neighborhood Housing and Development, Citizens' Committee for Children of New York, National Housing Institute and the National Low-Income Housing Coalition among many others. Mr. Walker is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and University of Texas School of Law, and attended Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government's Leadership Program.
Board biographies
