Arcadia Fund

The “Protecting Our Planet Challenge” is a $5 billion funding commitment aimed at supporting the establishment and expansion of environmentally protected areas around the world. The commitment’s founding organizations included the Arcadia Fund, Bezos Earth Fund, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and the Gordon E. and Betty I. Moore Foundation. ⁴

Background

The Arcadia Fund, known simply as “Arcadia,” is a grantmaking organization that provides funding to organizations that focus on the conservation of nature, cultural heritage, and the promotion of open access to knowledge. ¹

It was founded in 2002 by Lisbet Rausing, a member of the wealthy Swedish Rausing family and sister to Sigrid Rausing, founder of the Sigrid Rausing Trust, and her husband Peter Baldwin, a history professor. ^{2 3}

The organization has stated it has been funded by family trusts and has made its grants via the Arcadia Philanthropic Trust, based in Liechtenstein. It has also noted that its work complemented the work of its sister organization, the Lund Trust, a left-of-center environmental organization founded by Lisbet Rausing. ^{2 5}

Protecting Our Planet Challenge

The “Protecting Our Planet Challenge” is a $5 billion funding commitment aimed at supporting the establishment and expansion of environmentally protected areas around the world. The commitment was created in 2021 with the aim of establishing 30 percent of the Earth as environmentally protected areas by 2030 and enhancing “support for Indigenous guardianship of traditional territory.” ⁴

The Protecting Our Planet Challenge was founded by nine organizations, including the Arcadia Fund, Bezos Earth Fund, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and the Gordon E. and Betty I. Moore Foundation. ⁴

Support for Ukraine

The Arcadia Fund noted that it had provided a total of $29.5 million as of January 2026 in donations to support organizations working in Ukraine after Russia invaded. ⁶

As of May 2026, Arcadia claimed to have provided $11,989,460 to the Red Cross, £1,750,000 (approximately $2,363,130) to Save the Children, and £3,000,000 (around $4,051,245) to a “United Nations agency.” The organization also stated that it had provided €3,070,000 (approximately $3,575,09) to the Institute for Human Sciences, a think tank for the humanities and social sciences located in Vienna, Austria. ^{6 7}

People

The Arcadia Fund was co-founded by Lisbet Rausing and her husband Peter Baldwin in 2002. Rausing, who is the sister of Sigrid Rausing Trust founder Sigrid Rausing, earned degrees from the University of California, Berkeley, and Harvard University, where she taught for eight years. ^{1 3 8}

Lisbet Rausing also founded the Lund Trust, the sister charity of the Arcadia Fund. ⁵

Grantmaking

According to its website, the Arcadia Fund granted a total of $113 million in 2025. Of this amount, $14 million was granted to Oceana for core support, $2,754,000 to the European Climate Foundation to support the “implementation of nature legislation in Europe,” $2,500,000 to New York University, $2,472,000 to Peace Brigades International, and $1,210,000 to Environmental Defenders Collaborative. ⁹

As of 2025, Arcadia was operating multiple grant programs that were hosted by partner organizations, including the Earth Investigations Program, which supported “environmental investigative journalism” regarding European affairs inside and outside of Europe, and the Endangered Archives Program, which aimed to digitize archives that were at risk of being lost, including printed sources, audio recordings, and photographs, while also making said archives available online for free. ¹⁰

According to its website, as of 2026, Arcadia had awarded a total of $13,685,000 via 392 grants to the Journalism Fund Europe for its Earth Investigations Program. The organization had also awarded a total of $28,930,000 from 2004 until 2033 to the British Library as part of Arcadia’s Endangered Archives Program. ^{11 12}