Rick and Donnalyn Adams
/SOURCE OF WEALTH: UUnet Technologies
FUNDING AREAS: Digital rights and policy, arts and culture, education
OVERVIEW: Rick and Donnalyn Adams do their grantmaking through the Adams Charitable Foundation. The couple strongly support digital rights organizations, including Electronic Frontier Foundation.
BACKGROUND: Rick Adams has a master’s degree in computer science from Purdue University. He worked as a Defense Department researcher and went on to found UUnet Technologies, the first commercial ISP and one of the largest internet traffic carriers in the world in the 1990s. Donnalyn Adams is a writer, editor and book conservator.
ISSUES:
DIGITAL RIGHTS & POLICY: Given Adams’ pioneering work in the internet and digital space, it is unsurprising that much of his family’s philanthropy prioritizes issues of digital rights. Via their foundation, Rich and Donnalyn have provided ongoing support to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights organization in San Francisco. Other past grantees in this area include the Internet Security Research Group, the Internet System Consortium and the Freebsd Foundation.
ARTS & CULTURE: Arts and culture are smaller areas of grantmaking for the Adams Charitable Foundation. Past grantees include the National Gallery of Art, the Walters Art Gallery and the Folger Shakespeare Library.
EDUCATION: The Adams’s education philanthropy has supported a handful of organizations Goucher College, the NASA College Scholarship Fund, Youngstown State University and the Rare Book School, which offers classes and seminars on “the history of written, printed, and digital materials with leading scholars and professionals in the field.”
PUBLIC HEALTH: The Adams Charitable Foundation provides ongoing support to the National Capital Poison Center, which runs a telephone hotline for poison emergencies.
LOOKING FORWARD: Rick and Donnalyn Adams have made around $2.5 million in grants a year via their foundation over the past several years. They tend to make a few large grants each year, ranging from $100,000 to $500,000, to organizations with which they maintain ongoing relationships. Expect the Adams to continue their support for digital rights policy, education and the arts.
CONTACT:
The Adams Charitable Foundation
11049 Seven Hill Ln.
Potomac, MD 20854
