Our Story
John and Marcy McCall MacBain have strong roots in Canada. John grew up in Niagara Falls, and Marcy grew up on a farm near Walton in Huron County, Ontario. Both were raised by parents who were active in their respective communities and dedicated to public and community service. Both benefitted from public schools and teachers who invested in them and ensured that coming from a small city and a small farm town, respectively, was never a barrier.
John and Marcy were able to attend some of the most distinguished universities in the world, starting with McGill University and McMaster University in Canada, thanks in part to the help of scholarships. Their educational experiences helped pave the way to their careers – over two decades, John built the world’s leading company in classified ads, Trader Classified Media. Marcy built her career in evidence-based healthcare.
In 2007, John and Marcy founded the McCall MacBain Foundation with proceeds from the sale of Trader Classified Media. Since its inception, the Foundation has focused on Education & Scholarships, Environment & Climate Change, and Health.
In its early years, the Foundation tested the role it could play in addressing a wide range of challenges across multiple geographies. In Health, the Foundation focused on improving maternal health outcomes, first in Liberia, and then through support for solutions with applicability across low-resource contexts. In Environment, the Foundation was a founding funder of the European Climate Foundation, an organization aimed at raising climate ambition in Europe and globally. In Education, the Foundation placed multiple grants with universities that helped shape John and Marcy’s trajectories in Canada, the UK, and the US.
Over the years, the Foundation has conducted multiple reviews to assess the impact of its work and determine where it could have the greatest impact. Following a review of its early years, the Foundation decided to dedicate its greatest focus to investing in young leaders. This decision aligned with John and Marcy’s belief that investing in strong, dedicated, and creative leadership is the most impactful way to address the world’s most pressing problems. While retaining a global focus, the Foundation also reaffirmed its special role in Canada, where John and Marcy retain deep connections.
These reviews have guided the Foundation’s work through to the present day. In Education, the Foundation has made several transformative gifts to existing leadership-focused scholarship programs, including the Rhodes and Mandela Rhodes scholarships. In 2019, the Foundation made the largest gift in Canadian history at that time, a gift of CAD 200 million to launch the McCall MacBain Scholarships at McGill University. The Foundation has launched four other programs of its own, including scholarships for young people in Niagara Falls and Huron County, and has seeded 12 leadership-focused scholarship programs with post-secondary institutions in Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, and Canada.
The Foundation has also continued to make bold investments in Environment and Health. It has been a leading funder of nature-based solutions in Canada, supporting Indigenous-led conservation, wildfire management and response, and sustainable agriculture. It has also focused on methane emissions as a major and immediate opportunity for reducing global temperatures, with efforts spanning Canada, Europe, and globally.
In 2019, the Foundation re-positioned its Health fund to focus on youth mental health in Canada. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic immediately following this re-positioning has significantly shaped this work. Efforts to date have supported youth-serving organizations in meeting the enhanced needs of young people in their communities, and in supporting post-secondary institutions to re-imagine the student experience on campus through a proactive and preventive well-being lens.
In 2019, John & Marcy signed The Giving Pledge, committing to give the majority of their wealth to philanthropic causes. The Foundation has made over CAD 450 million in commitments to date.
“We believe that strong, dedicated and creative leadership is needed to address the world’s most pressing problems.”
– John & Marcy McCall MacBain
Our History
2007
John and Marcy McCall MacBain use proceeds from the sale of Trader Classified Media to establish the Foundation. They establish Education as a priority area for their giving. Among the Foundation’s first gifts are donations to John and Marcy’s alma maters.
2007
The Foundation takes on its first challenge in its health fund, focusing on maternal health in Liberia. This effort culminates in a decision to tackle postpartum haemorrhage in low-resource contexts, through the development of inhaled oxytocin in partnership with Monash University, Australia.
2008
The Foundation, in partnership with other funders, establishes the European Climate Foundation. John McCall MacBain becomes a Founding Chair, working collaboratively to establish ECF as a lead actor in advancing bold climate action in Europe and beyond.
2011
Based on initial learnings, and John and Marcy’s belief in the power of scholarships to transform lives and communities for the better, the Foundation establishes a growing focus on scholarships.
2013
The Foundation makes a GBP 75M gift to the Rhodes Trust, the largest gift since the Trust’s inception, to secure its continuity in its second century, and expand its reach to more geographies.
2013
The Foundation makes a landmark gift to become the Second Decade Founder of the Mandela Rhodes Foundation, one of Nelson Mandela’s three legacy organizations, on its 10th anniversary.
2016
The Foundation undertakes its second review and brings on, Franca Gucciardi, a global expert in scholarships and youth leadership, as its first CEO to refresh and strengthen its work and to launch its own scholarship programs.
2017
The Foundation makes a leading gift to support the Loran Scholars Foundation, Canada’s premier leadership-focused scholarship program for undergraduate students.
2017
The Foundation launches the MacBain Niagara Falls Scholarships to support talented students from John’s hometown of Niagara Falls, Canada.
2018
The Foundation launches the McCall MacBain International Fellowships to encourage young Canadians to develop strong intercultural competencies and stretch outside their comfort zones.
2018
The Foundation launches the McCall Huron County Scholarships to support talented students from Marcy’s hometown of Huron County, Canada.
2019
The Foundation makes the single-largest philanthropic gift in Canadian history at the time, a CAD 200 million donation to McGill University, to launch the McCall MacBain Scholarships at McGill.
2019
John and Marcy sign The Giving Pledge committing to give the majority of their wealth to philanthropic causes.
2019
The Foundation seeds New Zealand’s first nationwide leadership-focused scholarship program, the Kupe Scholarships, in partnership with the University of Auckland.
Over the next 5 years, the Foundation will continue to seed 10 more leadership-focused scholarship programs with post-secondary partners across different regions.
2019
The Foundation becomes a founding funder of the Global Methane Hub, driving global attention to reduce methane emissions and supporting global cooperation towards rapid mitigation efforts.
2021
Seeing the rising need for mental health support among youth, the Foundation launches its second phase of work in its Health Fund, focused on youth well-being and mental health. Initial investments support community-based youth-serving organizations and post-secondary campuses.
2022
The Foundation invests CAD 5 million to support a new hospital in Niagara Falls and a new Niagara Health Knowledge Institute to advance research and innovation for community healthcare.
2023
The Foundation launches support for student well-being and mental health initiatives across 11 post-secondary institutions in Canada.
2023
The Foundation makes a CAD 10 million gift to support nature-based climate solutions and promote large-scale conservation through The Nature Conservancy and Nature United.
