30 Inspirational Facts About Jon Stryker You Probably Didn't Know

6 May 2019, 5:42 pm EDT By Ruby Karnick

Jon Stryker, the billionaire stockholder and heir to the Stryker Corporation, is the founder and president of Arcus Foundation, a private international philanthropic organization. He is world renowned for his contributions to various philanthropic causes, especially social and environmental causes. Here are some really interesting facts about the American architect and philanthropist:

A newly discovered Myanmar snub-nosed monkey Rhinopithecus strykeri was reportedly named in Stryker's honor, as his foundation supported the primate research teams who discovered the colobine species in the year 2010.
He established the Arcus Endowment at the UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design in the year 2000, which supports a wide range of critical and creative activities at the intersection of LGBT issues and urban design and planning.
He reportedly gave an additional $1 million to create a new chair position at the college named the Arcus Chair in Gender, Sexuality and the Built Environment in the year 2010.
In recognition of the significant achievements of a CED alumnus toward advancing social justice, environmental conservation, and fair urban development, he was named the inaugural recipient of the college's Catherine Bauer Wurster Award for Social Practice in the year 2016.
He was honored with the Kalamazoo College's 2010 Distinguished Service Award, for his exceptional $66 million personal contributions to the college, as alumni.
He is said to have given away $550 million in his lifetime and in June 2017, he reportedly committed $20 million for scholarships at his alma mater Kalamazoo College.
In the year 2016, he along with his sister Pat Stryker, is said to have given $10 million - $5 million each, to fund the nation's first memorial to the victims of racial terror lynchings, in honor of their late father, Lee Stryker.
He has been constantly ranked as one among the nation's Top 50 donors by the Chronicle of Philanthropy every year, since the year 2006. In the year 2018, he was named to Forbes' list of America's Top 50 Givers.
He reportedly donated $1.275 Million to expand Virgin Islands National Park with the purchase of an 11.8-acre property on St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands, in the year 2017.
In the year 2012, Stryker received the Jeanne and Joseph Sullivan Award from Heartland Alliance's National Immigrant Justice Center.

Stryker, who is openly gay, is considered to be one of the world's leading philanthropic donors to the LGBT community, and his foundation is the top LGBT-specific grant-making organization in the United States.
He was the recipient of the 2014 Global Vision Award from Immigration Equality, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization that provides legal representation to LGBT and HIV-positive asylum seekers, detainees, and binational couples.
He was honored with the 2015 Visionary Award from the Gay Lesbian & Straight Education Network.
He, along with Jurek Wajdowicz, spearheaded the ongoing international series of LGBT-themed photography books published by The New Press, in the year 2015.
He is a Platinum Council donor (giving $50,000 USD or more in annual contributions) to the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, a national organization that works to support the candidacies of openly LGBT officials at all levels of government.
Jon Lloyd Stryker was born to Lee Stryker in the year 1958 in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He is the youngest grandchild of Homer Hartman Stryker, founder of the medical supply company Stryker Corporation.
He is reportedly the founding board member of Greenleaf Trust, a privately owned bank in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He also sits on the boards of the nonprofit Friends of the High Line, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Stryker, being a registered architect in Michigan, is said to be the president of Depot Landmark LLC, a development company specializing in the rehabilitation of historic buildings.
In the year 2008, Stryker was awarded the Creating Change Award by the National LGBTQ Task Force.
He is considered to be one of the leading funders of great ape conservation efforts around the world, and through his foundation, he has donated over $10 million in 2013 to support great ape conservation efforts.

In recognition of his efforts, he was named a Patron of Nature by the International Union for Conservation of Nature in the year 2017.
He is the founding board member of the Ol Pejeta Wildlife Conservancy, a 90,000-acre not-for-profit wildlife conservancy in central Kenya's Laikipia County.
Stryker is also the co-founder of Save the Chimps, the world's largest chimpanzee sanctuary located in Fort Pierce, Florida. He reportedly funded the purchase of a 190-acre abandoned grapefruit grove in 1997 and oversaw its transformation into a modern sanctuary.
Through his foundation, the Kalamazoo College was awarded a $200,000 planning grant and a $2.1 million project grant, to help funding the development of a social leadership center on campus in the year 2009.
Another $5 million was reportedly donated by the foundation, in an effort to cover the construction costs of the 10,000-square-foot building, which is now called the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership.
He donated 22-acres of land along the west fork of Portage Creek in Kalamazoo, Michigan, along with another $700,000 commitment, to the Kalamazoo Nature Center, in the year 2015.
His foundation is said to have granted a $23 million endowment to support the center's operations and programming into the future, which, at that time, was largest donation in the college's 182-year history. It was also one of the largest donations given to any undergraduate institution in the United States for a social justice purpose.
He is said to have made donations of $20 million to Kalamazoo College to establish a 10-year scholarship program for students of color, first-generation students and those from lower-income families, in the year 2018.
Stryker established a $5.6 million grant, in partnership with Posse Foundation, to fund the tuition and financial support of 50 Posse Scholars from the Los Angeles Unified School District, in the year 2008.
Stryker married his long-time partner Slobodan Randjelović in December 2016. He is the father of two children from his previous marriage. He currently resides in New York City, while also owns multiple properties in his native Kalamazoo.