# The Conway Foundation The Conway Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization governed by a board, "created to accept gifts or donations and then oversee the reinvestment into the community" (per [[Brad Lacy]]'s testimony to City Council on April 1, 2025; see [[Project Stratus MOU and April 1 Special Council Meeting]]). The Foundation is **one of the four signatories to the Project Stratus MOU** and the recipient of the "Regional Investment Contribution" that [[Forgelight Ventures, LLC]] would pay annually for the life of the property-tax abatement (30 years). ## Roles in this corpus - **MOU signatory and Regional Investment Contribution recipient.** Per the [[Project Stratus MOU and April 1 Special Council Meeting|MOU]] § II(a): "the Company shall make an annual payment to the Conway Foundation ('Foundation'), a 501c3 recognized organization, as further defined in Appendix A ('Regional Investment Contribution'). The Foundation agrees to utilize the Regional Investment Contribution it receives for initiatives that align with the Company's core values and the community's strategic plans including the City of Conway's Citizen Survey, Conway2035, Conway2025, and subsequent similar community-wide planning efforts." First Regional Investment Contribution due "within sixty (60) days after the issuance of the certificate of occupancy for the initial Data Center" (§ II(b)). - **Contingency provision.** "Shall the Foundation cease to exist or maintain 501c3 status, the City and the Company shall jointly identify a local 501c3 that meets the Company's 501c3 compliance standards to receive the Regional Investment Contribution under the original terms identified in this section" (MOU § II(c)). The MOU contemplates Foundation continuity as a baseline assumption. - **Compliance-reporting role.** "Upon written request from the Company, the Conway Foundation will provide documentation substantiating that the Regional Investment Contributions have been disbursed in accordance with this subsection" (MOU § II(a)). ## People The Foundation's board composition is not in the corpus. Per the April 1, 2025 Council minutes, Conway Foundation "is governed by a board" but the board's members are not named on the public record produced in FOIA-2026-126. ## Notes The Regional Investment Contribution dollar amount is defined in "Appendix A" of the MOU — which is referenced in the MOU body but **does not appear as an attached schedule in the MOU PDF produced via FOIA**. The amount is therefore not anchored to a Tier-1 source in this production. Whether Appendix A was redacted under the MOU's trade-secret stamp or simply not included in the produced PDF is an open question for the reply. The Foundation's Arkansas Secretary of State registration, IRS Form 990 history, and board composition are public records (the SoS record is Tier-2; Form 990 is Tier-2 via IRS Public Disclosure or ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer). Tier-2 archive of the Foundation's SoS record is a follow-on web-research target. Per Jamie Gates's April 1 [[Project Stratus Next Steps and Sequence]] memo: "We will schedule a board meeting of the Conway Foundation for later this month for their adoption and signature." This implies the Foundation's adoption of the MOU was scheduled for later in April 2025; that Board action is not in the FOIA-2026-126 production (consistent with the Foundation being a private entity outside the City's records-custody). The Foundation is a **mechanism for converting deferred property-tax revenue into private-foundation-controlled community spending**. Under the MOU's structure, the City accepts a 65% reduction in property taxes for 30 years from Project Stratus in exchange for the Company's annual Regional Investment Contribution payments to the Foundation. The City does not directly receive those payments — they pass through a 501(c)(3) board, with the Foundation deciding how the funds are reinvested in the community subject to alignment with the Company's "core values." This structure routes substantial economic-development funds outside direct City Council appropriation — a structural design feature worth flagging.