[1] Stryker is the founder and president of the Arcus Foundation, which primarily supports great ape conservation efforts and LGBT social justice, and has awarded over $500 million in grants.
[7] Stryker is a registered architect in Michigan and is president of Depot Landmark LLC, a development company specializing in the rehabilitation of historic buildings.
[12] Stryker is the founder and president of the Arcus Foundation, a private international philanthropic organization primarily supporting great ape conservation efforts and LGBT causes, as well as other social justice endeavors.
[20] Speaking to Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors in 2008, Stryker explained that the Arcus Foundation's two primary areas of focus, while seemingly unrelated, are bound by the common themes of compassion and justice: Great apes are under huge threat.
[23] Stryker is a donor of The New York Community Trust, which announced in 2020 that it would donate $75 million to the city's social services and cultural non-profit organizations that were affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
[27] Stryker is a Platinum Council donor (giving US$50,000 or more in annual contributions) to the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund,[28] a national organization that works to support the candidacies of openly LGBT officials at all levels of government.
[29] He received the 2014 Global Vision Award from Immigration Equality,[30] a U.S.-based nonprofit organization that provides legal representation to LGBT and HIV-positive asylum seekers, detainees, and binational couples.
The land, formerly a game reserve and ranching area, was purchased in 2003 by U.K-based conservation organization Fauna and Flora International through a major donation by Stryker's Arcus Foundation.
[34] He is also the co-founder and Board Chair of Save the Chimps, the world's largest chimpanzee sanctuary located in Fort Pierce, Florida.
[35] Stryker funded the purchase of a 190-acre abandoned grapefruit grove in 1997 and oversaw its transformation into a modern sanctuary,[36] which today provides lifetime care for more than 250 chimpanzees rescued from biomedical research laboratories.
[42] The endowment supports a wide range of critical and creative activities at the intersection of LGBT issues and urban design and planning.
[43] The award honors the legacy of Catherine Bauer Wurster and recognizes the significant achievements of a CED alumnus toward advancing social justice, environmental conservation, and fair urban development.
[46] It was described as a "log cabin the Jetsons ordered from the 2062 Whole Earth Catalog" and "laudable simply for being eloquent and humane," in a 2014 New York Times architectural review.
[41] In 2008, he established a $5.6 million grant to fund the tuition and financial support of 50 Posse Scholars from the Los Angeles Unified School District.
[47] The grant, which supported the enrollment of 10 Posse Scholars in five consecutive academic classes at Kalamazoo College,[48] was made in partnership with the Posse Foundation, a national organization that pairs high-performing public high school students from underrepresented groups in higher education with full, four-year academic scholarships at colleges and universities throughout the country.
[52] In addition to the land donation, Stryker committed to giving as much as $700,000 as part of a 2-to-1 matching grant that would go toward a proposed multi-phase restoration of the property and an environmental education facility on the site.
[7][57] He previously owned a Mediterranean-style house in Palm Beach, Florida, designed by famed American architect Marion Sims Wyeth.