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| Founded | January 15, 1936; 89 years ago (1936-01-15) |
|---|---|
| Founders | Edsel Ford Henry Ford |
| Type | 501(c)(3)charitable organization[1] |
| 13-1684331[1] | |
| Location | |
Area served | United States, Africa, Latin America, Middle East, Asia |
| Method | Grantmaking |
Chairman | Francisco G. Cigarroa |
President | Heather Gerken |
| Endowment | US$16.8 billion[2] |
| Website | www |
TheFord Foundation is an Americanprivate foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare.[3][4][5][6] Created in 1936[7] byEdsel Ford and his fatherHenry Ford, it was originally funded by a $25,000 (about $550,000 in 2023) gift from Edsel Ford.[4] By 1947, after the death of the two founders, the foundation owned 90% of thenon-voting shares of theFord Motor Company; the Ford family retained the voting shares.[8] Between 1955 and 1974, the foundation sold its Ford Motor Company holdings and now plays no role in the automobile company.
In 1949,Henry Ford II createdFord Philanthropy, a separate corporate foundation that to this day serves as the philanthropic arm of the Ford Motor Company and is not associated with the foundation. For many years, the foundation'sfinancial endowment was the largest private endowment in the world; it remains among thewealthiest. For fiscal year 2023, it reported assets of $16.8 billion and expenses of $852 million.[2]
After its establishment in 1936, the Ford Foundation shifted its focus from Michigan philanthropic support to five areas of action. In the 1950Report of the Study of the Ford Foundation on Policy and Program, the trustees set forth five "areas of action", according to Richard Magat (2012): economic improvements, education, freedom and democracy, human behavior, and world peace.[9] These areas of action were identified in a 1949 report byHorace Rowan Gaither.[10][11]
Since the middle of the 20th century, many of the Ford Foundation's programs have focused on increased under-represented or "minority" group representation in education, science, and policy-making. For over eight decades their mission has decisively advocated and supported the reduction of poverty and injustice, among other values, including the maintenance of democratic values, promoting engagement with other nations, and sustaining human progress and achievement at home and abroad.[9]
The Ford Foundation is one of the primary foundations offering grants that support and maintain diversity in higher education, with fellowships for pre-doctoral, dissertation, and post-doctoral scholarship to increase diverse representation among Native Americans, African Americans, Latin Americans, and other under-represented Asian and Latino sub-groups throughout the U.S. academic labor market.[12][13] The outcomes of scholarship by its grantees from the late 20th century through the 21st century have contributed to substantial data and scholarship, including national surveys such as theNelson Diversity Surveys in STEM.[14][15][16][17]
The foundation was established on January 15, 1936,[4] in Michigan by Edsel Ford (president of theFord Motor Company) and two other executives "to receive and administer funds for scientific, educational and charitable purposes, all for the public welfare."[18] It was a reaction toFDR's1935 tax reform introducing 70%tax on large inheritances.[19] During its early years, the foundation operated in Michigan under the leadership of Ford family members and their associates and supported theHenry Ford Hospital and theHenry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, among other organizations.
After the deaths of Edsel Ford in 1943 and Henry Ford in 1947, the presidency of the foundation fell to Edsel's eldest son,Henry Ford II. It quickly became clear that the foundation would become the largest philanthropic organization in the world. The board of trustees then commissioned the Gaither Study Committee to chart the foundation's future. The committee, headed by California attorneyH. Rowan Gaither, recommended that the foundation become an international philanthropic organization dedicated to the advancement of human welfare and "urged the foundation to focus on solving humankind's most pressing problems, whatever they might be, rather than work in any particular field". The report was endorsed by the foundation's board of trustees, and in 1953 it voted to move the foundation to New York City.[4][20][21][22]
At the height of the Cold War, the Ford Foundation was involved in several covert operations. At least one of these involved the Fighting Group Against Inhumanity, a CIA-controlled group based in West Berlin that undertook various missions in the East Zone, including intelligence-gathering and sabotage. In 1950, the U.S. government sought to bolster the Fighting Group's legitimacy as a credible independent organization, so theInternational Rescue Committee was recruited to act as its advocate. With the support of Eleanor Roosevelt, the Ford Foundation was persuaded to give the Fighting Group a grant of $150,000. A press release announcing the grant pointed to the assistance the Fighting Group gave to "carefully screened" defectors to come to the West. TheNational Committee for a Free Europe, a CIA proprietary, actually administered the grant.[23]
From 1958 to 1965, the Foundation's chairman wasJohn J. McCloy, who in 1942 had founded theOffice of Strategic Services, a secretive intelligence agency that became theCentral Intelligence Agency.[24] McCloy knowingly employed numerous US intelligence agents and, based on the premise that a relationship with the CIA was inevitable, set up a three-person committee responsible for dealing with its requests.[25][26] The CIA channeled funds through the Ford Foundation as part of its efforts to influence culture.[27][28][29]
Writer and activistArundhati Roy has said that the foundation, along with theRockefeller Foundation, supported imperialist efforts by the U.S. government during theCold War. For example, Roy wrote that the Ford Foundation's establishment of an economics course at the Indonesian University helped align students with the1965 coup that installedSuharto as president.[30]
The board of directors decided to diversify the foundation's portfolio and gradually divested itself of its substantial Ford Motor Company stock between 1955 and 1974.[4] This divestiture allowed Ford Motor to become apublic company. Finally, Henry Ford II resigned from his trustee's role in a surprise move in December 1976. In his resignation letter, he cited his dissatisfaction with the foundation holding on to its old programs, large staff and what he saw asanti-capitalist undertones in the foundation's work.[31][32] In February 2019, Henry Ford III was elected to the Foundation's Board of Trustees, becoming the firstFord family member to serve on the board since his grandfather resigned in 1976.[33][34]
For many years, the foundation topped annual lists compiled by theFoundation Center of US foundations with the most assets and the highest annual giving. The foundation has fallen a few places in those lists in recent years, especially with the establishment of theBill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000. As of May 4, 2013, the foundation was second in terms of assets[35] and tenth in terms of annual grant giving.[36]
In 2012, the foundation declared that it was not a research library and transferred its archives from New York City to theRockefeller Archive Center inSleepy Hollow, New York.[37]
In 2020, the Ford Foundation issued abond offering earlier in the year that allowed it to raise $1 billion and thus "substantially increase the amount of money it distributes."[38]
In 1951, the foundation made its first grant to support the development of thePublic Broadcasting Service (PBS), then known asNational Educational Television (NET), which went on the air in 1952.[39] These grants continued, and in 1969 the foundation gave $1 million to theChildren's Television Workshop to help create and launchSesame Street.[40]
Active from 1951 to 1961, this subsidiary of the Ford Foundation supported initiatives in the field ofadult education, includingeducational television andpublic broadcasting. During its existence, the FAE spent over $47 million.[41]: 1 Among its funding programs were a series of individual awards for people working in adult education to support training and field study experiences.[42] The FAE also sponsored conferences on the topic of adult education, including theBigwin Institute on Community Leadership in 1954 and the Mountain Plains Adult Education Conference in 1957. These conferences were open to academics, community organizers, and members of the public involved in the field of adult education.[43][44]
In addition to grantmaking to organizations and projects, the FAE established its own programs, including the Test Cities Project and the Experimental Discussion Project.[41]: 2 The Experimental Discussion Project produced media that was distributed to local organizations to conduct viewing or listening and discussion sessions. Topics covered includedinternational affairs, world cultures, and United States history.[45][46]
Educational theoristRobert Maynard Hutchins helped to found the FAE, and educational television advocateC. Scott Fletcher served as its president.[41]: 8–9
The foundation underwrote theFund for the Republic in the 1950s. Throughout the 1950s, the foundation provided arts and humanities fellowships that supported the work of figures likeJosef Albers,James Baldwin,Saul Bellow,Herbert Blau,E. E. Cummings,Anthony Hecht,Flannery O'Connor,Jacob Lawrence,Maurice Valency,Robert Lowell, andMargaret Mead. In 1961,Kofi Annan received an educational grant from the foundation to finish his studies atMacalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota.[47]
Under its "Program for Playwrights", the foundation helped to support writers in professional regional theaters such as San Francisco'sActor's Workshop and offered similar help to Houston'sAlley Theatre and Washington'sArena Stage.[48]
In the 1960s and 1970s, the foundation gave money to government and non-government contraceptive initiatives to supportpopulation control, peaking at an estimated $169 million in the last 1960s.[49][50][51][52] The foundation ended most support for contraception programs by the 1970s.
Between 1969 and 1978, the foundation was the biggest funder for research intoin vitro fertilisation in the United Kingdom, which led to the first baby,Louise Brown, born from the technique. The Ford Foundation provided $1,170,194 toward the research.[53]
In 1968, the foundation began disbursing $12 million to persuadelaw schools to make "law school clinics" part of their curriculum. Clinics were intended to give practical experience in law practice while providingpro bono representation to the poor. Conservative criticHeather Mac Donald contends that the foundation's financial involvement instead changed the clinics' focus from giving students practical experience to engaging in leftwing advocacy.[54]
In the late 1960s and the 1970s, the foundation expanded into civil rights litigation, granting $18 million to civil rights litigation groups.[55] TheMexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund was incorporated in 1967 with a $2.2 million grant from the foundation.[55] The same year, the foundation funded the establishment of the Southwest Council of La Raza, the predecessor of theNational Council of La Raza.[56] In 1972, the foundation provided a three-year $1.2 million grant to theNative American Rights Fund.[55] The same year, thePuerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund opened with funding from numerous organizations, including the foundation.[55][57] In 1974, the foundation contributed funds to theSouthwest Voter Registration Education Project.[58]
In 1967 and 1968, the foundation provided financial support for decentralization and community control of public schools in New York City. Decentralization in Ocean Hill–Brownsville led to the firing of some white teachers and administrators, which provoked acitywide teachers' strike led by theUnited Federation of Teachers.[59]
From 1966 through 1976, to encourage the growth and stability of symphony orchestras across the USA and Puerto Rico, the Ford Foundation invested $80.2 million to: (1) improve orchestra artistic quality, (2) strengthen orchestra finances, and (3) raise the income and prestige of the music profession in the U.S.[60] Sixty-one American symphony orchestras participated in the unprecedented ten-year Ford Foundation Symphony Program.[61] Part of the "Big Bang" of music philanthropy, the Symphony Program represented the single largest gift program ever devised for the arts.[62][63] The Symphony Program infused cash into orchestra budgets throughout the nation resulting in increased orchestra seasons and musician wages.[64] But many orchestras could not sustain the economic growth provided by the Symphony Program grant.[62][65] According to one author, orchestra managers had to "manufacture" work to sustain the longer season which, in turn, generated "boredom and apathy" among professional symphony musicians.[64]
The foundation began awarding postdoctoral fellowships in 1980 to increase the diversity of the nation's academic faculties.[66] In 1986, the foundation added predoctoral and dissertation fellowships to the program. The foundation awards 130 to 140 fellowships annually, and there are 4,132 living fellows.[when?] TheUniversity of California, Berkeley was affiliated with 346 fellows at the time of award, the most of any institution, followed by theUniversity of California, Los Angeles at 205,Harvard University at 191,Stanford University at 190, andYale University at 175. The 10-campusUniversity of California system accounts for 947 fellows, and theIvy League is affiliated with 726.[67][68] In 2022, the foundation announced that it would be sunsetting the program.[69]
In 1987, the foundation began making grants to fight theAIDS epidemic[70] and in 2010 made grant disbursements totaling $29,512,312.[71]
In June 2020, Ford Foundation decided to raise $1 billion through a combination of 30 and 50- year bonds. The main aim was to help nonprofits hit by the pandemic.[72]
According toFast Company in 2018, "Ford spends between $500 million and $550 million a year to support social justice work around the world. But last year, it also pledged to plow up to $1 billion of its overall $12.5 billion endowment over the next decade intoimpact investing via mission-related investments (MRIs) that generate both financial and social returns."[73][74] Former Foundation president Darren Walker wrote in a 2015New York Times op-ed that the grant-making philanthropy of institutions like the Ford Foundation "must not only be generosity, but justice."[75] Walker added that the Ford Foundation seeks to address "the underlying causes that perpetuate human suffering" to grapple with and intervene in "how andwhy" inequality persists.[75]
In October 2020, Ford Foundation partnered with theAndrew W. Mellon Foundation to establish the Disability Future Fellowship, awarding $50,000 annually to disabled writers, actors, and directors in the fields of creative arts performance.[76][77]
During theCOVID-19 pandemic and theBlack Lives Matter movement in 2020, the Ford Foundation commissioned 40 "provocations" from creatives and thinkers who work in various fields in the arts and culture, including documentary film and journalism.[78][79] Written submissions relate to "reimagining of the fundamental ways in which culture and media operate", including funding, place, the future of making art, and novelparadigms, such as a cooperative model of sharing resources.[79]
The pieces written by the contributors have been published by both the Ford Foundation and other organizations, such as the arts magazineHyperallergic,[78] theSmithsonian Asian Pacific American Center,[80] and theInternational Documentary Association.[81] Contributors includeCoco Fusco,[78]Sofía Gallisá,Craig Santos Perez,Chris E. Vargas,Marc Bamuthi Joseph,[80]Aaron Dworkin, andShaun Leonardo.[79]
In 2020, the Ford Foundation launchedAmerica's Cultural Treasures, a joint effort with other philanthropists and foundations to pledge over $165 million to help "arts organizations run by people of color" after theCOVID-19 pandemic.[38]
In April 2011, the foundation announced that it would cease its funding for programs in Israel as of 2013. It had provided $40 million tonongovernmental organizations in Israel since 2003 exclusively through theNew Israel Fund (NIF), in the areas of advancing civil and human rights, helping Arab citizens in Israel gain equality and promoting Israeli-Palestinian peace. The grants from the foundation were roughly a third of NIF's donor-advised giving, which totaled about $15 million a year.[82]
In 2003, the foundation was critiqued by US news serviceJewish Telegraphic Agency, among others, for supporting Palestinian nongovernmental organizations accused of promotingantisemitism at the2001 World Conference Against Racism. Under pressure by several members of Congress, chief among them RepresentativeJerrold Nadler, the foundation apologized and then prohibited promotion of "violence, terrorism, bigotry or the destruction of any state" among its grantees. This move itself sparked protest among university provosts and various nonprofit groups on free speech grounds.[83]
The foundation's partnership with theNew Israel Fund (NIF), which began in 2003, was criticized for its choice of mostly progressive grantees and causes. This criticism peaked after the 2001 World Conference Against Racism, where some nongovernmental organizations the foundation funded backed resolutions equating Israeli policies withapartheid. In response, the Ford Foundation tightened its criteria for funding. In 2011,right-wing Israeli politicians and organizations such asNGO Monitor andIm Tirtzu claimed the NIF and other recipients of Ford Foundation grants supported the delegitimization of Israel.[82]
The Ford Foundation announced in October 2023 that it would no longer provide grants toAlliance for Global Justice, a nonprofit with alleged "Palestinian terrorism ties". "Ford has no plans to support any Alliance for Global Justice projects in the future and it is not eligible for any other funding," a spokeswoman for the Ford Foundation, said.[84] She added, "We will not be funding them in the future."[84]
Completed in 1968 by the firm ofRoche-Dinkeloo, theFord Foundation Center for Social Justice in New York City (originally the Ford Foundation Building) was the first large-scale architectural building in the country to devote a substantial portion of its space tohorticultural pursuits. Itsatrium was designed with the notion of having urbangreenspace accessible to all and is an example of the application in architecture ofenvironmental psychology.[85]
The building, 321 E. 42nd St., was recognized in 1968 by theArchitectural Record as "a new kind of urban space". This design concept was used by others for many of the indoor shopping malls and skyscrapers built in subsequent decades. TheNew York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the building a landmark in 1997.[85]
Source: History of Ford Foundation[86][87]
Farfield was by no means exceptional in its incestuous character. This was the nature of power in America at this time. The system of private patronage was the pre-eminent model of how small, homogenous groups came to defend America's—and, by definition, their own—interests. Serving at the top of the pile was every self-respecting WASP's ambition. The prize was a trusteeship on either the Ford Foundation or the Rockefeller Foundation, both of which were conscious instruments of covert US policy, with directors and officers who were closely connected to, or even members of American intelligence.
By the 1950s the Rockefeller and Ford Foundation, funding several NGOs and international educational institutions, began to work as quasi-extensions of the US government, which at the time was toppling democratically elected government in Latin America, Iran, and Indonesia. (That was also around the time it made its entry into India, then non-aligned but clearly tilting toward the Soviet Union.) The Ford Foundation established a US-style economics course at the Indonesian University. Elite Indonesian students, trained in counterinsurgency by US army officers, played a crucial part in the 1965 CIA-backed coup in Indonesia that brought General Suharto to power. He repaid his mentors by slaughtering hundreds of thousands of communist rebels.
° Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network, Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M. E. Sharpe, 1995, Routledge, 2015.
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