Finding Philanthropy’s Forgotten Founder
Published in The Atlantic
By Darren Walker
For a poor, Black son of the South like me, beginning life in Jim Crow’s grip, the haughty, heady world of professional philanthropy might as well have been a different planet. When I first landed at the Rockefeller Foundation, I immersed myself in the history of the institution and the field. I read about the captains of industry, famously dubbed “robber barons” by muckrakers at The Atlantic: Andrew Carnegie and Andrew Mellon and John Pierpont Morgan and Henry Ford, whose namesake foundation I’ve been privileged to serve as president for the past 11 years.
The Ford Foundation
The Ford Foundation is an independent organization working to address inequality and build a future grounded in justice. For more than 85 years, it has supported visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide, guided by its mission to strengthen democratic values, reduce poverty and injustice, promote international cooperation, and advance human achievement. Today, with an endowment of $16 billion, the foundation has headquarters in New York and 10 regional offices across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East.
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