The latest

As the world continues to grapple with the devastating effects of COVID-19, Presidents' Council co-chairs Darren Walker and Rich Besser urge funders to put disability rights front and center of their giving.

As the coronavirus leaves America's workers vulnerable to economic hardship and infection, the Ford Foundation's Sarita Gupta and Open Society Foundations' Tom Perriello make the case for building an economy that truly works for everyone and prepares the country for the next inevitable crisis.

The Nonprofit Quarterly spotlights how the Families and Workers Fund represents a crucial recognition by the philanthropic community of the vital need to facilitate direct cash support to workers impacted by COVID-19.

In Barron's, Sarita Gupta underscores how the Families and Workers Fund serves as a much needed vehicle that brings together philanthropies and high-net-worth individuals to help millions of impacted workers on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Philanthropy News Digest profiles the Families and Workers Fund's unique two-tier approach: facilitating direct cash support for workers and ensuring workers and their families are central to immediate and long-term economic responses.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy profiles the Families and Workers Fund, launched by Ford and seven other grant makers to support low-wage workers hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.

This is a public health crisis that threatens to become a humanitarian disaster.

The Ford Foundation Gallery’s second exhibition in the “Utopian Imagination” trilogy, titled Radical Love, features 23 artists whose artwork responds to the previous exhibition, Perilous Bodies, by offering love as the answer to a world in peril. The works are grounded in ideas of devotion, abundance, and beauty; here, otherness and marginality is celebrated, adorned, and revered.

In Inside Philanthropy, Executive Vice President for Programs Hilary Pennington offers recommendations to improve the ways funder collaboratives engage with grantees.

In this Chronicle of Philanthropy op-ed, Bess Rothenberg, Senior director of strategy and learning, argues that our (confirmation) biases in social justice work may be keeping us from unlocking the outcomes we want. She writes that our convictions about what should happen are often so strong that they prevent us from planning for what actually does happen. Using recent examples including current events in Sudan, the piece offers several lessons for how grant makers can challenge their assumptions and get better outcomes for their work.

In Chronicle of Philanthropy's profile on leaders of color, vice president for talent and human resources Diane Samuels speaks about her experience as a leader of color in philanthropy, and shares advice for young people entering the workforce.

In this New York Times Op-Ed, our program officer Chi-hui Yang and Elizabeth Méndez Berry of Nathan Cummings Foundation argue that we have a dangerous blind spot in our national conversation about culture.

In this LA Times piece, GREJ Director Tanya Coke offers commentary on the importance of Ford Foundation trustee and grantee Bryan Stevenson's work over the years to reimagine the criminal justice system in the U.S.

The Ford Foundation announced the opening of its new art gallery, a major new public feature of the renovated Center for Social Justice that will explore multidisciplinary art, performance, and public programming by artists committed to exploring issues of justice and injustice. Below is a collection of select media coverage about the gallery opening.

The Ford Foundation Gallery’s inaugural exhibition, Perilous Bodies, features 19 artists whose artwork explores the inhumanity and injustice created by divisions of gender, race, class, and ethnicity. Below is a collection of select critical reviews about this exhibition.

For too long, philanthropy has operated under the premise that disability is a worthy cause, but not ours, write Ford Foundation President Darren Walker and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation President Rich Besser. But relegating disability-related issues to a niche grant-making area or, worse, ignoring people with disabilities completely is no longer acceptable.

Cara Mertes discusses how the Ford Foundation's JustFilms initiative tackles the challenges of nonfiction storytelling, and helps create narratives that transform perceptions and change history.

In this Reuters piece, JustFilms Director Cara Mertes offers commentary on the importance of telling powerful—and diverse—stories to change discourse in the United States. 

In this op-ed, Hilary Pennington, the foundation's executive vice president for program, and Kathy Reich, director of our BUILD program, argue that funders should do a better job of listening to grantees—and recount some of Ford's recent efforts and insights in this area.

In a feature from Nonprofit Quarterly, Jeanne Bell and Ruth McCambridge explore the changing role and effectiveness of philanthropy through the lens of Ford Foundation's flagship BUILD program:

"We have found in examining this program that it has had some extraordinary effects on grantees and potentially on America's future..."

Ford Foundation technology fellow and political scientist Wilneida Negron writes about her career trajectory as a coder and a social justice advocate for Fast Company's "World Changing Ideas" series. She reflects on the tech industry’s fast-moving, top-down approach, and its social divisions, calling for technologists and tech giants to work toward a more just and fair technological world. 

As we prepare to open our doors to our partners and the public, we are pleased to share highlights of press coverage of the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice. These views into our beautiful, renewed home underscore how we’ve made the space more accessible, sustainable, and primed to advance the foundation’s mission.

Writing in Foreign Affairs, Darren Walker surveys the rapidly shifting global order and the role philanthropy has played in creating it—and how the sector can contribute to a more just and sustainable order.

This week, in partnership with Princess Mabel van Oranje (chair of Girls not Brides), the Ford Foundation helped launch a creative new solution to the crisis of child marriage - VOW. Through products, experiences and wedding registries, VOW empowers couples, companies, the media and the public to become partners in creating a world without child marriage.

While being lauded for setting an ambitious target on a land reform program, the government has also been criticized for denying thousands of claims on land that when combined, matches Jakarta in size.

This article appears behind the Jakarta Post’s paywall

Over 1,000 world leaders and representatives of civil society organizations flocked to Bandung, Indonesia to address rampant agrarian conflicts and land grabs in many countries.

This article appears behind the Jakarta Post’s paywall

Land issues can never be separated from Indigenous Peoples. In fact, one of Ford Foundation’s core strategies to combat inequality is dedicated to Natural Resources and Climate Change.

This article appears behind the Jakarta Post’s paywall

Ahead of this week's Global Climate Action Summit, 18 foundation leaders have stepped up in support of forests, rights, and lands for climate. In his essay on Trust.org, Darren Walker explains why this matters.

A new field of "public interest technology" is emerging, and it's reimagining the landscape of technology to serve the greater welfare of society.

Every decade since 1790, the government has counted the American population, as required by the Constitution. While it took the 14th Amendment to ensure that all people were counted equally, the census has nonetheless performed an essential role in maintaining and improving our democracy.

Darren Walker: The Declaration of Independence we celebrate on July 4 was not merely the expression of one’s right to protest—it was the exercise of that right.

In a blog post from the Grantmakers for Effective Organization’s (GEO) conference, Kathy Reich, Director of BUILD, maps out a vision for philanthropy for the next 20 years. Reich counts racial equity, collaboration with other funders, flexibility, and learning among the top practices critical to reaching philanthropic goals.

In this USA Today op-ed, senior program officer and acting director Tanya Coke highlights the importance of the criminal justice movement including the voices of crime victims, in particular people of color who are at particular risk.
 

Since the publication of his Pulitzer Prize-winning book Evicted, Princeton sociologist Matthew Desmond has been mining court records across the United States to build a database of millions of evictions.

On this episode of 1A, an NPR broadcast show, Darren Walker speaks with Joshua Johnson about Ford’s philanthropic vision and examples of Ford's work including monuments and historical markers, criminal justice reform and inequality in America.

Vox reports that on issues like guns, immigration, health care, and climate change, Americans are putting pressure on businesses to act when they believe government will not.

Ford reflects on the 50^th anniversary of the Kerner Commission report, which documented the failings of the media to address the civil unrest in 1967 in Detroit, Newark, and elsewhere. 

Ford is featured on Fast Company’s annual ranking of the world’s 50 Most Innovative Companies for its innovative efforts to strengthen the organizations we support -- including our $1 billion commitment to impact investing.

This op-ed originally appeared in El Tiempo on February 2, 2018. The following version has been translated from the Spanish.

Susan Berresford, who served as president of the Ford Foundation from 1996-2007 and launched the International Fellowships Program (IFP) under her tenure, reflects on lessons learned from the program.

Inside Philanthropy features an interview with Hilary Pennington on her leadership at the Ford Foundation and the biggest issues facing civil society. 

In this Times Picayune op-ed, Darren Walker highlights the role of innovative partnerships in New Orleans's recovery.

In the linkage between inequality and climate change, questions of land tenure are key.

Darren Walker announces the appointment of a foundation program officer based in Detroit—working alongside communities and leaders to ensure that the people of Detroit are shaping how their neighborhoods are developed.

Darren Walker discusses how jails like Rikers Island perpetuate inequality and injustice and embody the broken criminal justice system in America.

Announced on Monday, this year's Pulitzer winners included Ford Foundation grantees in several categories. 

Various media outlets cover the Ford Foundation's commitment of $1 billion of our endowment toward mission-related investments.

NPR examines the Bard Prison Initiative, which pairs graduates with employers to give them yearlong professional positions, and the Ford Foundation's participation in the program.

The Washington Post covers Darren Walker's lecture at the Kennedy Center, and Arts Advocacy Day sponsored by Americans for the Arts. Opinion pieces highlighting the importance of arts funding are also featured in the Hill and the Houston Chronicle.

On this episode of the weekly Fortt Knox podcast, Darren Walker talks to Jon Fortt about the importance of empathy and understanding in creating meaningful change.

Ford Foundation president Darren Walker is one of 170 new inductees into Fast Company's Most Creative People list.

WNYC interviewed award-winning poet and director of Creativity and Free Expression Elizabeth Alexander on the importance of art to the Obama administration.

in this Town & Country op-ed, Darren talks about Princess Mabel of the Netherlands and her quest to end child marriage.

In a special program about the American dream, Diane Sawyer chronicles the new reality of millions of Americans who are working harder than ever but struggling to stay in the middle class.

The Ford Foundation's Hilary Pennington and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation's Fay Twersky discuss how the feedback movement helps nonprofits build better, more effective programs.

NY1's Budd Mishkin profiles Ford Foundation president Darren Walker and his journey from humble beginnings to his role as a leader in philanthropy.

The lab, which has 12 residents, is a partnership between CFC Media Lab, NFB, and JustFilms | Ford Foundation. 

This is the 25th year that the Greater Detroit chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals has hosted the National Philanthropy Day awards, honoring top volunteers, donors, and funders.

Eric Doppstadt talks about his 27 years at the foundation and the value of long-term investing in ensuring it can continue working toward social justice.

Watch the discussion from the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit, moderated by Dina Habib Powell, head of impact investing at Goldman Sachs, and president, Goldman Sachs Foundation.

Watch the video about how technology is changing the way philanthropy tackles the world's issues and how the Ford Foundation is working with technologists to advance social change.

Ana Marie Argilagos, a senior advisor for Ford Foundation's equitable development work, spoke with Citiscope about the impact of the upcoming Habitat III conference for ensuring sustainable global development.