Ford Foundation

History

The foundation was established on January 15, 1936, in Michigan by Edsel Ford (president of the Ford Motor Company) and two other executives "to receive and administer funds for scientific, educational and charitable purposes, all for the public welfare." It was a reaction to FDR's 1935 tax reform introducing 70% tax on large inheritances. During its early years, the foundation operated in Michigan under the leadership of Ford family members and their associates and supported the Henry Ford Hospital and the Henry 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 attorney H. 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.

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 (Kampfgruppe gegen Unmenschlichkeit, known as KgU), 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 the International Rescue Committee was recruited to act as its advocate. With the support of Eleanor Roosevelt, the Ford Foundation was persuaded to give the KgU 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. The National Committee for a Free Europe, a CIA proprietary, actually administered the grant.

From 1958 to 1965, the Foundation's chairman was John J. McCloy, who in 1942 had founded the Office of Strategic Services, a secretive intelligence agency that became the Central Intelligence Agency. 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. The CIA channeled funds through the Ford Foundation as part of its efforts to influence culture.

Writer and activist Arundhati Roy has said that the foundation, along with the Rockefeller Foundation, supported imperialist efforts by the U.S. government during the Cold War. For example, Roy wrote that the Ford Foundation's establishment of an economics course at the Indonesian University helped align students with the 1965 coup that installed Suharto as president.

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. This divestiture allowed Ford Motor to become a public 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 as anti-capitalist undertones in the foundation's work. In February 2019, Henry Ford III was elected to the Foundation's Board of Trustees, becoming the first Ford family member to serve on the board since his grandfather resigned in 1976.

The company was a co-founder of National Public Affairs Center for Television in 1971 with Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and was sold to WETA-TV in 1972.

For many years, the foundation topped annual lists compiled by the Foundation Center of US foundations with the most assets and the highest annual giving. The foundation has fallen a few places in those lists, especially with the establishment of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000. As of May 4, 2013, the foundation was second in terms of assets and tenth in terms of annual grant giving.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the foundation gave money to government and non-government contraceptive initiatives to support population control, peaking at an estimated $169 million in the last 1960s. The foundation ended most support for contraception programs by the 1970s.

Between 1969 and 1978, the foundation was the biggest funder for research into in 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.

Law school clinics and civil rights litigation

In 1968, the foundation began disbursing $12 million to persuade law schools to make "law school clinics" part of their curriculum. Clinics were intended to give practical experience in law practice while providing pro bono representation to the poor. Conservative critic Heather Mac Donald contends that the foundation's financial involvement instead changed the clinics' focus from giving students practical experience to engaging in leftwing advocacy.

In the late 1960s and the 1970s, the foundation expanded into civil rights litigation, granting $18 million to civil rights litigation groups. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund was incorporated in 1967 with a $2.2 million grant from the foundation. The same year, the foundation funded the establishment of the Southwest Council of La Raza, the predecessor of the National Council of La Raza. In 1972, the foundation provided a three-year $1.2 million grant to the Native American Rights Fund. The same year, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund opened with funding from numerous organizations, including the foundation. In 1974, the foundation contributed funds to the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project.