Ford Foundation
From Free net encyclopedia
The Ford Foundation is a charitable foundation based in New York City created to fund programs that promote democracy, reduce poverty and promote international understanding (see mission statement). The current chair is Susan V. Berresford.
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History
The Ford Foundation was founded in 1936 with grants from Henry Ford and his son Edsel Ford of the Ford Motor Company. Initially, the foundation was used to support Ford family causes, such as Henry Ford Hospital and Greenfield Village and Henry Ford Museum.
After the deaths of Henry Ford in 1947 and Edsel Ford in 1943, the Ford Foundation commissioned a report to determine how the foundation should continue. The committee, headed by H. Rowan Gaither, recommended that the foundation should commit to promoting peace, freedom, and education throughout the world. To provide funding for various projects, 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. Through this divestiture, the Ford Motor Company became a public company in 1956.
Other than its name, the Ford Foundation has not had any connections to the Ford Motor Company nor the Ford family for over thirty years. Henry Ford II, the last remaining Ford on the board of directors, resigned from the foundation board in 1976 due to his frustration with what he believed was the foundation's arrogance and anti-capitalist attitudes.
As of the end of the 2004 fiscal year, the foundation reported a total investment portfolio of $10.5 billion, giving out around $520 million in grants for the year. A list of grant recipients can be found on the Ford Foundation's grant database.
Critics
The Ford Foundation has been heavily criticized for many of the programs it funds for a variety of reasons.
Certain radical critics such as former Binghamton University professor James Petras have criticized the Foundation for alleged links with the CIA. Petras has accused the Foundation of being a CIA front, citing former Foundation president Richard Bissell's relationship with DCI Allen Dulles and involvement with the Marshall Plan during the 1950s. Petras further denounces the Ford Foundation for funding what he terms "anti-leftist" human rights groups that "...do not participate in anti-globalization and anti-neoliberal mass actions" [1]
Another American academic, Joan Roelofs, in Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism (State University of New York Press, 2003,) argues that Ford and similar foundations play a key role in co-opting opposition movements: "While dissent from ruling class ideas is labeled 'extremism' and is isolated, individual dissenters may be welcomed and transformed. Indeed, ruling class hegemony is more durable if it is not rigid and narrow, but is able dynamically to incorporate emergent trends." She reports that John J. McCloy, while chairman of the Foundation's board of trustees, "...thought of the Foundation as a quasi-extension of the U.S. government. It was his habit, for instance, to drop by the National Security Council (NSC) in Washington every couple of months and casually ask whether there were any overseas projects the NSC would like to see funded." Roelofs also charges that the Ford Foundation financed counter-insurgency programs in Indonesia and other countries.
The Ford Foundation is a major donor to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), a self-described progressive media watchdog group. The Ford Foundation has been criticized by conservatives for its support of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, Planned Parenthood and other Abortion-Rights groups.[2]
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. However, conservative critics charge that the clinics have been used instead as an avenue for the professors to engage in left-wing political activism. Critics cite the financial involvement of the Ford Foundation as the turning point when such clinics began to change from giving practical experience to engaging in advocacy.Template:Note
In 2005, Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox began a probe of the foundation. Though the Ford Foundation is headquarted in New York City, it is chartered in Michigan, giving the state jurisdiction. Cox is focusing on its governance, potential conflicts of interest among board members, and its poor record of giving to charities in Michigan. Between 1998 and 2002, the Ford Foundation gave Michigan charities about $2.5 million per year, far less than many other charities. Cox is hoping that this probe will prod the foundation into giving more to Michigan charities. Template:Note
References
- Template:Note Heather Mac Donald. "Clinical, Cynical." Wall Street Journal. January 11, 2006; Page A14.
- Template:Note Daniel Howes. "Ford Foundation probed; AG claims Mich. left out." Detroit News April 2, 2006 Link
Further reading
- James Petras (2001), The Ford Foundation and the CIA. Claims that the Ford Foundation is a front organization for the CIA.
- Frances Stonor Saunders (2001), The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters, New Press, ISBN 1565846648 (aka, Who Paid the Piper?: CIA and the Cultural Cold War 1999 Granta [UK edition])
- David Ransom, The Trojan Horse: A Radical Look at Foreign Aid, pub. 1975, pp. 93-116 "1970 Ford Foundation : Building an Elite for Indonesia".
- Bob Feldman, "Alternative Media Censorship sponsored by CIA's Ford Foundation?"
See also