Ford Shifts Grant Making to Focus Entirely on Inequality

Submitted by Steve on June 11, 2015

Ford Foundation president Darren Walker has announced that the foundation will focus the nation’s second largest philanthropy on issues of inequality. From Alex Daniels at The Chronicle of Philanthropy:

Not only will Ford direct all of its money and influence to curbing financial, racial, gender, and other inequities, but it will give lots more money in a way grantees have been clamoring for: It hopes to double the total it gives in the form of unrestricted grants for operating support. The doubling of general operating support to 40 percent of the foundation’s grant-making budget, projected to be in excess of $1 billion over five years, will enable Ford to create what its president, Darren Walker, calls a "social-justice infrastructure" reminiscent of the support it provided nonprofits during the civil-rights era.

Read the full article.

In Walker’s own post, he outlines his plan for the foundation moving forward:

To address and respond to these drivers of inequality, we will be working in six program areas, very much reflective of the five drivers. They are:

Civic Engagement and Government
Creativity and Free Expression
Gender, Ethnic, and Racial Justice
Inclusive Economies
Internet Freedom
Youth Opportunity and Learning

These six thematic areas will not be silos, each unto itself. They are ingredients that each of our offices—depending on local context and the priorities set by local partners—will combine in creative ways to disrupt the drivers of inequality. We suspect that in many cases the most dynamic frontlines of social change will be found not within these six areas, but at the intersections where they connect. And our commitment to human rights and human dignity will be at the center of all of them.