Rockefeller Foundation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Rockefeller Foundation
The Rockefeller Foundation Logo.png
FoundedMay 14, 1913; 108 years ago (1913-05-14)
FoundersJohn D. Rockefeller
John D. Rockefeller Jr.
Frederick Taylor Gates
TypeNon-operating private foundation
(IRS exemption status): 501(c)(3)[1]
Location
MethodEndowment
Key people
Rajiv Shah
(president)
Endowment$4.1 billion (2016)[2]
Websiterockefellerfoundation.org

The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City.[3] It was established by the Rockefeller family in New York State on May 14, 1913, when its charter was formally accepted by the New York State Legislature.[4] The foundation was started by Standard Oil co-founder John D. Rockefeller ("Senior"), along with his son John D. Rockefeller Jr. ("Junior"), and Senior's principal business and philanthropic advisor, Frederick Taylor Gates.

As of 2015, the foundation was ranked as the 39th largest U.S. foundation by total giving.[5] By the end of 2016, assets were tallied at $4.1 billion (unchanged from 2015), with annual grants of $173 million.[6]

According to the OECD, the foundation provided US$103.8 million for development in 2019.[7]

Leadership[]

On January 5, 2017, the board of trustees announced the selection of Dr. Rajiv Shah to serve as the 13th president of the foundation.[8] Shah became the youngest person, at 43,[9] and first Indian-American to serve as president of the foundation.[10] He assumed the position March 1, succeeding Judith Rodin who served as president for nearly twelve years and announced her retirement, at age 71, in June 2016.[11] A former president of the University of Pennsylvania, Rodin was the first woman to head the foundation.[12] Rodin in turn had succeeded Gordon Conway in 2005.

Beginnings[]

John D Rockefeller first had the notion to set up a large-scale foundation in 1901, but it was not until 1906 that Senior's business and philanthropic advisor, Frederick Taylor Gates, seriously revived the idea, saying that Rockefeller's fortune was rolling up so fast his heirs would "dissipate their inheritances or become intoxicated with power", unless he set up "permanent corporate philanthropies for the good of Mankind".[13]

In 1906, the Russell Sage Foundation was established, though its program was limited to working women and social ills. Rockefeller's would thus not be the first foundation in America (Benjamin Franklin was the first to introduce the concept), but it brought to an international scale and scope. In 1909 he signed over 73,000 shares of Standard Oil of New Jersey, valued at $50 million, to the three inaugural trustees, Junior, Gates and Harold Fowler McCormick, the first installment of a projected $100 million endowment.[13]

They applied for a federal charter for the foundation in the US Senate in 1910, with at one stage Junior even secretly meeting with President William Howard Taft, through the aegis of Senator Nelson Aldrich, to hammer out concessions.[citation needed] However, because of the ongoing (1911) antitrust suit against Standard Oil at the time, along with deep suspicion in some quarters of undue Rockefeller influence on the spending of the endowment, the end result was that Senior and Gates withdrew the bill from Congress in order to seek a state charter.[13]

On May 14, 1913, New York Governor William Sulzer approved a state charter for the foundation with Junior becoming the first president. With its large-scale endowment, a large part of Senior's fortune was insulated from inheritance taxes.[13]

Early grants and connections[]

The first secretary of the foundation was Jerome Davis Greene, the former secretary of Harvard University, who wrote a "memorandum on principles and policies" for an early meeting of the trustees that established a rough framework for the foundation's work. On December 5, the Board made its first grant of $100,000 to the American Red Cross to purchase property for its headquarters in Washington, D.C.[14] At the beginning the foundation was global in its approach and concentrated in its first decade entirely on the sciences, public health and medical education.

It was initially located within the family office at Standard Oil's headquarters at 26 Broadway, later (in 1933) shifting to the GE Building (then RCA), along with the newly named family office, Room 5600, at Rockefeller Center; later it moved to the Time-Life Building in the center, before shifting to its current Fifth Avenue address.

In 1913, the foundation set up the International Health Commission (later Board), the first appropriation of funds for work outside the US, which launched the foundation into international public health activities. This expanded the work of the Sanitary Commission worldwide, working against various diseases in fifty-two countries on six continents and twenty-nine islands, bringing international recognition of the need for public health and environmental sanitation. Its early field research on hookworm, malaria, and yellow fever provided the basic techniques to control these diseases and established the pattern of modern public health services.[15]

The commission established and endowed the school of Hygiene and Public Health, at Johns Hopkins University, and later at Harvard, and then spent more than $25 million in developing other public health schools in the US and in 21 foreign countries – helping to establish America as the world leader in medicine and scientific research. In 1913, it also began a 20-year support program of the Bureau of Social Hygiene, whose mission was research and education on birth control, maternal health and sex education.

Europe[]

In the interwar years, the Foundation's support of public health, nursing, and social work in Eastern and Central Europe was a concentrated effort to advance medicine and create a global network of medical research.[16] After World War II it sent a team to West Germany to investigate how it could become involved in reconstructing the country. They focused on restoring democracy, especially regarding education and scientific research, with the long-term goal of reintegrating Germany to the Western world.[17]

China Medical Board[]

In 1914, the foundation set up the China Medical Board, which established the first public health university in China, the Peking Union Medical College, in 1921; this was subsequently nationalized when the Communists took over the country in 1949. In the same year it began a program of international fellowships to train scholars at the many of the world's universities at the post-doctoral level; a fundamental commitment to the education of future leaders.

Department of Industrial Relations[]

Also in 1914, the trustees set up a new Department of Industrial Relations, inviting William Lyon Mackenzie King to head it. He became a close and key advisor to Junior through the Ludlow Massacre, turning around his attitude to unions; however the foundation's involvement in IR was criticized for advancing the family's business interests.[18] The foundation henceforth confined itself to funding responsible organizations involved in this and other controversial fields, which were beyond the control of the foundation itself.[19]

Psychiatry[]

During the late-1920s, the Rockefeller Foundation created the Medical Sciences Division, which emerged from the former Division of Medical Education. The division was led by Dr. Richard M. Pearce until his death in 1930, to which Alan Gregg succeeded him until 1945.[20] During this period, the Division of Medical Sciences was known for making large contributions to research across several fields of psychiatry. The 1930s was one of the most prominent decades in Rockefeller Foundation philanthropy to psychiatric research, as the foundation set a goal to find, train, and encourage scholars for research and practice.[21] One of the first large contributions from the Foundation to psychiatric research was in 1935, with the appropriation of $100000 to the Institute for Psychoanalysis in Chicago.[22] This grant was renewed in 1938, with payments extending into the early-1940s.[23]

Social sciences[]

Through the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial (LSRM), established by Senior in 1918 and named after his wife, the Rockefeller fortune was for the first time directed to supporting research by social scientists. During its first few years of work, the LSRM awarded funds primarily to social workers, with its funding decisions guided primarily by Junior. In 1922, Beardsley Ruml was hired to direct the LSRM, and he most decisively shifted the focus of Rockefeller philanthropy into the social sciences, stimulating the founding of university research centers, and creating the Social Science Research Council. In January 1929, LSRM funds were folded into the Rockefeller Foundation, in a major reorganization.[24]

Junior became the foundation chairman in 1917. One of the many prominent trustees of the institution since has been C. Douglas Dillon, the United States Secretary of the Treasury under both Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.

Eugenics and Nazi racial studies[]

Beginning in 1930, the Rockefeller Foundation provided financial support to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics,[25] which later inspired and conducted eugenics experiments in the Third Reich.

The Rockefeller Foundation funded Nazi racial studies even after it was clear that this research was being used to rationalize the demonizing of Jews and other groups. Up until 1939, the Rockefeller Foundation was funding research used to support Nazi racial science studies at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics (KWIA.) Reports submitted to Rockefeller did not hide what these studies were being used to justify. Still, Rockefeller continued the funding and refrained from criticizing this research so closely derived from Nazi ideology. The Rockefeller Foundation did not alert "the world to the nature of German science and the racist folly" that German anthropology promulgated. Rockefeller funded for years after the passage of the 1935 Nuremberg racial laws.[26]

The Rockefeller Foundation, along with the Carnegie Institution, was the primary financier for the Eugenics Record Office, until 1939. [27]

Harvard International Seminars[]

The foundation also supported the early initiatives of Henry Kissinger, such as his directorship of Harvard's International Seminars (funded as well by the Central Intelligence Agency) and the early foreign policy magazine Confluence, both established by him while he was still a graduate student.[28]

Programs: scale and scope[]

Senate House (University of London) was built on donation from Rockefeller Foundation in 1926 and foundation stone laid by King George V in 1933. It is the headquarters of the University of London since 1937.
Siyuan Hall, 1923 Rockefeller Foundation donated to Nankai University in Tianjin. Now it is Nankai University School of Medicine

Through the years the foundation has expanded greatly in scope. Historically, it has given more than $14 billion in current dollars[29] to thousands of grantees worldwide and has assisted directly in the training of nearly 13,000 Rockefeller Fellows.

Its overall philanthropic activity has been divided into five main subject areas:[30]

  • Medical, health, and population sciences
  • Agricultural and natural sciences
  • Arts and humanities
  • Social sciences
  • International relations

In the 1920s, the Rockefeller Foundation started a program to eradicate hookworm in Mexico. The program demonstrated the time period's confidence in science as the solution for everything.[31] This reliance on science was known as scientific neutrality. The Rockefeller Foundation program stated that there was a crucial correlation between the world of science, politics and international health policy. This heavy reliance on scientific neutrality contradicted the hookworm program's fundamental objective to invest in public health in order to develop better social conditions and to establish positive ties between the United States and Mexico.[32] The Hookworm Campaign set the terms of the relationship between Mexico and the Rockefeller Foundation that persisted through subsequent programs including the development of a network of local public health departments. The importance of the hookworm campaign was to get a foot in the door and swiftly convince rural people of the value of public health work. The roles of the RF's hookworm campaign are characteristic of the policy paradoxes that emerge when science is summoned to drive policy. The campaign in Mexico served as a policy cauldron through which new knowledge could be demonstrated applicable to social and political problems on many levels.[33]

A major program beginning in the 1930s was the relocation of German (Jewish) scholars from German universities to America. This was expanded to other European countries after the Anschluss occurred; when war broke out it became a full-scale rescue operation. Another program, the Emergency Rescue Committee was also partly funded with Rockefeller money; this effort resulted in the rescue of some of the most famous artists, writers and composers of Europe. Some of the notable figures relocated or saved (out of a total of 303 scholars) by the Foundation were Thomas Mann, Claude Lévi-Strauss and Leó Szilárd, enriching intellectual life and academic disciplines in the US. This came to light afterwards through a brief, unpublished history of the Foundation's program.[34]

Another program was its Medical Sciences Division, which funded women's contraception and the human reproductive system in general. Other funding went into endocrinology departments in American universities, human heredity, mammalian biology, human physiology and anatomy, psychology, and the studies of human sexual behavior by Dr. Alfred Kinsey.[35]

Trinidad Regional Virus Laboratory Field Assistant, Nariva Swamp, Trinidad. 1959

In 1950, the Foundation mounted a major program of virus research, establishing field laboratories in Poona, India; Port of Spain, Trinidad; Belém, Brazil; Johannesburg, South Africa; Cairo, Egypt; Ibadan, Nigeria; and Cali, Colombia.[citation needed] In time, major funding was also contributed by the countries involved, while in Trinidad the British government and neighbouring British-controlled territories also assisted. Sub-professional staff were almost all recruited locally and, wherever possible, local people were given scholarships and other support to be professionally trained. In most cases, locals eventually took over management of the facilities. Support was also given to research on viruses in many other countries. The result of all this research was the identification of a huge number of viruses affecting humans, the development of new techniques for the rapid identification of viruses, and a quantum leap in our understanding of arthropod-borne viruses.[36]

In the arts it has helped establish or support the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario, Canada, and the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Connecticut; Arena Stage in Washington, D.C.; Karamu House in Cleveland, Ohio; and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York. In a recent shift[when?] in program emphasis, President Rodin eliminated the division that spent money on the arts, the creativity and culture program. One program that signals the shift was the foundation's support as the underwriter of Spike Lee's documentary on New Orleans, When the Levees Broke. The film has been used as the basis for a curriculum on poverty, developed by the Teachers College at Columbia University for their students.[37]

Many scientists and scholars from all over the world have received foundation fellowships and scholarships for advanced study in major scientific disciplines. In addition, the foundation has provided significant and often substantial research grants to finance conferences and assist with published studies, as well as funding departments and programs, to a vast range of foreign policy and educational organizations, including:[citation needed]

  • Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) – Especially the notable 1939-45 War and Peace Studies that advised the US State Department and the US government on World War II strategy and forward planning
  • Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA) in London
  • Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington – Support of the diplomatic training program
  • Brookings Institution in Washington – Significant funding of research grants in the fields of economic and social studies
  • World Bank in Washington – Helped finance the training of foreign officials through the Economic Development Institute
  • Harvard University – Grants to the Center for International Affairs and medical, business and administration Schools
  • Yale University – Substantial funding to the Institute of International Studies
  • Princeton University – Office of Population Research
  • Columbia University – Establishment of the Russia Institute
  • University of the Philippines, Los Baños – Funded research for the College of Agriculture and built an international house for foreign students
  • McGill University – The Rockefeller Foundation funded the Montreal Neurological Institute, on the request of Dr. Wilder Penfield, a Canadian neurosurgeon, who had met David Rockefeller years before
  • Library of Congress – Funded a project for photographic copies of the complete card catalogues for the world's fifty leading libraries
  • Bodleian Library at Oxford University – Grant for a building to house five million volumes
  • Population Council of New York – Funded fellowships
  • Social Science Research Council – Major funding for fellowships and grants-in-aid
  • National Bureau of Economic Research[38]
  • National Institute of Public Health of Japan (formerly The Institute of Public Health (国立公衆衛生院, Kokuritsu Kōshū Eisei-in) "School of Public Health"ja) in Tokyo (1938)
  • Group of Thirty – In 1978 the Foundation invited Geoffrey Bell to set up this high-powered and influential advisory group on global financial issues, whose former chairman was longtime Rockefeller associate Paul Volcker, until his death in 2019[39]
  • London School of Economics – funded research and general budget
  • University of Lyon, France – funded research in natural sciences, social sciences, medicine and the new building of the medical school during the 1920s-1930s
  • The Trinidad Regional Virus Laboratory
  • The Results for Development Institute – funded the
  • Mahidol University in Thailand

Notable programs[]

The Rockefeller Foundation has accomplished some notable achievements, such as:

  • Financially supported education in the United States "without distinction of race, sex or creed"[40]
  • Helped establish the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the United Kingdom;
  • Established the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and Harvard School of Public Health, two of the first such institutions in the United States;[41][42]
  • Established the School of Hygiene at the University of Toronto in 1927;[43]
  • Developed the vaccine to prevent yellow fever;[44][45]
  • Helped The New School provide a haven for scholars threatened by the Nazis[46]

The foundation also funded several infamous projects:

The Green Revolution[]

Main article: Green Revolution

Agriculture was introduced to the Natural Sciences division of the foundation in the major reorganization of 1928. In 1941, the foundation gave a small grant to Mexico for maize research, in collaboration with the then new president, Manuel Ávila Camacho. This was done after the intervention of vice-president Henry Wallace and the involvement of Nelson Rockefeller; the primary intention being to stabilise the Mexican Government and derail any possible communist infiltration, in order to protect the Rockefeller family's investments.[51]

By 1943, this program, under the foundation's Mexican Agriculture Project, had proved such a success with the science of corn propagation and general principles of agronomy that it was exported to other Latin American countries; in 1956, the program was then taken to India; again with the geopolitical imperative of providing an antidote to communism.[51] It wasn't until 1959 that senior foundation officials succeeded in getting the Ford Foundation (and later USAID, and later still, the World Bank) to sign on to the major philanthropic project, known now to the world as the Green Revolution. It was originally conceived in 1943 as CIMMYT, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico. It also provided significant funding for the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines. Part of the original program, the funding of the IRRI was later taken over by the Ford Foundation.[51] The International Rice Research Institute and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center are part of a consortium of agricultural research organizations known as CGIAR.[52]

Costing around $600 million, over 50 years, the revolution brought new farming technology, increased productivity, expanded crop yields and mass fertilization to many countries throughout the world. Later it funded over $100 million of plant biotechnology research and trained over four hundred scientists from Asia, Africa and Latin America. It also invested in the production of transgenic crops, including rice and maize. In 1999, the then president Gordon Conway addressed the Monsanto Company board of directors, warning of the possible social and environmental dangers of this biotechnology, and requesting them to disavow the use of so-called terminator genes;[53] the company later complied.

In the 1990s, the foundation shifted its agriculture work and emphasis to Africa; in 2006, it joined with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation[54] in a $150 million effort to fight hunger in the continent through improved agricultural productivity. In an interview marking the 100 year anniversary of the Rockefeller Foundation, Judith Rodin explained to This Is Africa that Rockefeller has been involved in Africa since their beginning in three main areas – health, agriculture and education, though agriculture has been and continues to be their largest investment in Africa.[55]

Bellagio Center[]

The foundation also owns and operates the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center in Bellagio, Italy. The Center comprises several buildings, spread across a 50-acre (200,000 m2) property, on the peninsula between lakes Como and Lecco in Northern Italy. The center is sometimes colloquially referred to as the Villa Serbelloni. The Villa is only one of the many buildings in which residents and conference participants are housed. The property was bequeathed to the Foundation in 1959 under the presidency of Dean Rusk (who was later to become U.S. President Kennedy's secretary of state). The Bellagio Center operates both a conference center and a residency program.[56] The residency program is a highly competitive program to which scholars, artists, writers, musicians, scientists, policymakers and development professionals from around the world can apply to work on a project of their own choosing for a period of four weeks. The essence of the program is the synergy obtained by the interaction between people coming from the most diverse backgrounds. Numerous Nobel laureates, Pulitzer winners, National Book Award recipients, Prince Mahidol Award winners and MacArthur fellows, as well as several acting and former heads of State and Government, have been in residence at Bellagio.

Rockefeller Foundation Communication for Social Change Network[]

The network is enabled by the Rockefeller Foundation for collaboration between experts and communication professionals that include grassroots/community-based and international non-governmental organizations, as well as multilateral and bilateral entities. Its involvement in AIDS prevention was based on promoting deep-rooted social changes that stem from informed and inclusive public engagement. However, it recognized that wide-scale educational campaigns focused on altering individual behavior played a critical role.

The strategy and principles linked with the network are listed below:

  • "Sustainability of social change is more likely if the individuals and communities most affected own the process and content of communication."[57]
  • "Communication for social change should be empowering, horizontal (versus top-down), give a voice to the previously unheard members of the community, and be biased towards local content and ownership."[57]
  • "Communities should be the agents of their own change."[57]
  • "Emphasis should shift from persuasion and the transmission of information from outside technical experts to dialogue, debate and negotiation on issues that resonate with members of the community."[57]
  • "Emphasis on outcomes should go beyond individual behaviour to social norms, policies, culture and the supporting environment."[57]

100 Resilient Cities[]

In December 2013, The Rockefeller Foundation launched the 100 Resilient Cities initiative, which was dedicated to promoting urban resilience, defined as "the capacity of individuals, communities, institutions, businesses, and systems within a city to survive, adapt, and grow no matter what kinds of chronic stresses and acute shocks they experience."[58]

Through its program, 100 Resilient Cities offered cities the following resources:[59]

  • Financial and logistical guidance for establishing an innovative new position in city government, a Chief Resilience Officer, who will lead the city's resilience efforts
  • Expert support for development of a robust resilience strategy
  • Access to solutions, service providers, and partners from the private, public and NGO sectors who can help them develop and implement their resilience strategies
  • Membership of a global network of member cities who can learn from and help each other

A total of 100 cities across six continents were part of the program.[60] All 100 cities developed individual City Resilience Strategies with technical support from a Chief Resilience Officer (CRO), funded by the program. The CRO ideally reports directly to the city's chief executive and helps coordinate all the resilience efforts in a single city.

In January 2016, the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development announced winners of its National Disaster Resilience Competition (NDRC), awarding three 100RC member cities – New York, NY; Norfolk, VA; and New Orleans, LA – with more than $437 million in disaster resilience funding.[61] The grant was the largest ever received by the city of Norfolk.

In April 2019, it was announced that the Rockefeller Foundation would no longer be funding the 100 Resilient Cities program as a whole. Some elements of the initiative's work, most prominently the funding of several cities' Chief Resilience Officer roles, continues to be managed and funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, while other aspects of the program continue in the form of two independent organizations, Resilient Cities Catalyst (RCC) and the Global Resilient Cities Network (GRCN), founded by former 100RC leadership and staff. [62][63]

Cultural Innovation Fund[]

The Cultural Innovation Fund is a pilot grant program that is overseen by Lincoln Center for the Arts. The Rockefeller Foundation selected Lincoln Center to administer the fund based on the institutions steady track record in creating community based partnerships and implementing art based programs.[64][65] The grants are to be used towards innovative ideas that would bring art access and foster cultural opportunities in the underserved areas of Brooklyn and the South Bronx[66] with three overarching goals.

  • Increase access to the arts in underserved neighborhoods around New York City
  • increase the "places and platforms" where cultural activities are taking place
  • support nonprofit organizations in implementing cultural based programs and strategies[65]

Family involvement[]

The Rockefeller family helped lead the foundation in its early years, but later limited itself to one or two representatives, to maintain the foundation's independence and avoid charges of undue family influence. These representatives have included the former president John D. Rockefeller III, and then his son John D. Rockefeller, IV, who gave up the trusteeship in 1981. In 1989, David Rockefeller's daughter, Peggy Dulany, was appointed to the board for a five-year term.

In October 2006, David Rockefeller, Jr. joined the board of trustees, re-establishing the direct family link and becoming the sixth family member to serve on the board. By contrast, the Ford Foundation has severed all direct links with the Ford family.[citation needed]

Stock in the family's oil companies had been a major part of the foundation's assets, beginning with Standard Oil and later with its corporate descendants, including Exxon Mobil.[67][68][69] In December 2020, the foundation pledged to dump their fossil fuel holdings. With a $5 billion endowment, the Rockefeller Foundation was "the largest US foundation to embrace the rapidly growing divestment movement." CNN writer Matt Egan noted, "This divestment is especially symbolic because the Rockefeller Foundation was founded by oil money."[70]

Historical legacy[]

The second-oldest major philanthropic institution in America, after the Carnegie Corporation, the foundation's impact on philanthropy in general has been profound. It has supported United Nations programs throughout its history, such as the recent First Global Forum On Human Development, organized by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in 1999.[71]

The early institutions it set up have served as models for current organizations: the UN's World Health Organization, set up in 1948, is modeled on the International Health Division; the U.S. Government's National Science Foundation (1950) on its approach in support of research, scholarships and institutional development; and the National Institute of Health (1950) imitated its longstanding medical programs.[72]

Current trustees[]

As of June 1, 2021[73]
* Admiral James G. Stavridis (chair), 2018-, retired United States Navy; Supreme Allied Commander at NATO, 2009–2013, Operating Executive, The Carlyle Group; Chair of the Board of Counselors, McLarty Associates

Past trustees[]

include:
  • Alan Alda, 1989–1994 – actor and film director.[74]
  • Winthrop W. Aldrich 1935–1951 – chairman of the Chase National Bank, 1934–1953; Ambassador to the Court of St. James, 1953–1957.
  • John W. Davis 1922–1939 – J. P. Morgan's private attorney; founding president of the Council on Foreign Relations.
  • C. Douglas Dillon 1960–1961 – US Treasury Secretary, 1961–1965; member of the Council on Foreign Relations.[75]
  • Orvil E. Dryfoos 1960–1963 – publisher of The New York Times, 1961–1963.
  • Peggy Dulany, 1989–1994 – Fourth child of David Rockefeller; founder and president of Synergos.[74]
  • John Foster Dulles 1935–1952 (chairman) – US Secretary of State, 1953–1959; senior partner, Sullivan & Cromwell law firm.[76]
  • Charles William Eliot 1914–1917 – president of Harvard, 1869–1909.
  • John Robert Evans 1982 -1996 (chairman) – president of the University of Toronto 1972–1978; founding director of the Population, Health and Nutrition Department of the World Bank[77]
  • Ann M. Fudge, 2006–2015, former chairman and CEO, Young & Rubicam Brands, New York
  • Frederick Taylor Gates 1913–1923 – John D. Rockefeller Sr.'s principal advisor.
  • Helene D. Gayle, 20010–2019, president and CEO of CARE.
  • Stephen Jay Gould 1993–2002 – author; professor and curator, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University.
  • Rajat Gupta, 2006–11, former director, Goldman Sachs, Procter & Gamble, AMR Corporation; Special Advisor to the UN Secretary-General; former managing director, McKinsey & Company.
  • Wallace Harrison 1951–1961 – Rockefeller family architect; lead architect for the UN Headquarters complex.
  • Thomas J. Healey, 2003–2012, partner, Healey Development LLC; teaching course at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government; formerly with Goldman Sachs and an Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury.
  • Alice S. Huang, senior faculty associate, California Institute of Technology.
  • Charles Evans Hughes 1917–1921; 1925–1928 – Chief Justice of the United States, 1930–1941.
  • Robert A. Lovett 1949–1961 – US Secretary of Defense, 1951–1953.
  • Monica Lozano, 2012–2018, CEO, ImpreMedia, LLC
  • Yo-Yo Ma 1999–2002 – cellist.
  • Strive Masiyiwa, 2003–2018, Zimbabwe a businessman and cellphone pioneer, founding Econet Wireless.
  • Jessica T. Mathews, president, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, D.C.
  • John J. McCloy chairman: 1946–1949; 1953–1958 – prominent US presidential advisor; chairman of the Ford Foundation, 1958–1965; chairman of the council on Foreign Relations.
  • Bill Moyers 1969–1981 – journalist.
  • Diana Natalicio, 2004–2014, president, The University of Texas at El Paso
  • Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, 2009–2018, Finance Minister of Nigeria; former managing director of the World Bank; former Foreign Minister of Nigeria.
  • Sandra Day O'Connor, 2006–2013, associate justice, retired, Supreme Court of the United States
  • James F. Orr, III, (board chair), president and chief executive officer, LandingPoint Capital, Boston, Massachusetts.
  • Richard Parsons, 2007-2021, chairman of the board, Citigroup Inc.
  • Surin Pitsuwan, 2010–2012, secretary general of ASEAN (2007–2012)[78] and Thai politician.
  • Mamphela Ramphele, chairperson, Circle Capital Ventures, Cape Town, South Africa.
  • David Rockefeller Jr., 2006–2016, chair of foundation board Dec. 2010- ; vice-chairman of Rockefeller Family & Associates; director and former chair, Rockefeller & Co., Inc.; current trustee of the Museum of Modern Art.
  • John D. Rockefeller 1913–1923.
  • John D. Rockefeller Jr. chairman: 1917–1939.
  • John D. Rockefeller III chairman: 1952–1972.
  • John D. Rockefeller IV 1976–81.
  • Judith Rodin, president of the foundation (2005-2016); ex-officio member of the board
  • Julius Rosenwald 1917–1931 – chairman of Sears Roebuck, 1932–1939.
  • John Rowe M.D., 2007–2019, professor at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health; former chairman and CEO of Aetna Inc.
  • Dean Rusk 1950–1961 – US Secretary of State, 1961–1969.
  • Raymond W. Smith, chairman, Rothschild, Inc., New York; chairman of Arlington Capital Partners; chairman of Verizon Ventures; and a trustee of the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
  • Frank Stanton 1961–1966? – president of CBS, 1946–1971.
  • Arthur Hays Sulzberger 1939–1957 – publisher of The New York Times, 1935–1961.
  • Paul Volcker 1975–1979 – chairman, board of governors, Federal Reserve Board; president, New York Federal Reserve Bank.
  • Thomas J. Watson Jr. 1963–1970?[79] – president of IBM, 1952–1971.
  • James Wolfensohn – former president of the World Bank.
  • George D. Woods 1961–1967? – president of the World Bank, 1963–1968.
  • Võ Tòng Xuân, 2002–2010, vice president for academic affairs, Tan Tao University, Ho Chi Minh City; former rector of An Giang University, the second university in Vietnam's Mekong Delta.
  • Owen D. Young 1928–1939 – chairman of GE, 1922–1939, 1942–1945.

Scandal[]

Bristol-Myers Squibb, Johns Hopkins University and the Rockefeller Foundation are currently the subject of a $1 billion lawsuit from Guatemala for "roles in a 1940s U.S. government experiment that infected hundreds of Guatemalans with syphilis".[80] A previous suit against the United States government was dismissed in 2011 for the Guatemala syphilis experiments when a judge determined that the U.S. government could not be held liable for actions committed outside of the U.S.[81]

Presidents[]

  • Rajiv Shah - 1 March 2017 -, distinguished fellow in residence, Georgetown University; previously administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) from 2010 to 2015.
  • Judith Rodin - 1 January 2005 – 1 March 2017; former president of the University of Pennsylvania, and provost, chair of the Department of Psychology, Yale University.
  • Gordon Conway – 1 January 1998 – 31 December 2004; an agricultural ecologist and former president of the Royal Geographical Society.
  • Peter Goldmark, Jr. – 11 January 1988 – 31 December 1997; former executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.[82]
  • Richard Lyman – 1 January 1980 – 11 January 1988; president of Stanford University (1970–1980).
  • John Knowles – 3 October 1972 – 31 December 1979; physician, general director of the Massachusetts General Hospital (1962–1971).[83]
  • J. George Harrar – 20 January 1961 – 3 October 1972; plant pathologist, "generally regarded as the father of 'the Green Revolution.'"[84]
  • Dean Rusk – 17 July 1952 – 19 January 1961; United States Secretary of State from 1961 to 1969
  • Chester Barnard – 22 August 1948 – 17 July 1952; Bell System executive and author of landmark 1938 book, The Functions of the Executive
  • Raymond B. Fosdick – 30 May 1936 – 22 August 1948; brother of American clergyman Harry Emerson Fosdick
  • Max Mason – 20 September 1929 – 30 May 1936
  • George E. Vincent – 6 November 1917 – 20 September 1929; member of the John D. Rockefeller/Frederick T. Gates General Education Board (1914–1929)[85]
  • John D. Rockefeller, Jr. – 11 February 1913 – 6 November 1917

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ FoundationCenter.org, The Rockefeller Foundation, accessed 2010-12-23
  2. ^ Rockefeller Foundation. [ Financial Statements December 31, 2016]. Retrieved 2018-01-12.
  3. ^ "Company Overview of The Rockefeller Foundation". Businessweek. Retrieved 17 April 2013.
  4. ^ "Research Library – The Rockefeller Foundation" (PDF).
  5. ^ "Foundation Stats". The Foundation Center. October 2014. Retrieved 2017-08-14.
  6. ^ "Financial Statement 2016" (PDF). The Rockefeller Foundation. June 21, 2017. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2018-01-12. Retrieved 2018-01-12.
  7. ^ "Rockefeller Foundation | Development Co-operation Profiles – Rockefeller Foundation | OECD iLibrary". www.oecd-ilibrary.org. Retrieved 2021-05-11.
  8. ^ "A former USAID administrator becomes the thirteenth president of the Rockefeller Foundation – Ventures Africa". Ventures Africa. 2017-01-10. Retrieved 2018-01-03.
  9. ^ Gelles, David, ��Rockefeller Foundation Picks Rajiv J. Shah, a Trustee, as President”, The New York Times, January 4, 2017. Retrieve 2017-01-04.
  10. ^ "The Rockefeller Foundation Names Dr. Rajiv J. Shah, Former USAID Administrator, as Next President – The Rockefeller Foundation". The Rockefeller Foundation. Retrieved 2017-01-06.
  11. ^ Ramachandran, Shalini, "Judith Rodin Steps Down as Head of Rockefeller Foundation" (subscription), The Wall Street Journal, June 15, 2016. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  12. ^ "Judith Rodin, Rockefeller Foundation CEO: 'Culture Eats Strategy for Lunch'". Forbes. Retrieved 11 March 2013.
  13. ^ Jump up to: a b c d Chernow, Ron (May 5, 1998). Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. New York: Random House. pp. 563–566. ISBN 978-0679438083. As early as 1901, Rockefeller had realized he needed to create a foundation on a scale that dwarfed anything he had done so far...
  14. ^ Rockfound.org, history, 1913–1919 Archived 2007-05-23 at the Wayback Machine
  15. ^ Randall M. Packard, A History of Global Health, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016 (p. 32–43)
  16. ^ Benjamin B. Page, "The Rockefeller Foundation and Central Europe: A Reconsideration." Minerva 40#3 (2002): 265–287.
  17. ^ Carola Sachse, "What research, to what end? The Rockefeller Foundation and the Max Planck Gesellschaft in the early cold war." Central European History 42#1 (2009): 97–141. online
  18. ^ Seim, David L. (June 1, 2013). Rockefeller Philanthropy and Modern Social Science. London: Pickering & Chatto. pp. 81–89. ISBN 978-1848933910.
  19. ^ Foundation withdrew from direct involvement in Industrial Relations – see Robert Shaplen, Toward the Well-Being of Mankind: Fifty Years of the Rockefeller Foundation, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1964, (p.128)
  20. ^ "The Alan Gregg Papers: Director of Medical Sciences, 1930–1945". profiles.nlm.nih.gov.
  21. ^ Rockefeller Foundation, "The Strategy of Our Program in Psychiatry" (The Rockefeller Foundation, November 1, 1937), RG 3.1, series 906, box 2, folder 17, Rockefeller Archive Center, page 1, https://rockfound.rockarch.org/digital-library-listing/-/asset_publisher/yYxpQfeI4W8N/content/the-strategy-of-our-program-in-psychiatry
  22. ^ Theodore Brown, Alan Gregg and the Rockefeller Foundation's Support of Franz Alexander's Psychosomatic Research, Bulletin of the History of Medicine (1987): 155–182
  23. ^ Rockefeller Foundation, "Annual Report, 1938," Governance Report, The Rockefeller Foundation: Annual Report (New York, NY, USA: The Rockefeller Foundation, 1939), 171, https://assets.rockefellerfoundation.org/app/uploads/20150530122134/Annual-Report-1938.pdf.
  24. ^ Seim, David L. (2013), pp. 103–12
  25. ^ Schmuhl, Hans Walter (2008). Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics, 1927–1945. [Dordrecht, Netherlands]: Springer. p. 87.
  26. ^ Schafft, Gretchen (2004). From Racism to Genocide: Anthropology in the Third Reich. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. pp. 47–58. ISBN 9780252029301.
  27. ^ Jan A. Witkowski, "Charles Benedict Davenport, 1866–1944," in Jan A. Witkowski and John R. Inglis, eds., Davenport's Dream: 21st Century Reflections on Heredity and Eugenics (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2008), p. 52.
  28. ^ Early backing of Henry Kissinger – see Walter Isaacson, Kissinger: A Biography, New York: Simon & Schuster, (updated) 2005, (p.72)
  29. ^ "The Rockefeller Foundation Timeline". Archived from the original on 2007-02-12.
  30. ^ "The Rockefeller Archive Center – Rockefeller Foundation Archives". www.rockarch.org.
  31. ^ Birn, Anne-Emanuelle; Armando Solórzano (1999). "Public health policy paradoxes: science and politics in the Rockefeller Foundation's hookworm campaign in Mexico in the 1920s". Social Science & Medicine. 49 (9): 1197–1213. doi:10.1016/S0277-9536(99)00160-4. PMID 10501641.
  32. ^ Birn, Anne-Emanuelle; Armando Solórzano (1999). "Public health policy paradoxes: science and politics in the Rockefeller Foundation's hookworm campaign in Mexico in the 1920s". Social Science & Medicine. 49 (9): 1197–1210. doi:10.1016/S0277-9536(99)00160-4. PMID 10501641.
  33. ^ Birn, Anne-Emanuelle; Armando Solórzano (1999). "Public health policy paradoxes: science and politics in the Rockefeller Foundation's hookworm campaign in Mexico in the 1920s". Social Science & Medicine. 49 (9): 1209–1210. doi:10.1016/s0277-9536(99)00160-4. PMID 10501641.
  34. ^ Harr, John Ensor; Johnson, Peter J. (August 10, 1988). The Rockefeller Century: Three Generations of America's Greatest Family. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 401–03. ISBN 978-0684189369. Major rescue program of European scholars
  35. ^ Harr, John Ensor, and Peter J. Johnson, The Rockefeller Century: Three Generations of America's Greatest Family. Medical Sciences Division and Alfred Kinsey funding, p.456.
  36. ^ Theiler, Max; Downs, W. G. (1973). The Arthropod-Borne Viruses of Vertebrates: An Account of The Rockefeller Foundation Virus Program, 1951–1970. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. pp. xvii, xx. ISBN 0-300-01508-9.
  37. ^ "Charities Try to Keep Up With the Gateses" The New York Times, 2007
  38. ^ Funding of programs and fellowships at major universities, foreign policy think tanks and research councils – see Robert Shaplen, op, cit., (passim)
  39. ^ "Trending Topics in Treasury and Finance". www.afponline.org.
  40. ^ "Our History – A Powerful Legacy". The Rockefeller Foundation. Archived from the original on 2012-10-30. Retrieved 2011-08-07.
  41. ^ Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health,[citation needed] History
  42. ^ Harvard School of Public Health, History
  43. ^ Friedland, Martin L. (2002). The University of Toronto : a history. Toronto [u.a.]: Univ. of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-4429-8.
  44. ^ National Library of Medicine
  45. ^ "The Wilbur A. Sawyer Papers: From Hookworm to Yellow Fever: Rockefeller Foundation, 1919–1927". profiles.nlm.nih.gov.
  46. ^ "History", The New School for Social Research webpage. Retrieved 2013-02-17.
  47. ^ Black, Edwin (September 2003). "The Horrifying American Roots of Nazi Eugenics". History News Network. (Also published at San Francisco Chronicle). According to HNN, this material was drawn from Black's books "IBM and the Holocaust" and "War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race".
  48. ^ Pacchioli, David, (March 1996) "Subjected to Science" Archived 2013-01-10 at the Wayback Machine, Research/Penn State, Vol. 17, no. 1
  49. ^ Jump up to: a b Miller, Karin (July 28, 1998). "Experiment subjects to get $10.3 million from university". The Santa Cruz Sentinel. Santa Cruz, California. p. 7. Retrieved October 12, 2015 – via Newspapers.com. open access
  50. ^ Jump up to: a b "1940s study gave radioactive pills to 751 pregnant women". The Galveston Daily News. Galveston, Texas. December 21, 1993. p. 3. Retrieved October 12, 2015 – via Newspapers.com. open access
  51. ^ Jump up to: a b c The story of the Foundation and the Green Revolution – see Mark Dowie, American Foundations: An Investigative History, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2001, (pp.105–140)
  52. ^ "You've probably never heard of CGIAR, but they are essential to feeding our future". gatesnotes.com. Retrieved 2020-05-18.
  53. ^ "العاب فلاش برق". www.biotech-info.net.
  54. ^ "Rockefeller Foundation | Terra Viva Grants Directory". terravivagrants.org. Retrieved 2018-01-03.
  55. ^ "A century of innovation? Philanthropy and the African growth story". Archived from the original on 2017-03-21. Retrieved 5 August 2013.
  56. ^ The Bellagio Center. The Rockefeller Foundation. Retrieved on 2013-08-24.
  57. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Scalway, Thomas (2003). "Missing the Message? 20 Years of Learning from HIV/AIDS". Panos Institute: 21.
  58. ^ "City Resilience". 100 Resilient Cities. Retrieved 16 March 2017.
  59. ^ "About 100RC". 100 Resilient Cities. Retrieved 16 March 2017.
  60. ^ "About 100RC". The Guardian. Retrieved 16 March 2017.
  61. ^ "About 100RC". Rockefeller Foundation. Retrieved 16 March 2017.
  62. ^ "The Rise, Fall, and Possible Rebirth of 100 Resilient Cities". Bloomberg CityLab. Retrieved 30 March 2021.
  63. ^ "100 Resilient Cities relaunches as an independent network". Cities Today. Retrieved 30 March 2021.
  64. ^ "Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts". www.aboutlincolncenter.org. Retrieved 2017-11-09.
  65. ^ Jump up to: a b "Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in Partnership with The Rockefeller Foundation Announces Inaugural Grantees of Lincoln Center Cultural Innovation Fund – The Rockefeller Foundation". The Rockefeller Foundation. Retrieved 2017-11-09.
  66. ^ "Lincoln Center Cultural Innovation Fund Awards Innovation Fund Grants". Philanthropy News Digest (PND). Retrieved 2017-11-09.
  67. ^ Share portfolio – see Waldemar Nielsen The Big Foundations, New York: Columbia University Press, 1972. (p.72)
  68. ^ Kaiser, David; Wasserman, Lee (December 8, 2016). "The Rockefeller Family Fund vs. Exxon". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved February 27, 2018.
  69. ^ Kaiser, David; Wasserman, Lee (December 22, 2016). "The Rockefeller Family Fund Takes on ExxonMobil". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved December 3, 2016.
  70. ^ Egan, Matt (December 18, 2020). "Exclusive: A $5 billion foundation literally founded on oil money is saying goodbye to fossil fuels". CNN.com. Retrieved December 20, 2020.
  71. ^ "Global Forum on Human Development". Originally retrieved at Hdr.undp.org on 2013-08-24. Not available at report.hdr.undp.org 2017-01-07.
  72. ^ "Global Forum on Human Development" (1999). As model for UN organizations, pp.64-5.
  73. ^ [1], foundation webpage plus associated bio pages on members. Retrieved 2020-07-27.
  74. ^ Jump up to: a b "Rockefeller Foundation Elects 5", "The New York Times" 28, May 1989. Retrieved on 4 January 2019.
  75. ^ Pace, Eric (12 January 2003). "C. Douglas Dillon Dies at 93; Was in Kennedy Cabinet". New York Times.
  76. ^ "Notes on People". New York Times. 15 May 1971.
  77. ^ "Chairman and Trustees Elected at Rockefeller". New York Times. 20 June 1987.
  78. ^ Parameswaran, Prashanth, "Outgoing ASEAN Chief’s Farewell Tour", The Diplomat, December 19, 2012. Retrieved 2012-12-27.
  79. ^ RF Annual Report 1969, p. VI. Retrieved 2011-01-09.
  80. ^ "John Hopkins, Bristol-Myers must face $1 billion syphilis infections suit". Retrieved 27 March 2020.
  81. ^ Mariani, Mike (28 May 2015). "The Guatemala Experiments". Pacific Standard. The Miller-McCune Center for Research, Media and Public Policy. Retrieved 7 January 2015.
  82. ^ Teltsch, Kathleen, "Rockefeller Foundation Selects a New President", The New York Times, May 8, 1988. Goldmark was son of Peter Carl Goldmark. See Blumenthal, Ralph, "Remembering the Travel Scandal at the Port Authority", The New York Times City Room blog, June 24, 2008. Both retrieved 2011-01-09.
  83. ^ John Hilton Knowles Papers, The Rockefeller Archive Center. Retrieved 2011-01-09.
  84. ^ J. George Harrar Papers, The Rockefeller Archive Center. Retrieved 2011-01-09.
  85. ^ George E. Vincent Papers, The Rockefeller Archive Center. Retrieved 2011-01-09.

Bibliography[]

  • Berman, Edward H. The Ideology of Philanthropy: The influence of the Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller foundations on American foreign policy, New York: State University of New York Press, 1983.
  • Brown, E. Richard, Rockefeller Medicine Men: Medicine and Capitalism in America, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979.
  • Chernow, Ron, Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., London: Warner Books, 1998.
  • Dowie, Mark, American Foundations: An Investigative History, Boston: The MIT Press, 2001.
  • Farley, John. To Cast Out Disease: A History of the International Health Division of the Rockefeller Foundation (1913–1951) (2005)
  • Fisher, Donald, Fundamental Development of the Social Sciences: Rockefeller Philanthropy and the United States Social Science Research Council, Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1993.
  • Fosdick, Raymond B., John D. Rockefeller, Jr., A Portrait, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956.
  • Fosdick, Raymond B., The Story of the Rockefeller Foundation, New York: Transaction Publishers, Reprint, 1989.
  • Harr, John Ensor, and Peter J. Johnson. The Rockefeller Century: Three Generations of America's Greatest Family. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1988.
  • Harr, John Ensor, and Peter J. Johnson. The Rockefeller Conscience: An American Family in Public and in Private, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1991.
  • Jonas, Gerald. The Circuit Riders: Rockefeller Money and the Rise of Modern Science. New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1989.
  • Kay, Lily, The Molecular Vision of Life: Caltech, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Rise of the New Biology, New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
  • Lawrence, Christopher. Rockefeller Money, the Laboratory and Medicine in Edinburgh 1919–1930: New Science in an Old Country, Rochester Studies in Medical History, University of Rochester Press, 2005.
  • Nielsen, Waldemar, The Big Foundations, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1973.
  • Nielsen, Waldemar A., The Golden Donors, E. P. Dutton, 1985. Called Foundation "unimaginative ... lacking leadership and 'slouching toward senility.'"
  • Palmer, Steven, Launching Global Health: The Caribbean Odyssey of the Rockefeller Foundation, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2010.
  • Rockefeller, David, Memoirs, New York: Random House, 2002.
  • Shaplen, Robert, Toward the Well-Being of Mankind: Fifty Years of the Rockefeller Foundation, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1964.
  • Theiler, Max and Downs, W. G., The Arthropod-Borne Viruses of Vertebrates: An Account of The Rockefeller Foundation Virus Program, 1951–1970. (1973) Yale University Press. New Haven and London. ISBN 0-300-01508-9.
  • Uy, Michael Sy. Ask the Experts: How Ford, Rockefeller, and the NEA Changed American Music, (Oxford University Press, 2020) 270pp.
  • Rockefeller Foundation 990

Further reading[]

External links[]

Coordinates: 40°45′03″N 73°59′00″W / 40.75083°N 73.98333°W / 40.75083; -73.98333

Retrieved from ""