Ford Foundation history

1943: Edsel Ford dies.

1947: Henry Ford dies; Ford Foundation holds 90 percent of Ford stock

The idea for the fund germinated in 1950, when the foundation recognized that pressures from the political and cultural right threatened to restrict basic freedoms.

Some of the early education program grants from the foundation, overseen by Hutchins and totaling some $100 million between 1951-53, assisted in establishing significant programs throughout the world, such as the Harvard Center for International Legal Studies and the National Merit Scholarships.

Similarly, the NAACP seemed a safe bet in the eyes of Ford Foundation staff, especially given their track record of successfully arguing the 1954 Brown v.

Famously, a December 1955 push to liquidate Ford’s stock assets and support US private higher education came to be known as “The $500 million weekend.” New academic centers were built.

To counter McCarthy's allegations, the foundation, in 1956, sold 22 percent of its Ford shares on the public market and awarded $550 million of the proceeds to 'noncontroversial' recipients such as 600 liberal arts colleges, 3,500 nonprofit hospitals, and 44 private medical schools.

In 1961, as President John F. Kennedy’s principal arms adviser, he negotiated terms for the resumption of East-West disarmament talks and drafted the bill that led to the establishment of the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.

One such Ford program officer was Christopher Edley, a Harvard-educated lawyer who had served on the United States Commission on Civil Rights until 1963, when he joined Ford.

In 1965, with the Civil Rights Act newly on the books, Edley argued that the Ford Foundation had in fact done little to address the country’s racial issues head-on, and that Ford should be doing more to support the implementation of the Act.

The venue for Bundy’s August 1966 speech, the National Urban League was symbolic, and an indication of the “picking and choosing” his foundation would be carrying out.

A 1967 Social Development strategy paper was explicit about this:

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The group was holding a Minister’s Leadership Training Program in 1968, while word was also spreading that the SCLC might be planning a second March on Washington.

The SCLC grant, discussed below, was third.Show Citation 2727“Notebook, 1969, prepared in response to the Mills Committee (United States House Committee on Ways and Means) Investigation,” Report #012742.

Given these experiences and the changing political context, by 1970, Ford Foundation National Affairs staff concerned with race and racism chose to focus efforts on civil rights litigation and public interest law.

In his 1972 oral history, Ford Foundation president Bundy claimed to have been persuaded that CORE was “a responsible and careful group.” But he argued that they were simply not sophisticated enough to take into account the political implications of their actions.

He died in 1977, and two years later, the fund was absorbed into the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Lawyer Franklin Thomas, who replaced Bundy in 1979, becoming the first black to lead the Ford Foundation.

1, Philanthropy, Patronage, Politics. (Winter, 1987), pp.41-91.

1996: Susan V. Berresford becomes the first woman to head the Foundation.

By 1997, drugmaker Eli Lilly donated $12.7 billion to the Lilly Endowment, pushing Ford, then with $9.4 billion, to the number two spot, for the first time in 30 years.

Total Assets: $11 billion (1999 est.)

The foundation has fallen a few places in those lists in recent years, especially with the establishment of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000.

Our work in the field of education was introduced in 2001.

In 2012, stating that it is not a research library, the foundation transferred its archives from New York City to the Rockefeller Archive Center in Sleepy Hollow, New York.

As of May 4, 2013, the foundation was second in terms of assets and tenth in terms of annual grant giving.

In support of this work and consistent with Chinese priorities, as of 2015 the Ford Foundation has made grants totaling more than $356 million in China.