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- Seattle Post-Intelligencer; complete article
- Council on Foundations; Annual Conference
Diversity the Strength of U.S. Giving
April 27, 2007
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
By Susan V. Berresford; President, Ford Foundation
Summary
On April 27, Ford Foundation President Susan Berresford published a guest editorial in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, focusing on the unity of vision shared by both 'new' and 'old' philanthropic foundations.
It reads in part:
Is today's philanthropy new because it is strategically aimed at root causes, results-oriented, global and influenced by the business model? History tells us otherwise. Foundations of all sizes have performed generations of work strategically aimed at root causes of enormous problems.
They supported new agricultural practices, now called the Green Revolution, saving hundreds of millions from hunger; they funded decades of work renewing inner city neighborhoods; they sustained the civil rights movement as it battered down barriers to education, jobs and housing; and they supported brave people who dismantled apartheid.
...American philanthropy builds upon the broader but still very American idea that a diverse nation thrives when the full ingenuity of its people is given freedom to flower. Philanthropy -- whether initiated by Benjamin Franklin, John Rockefeller, Henry and Edsel Ford, Bill and Melinda Gates or the tens of thousands of less well-known donors and visionaries now putting their dollars to work -- is strong because it is diverse in its ambitions and approaches. This diversity is the true strength of American giving, and should be celebrated and reinforced.
©1996-2007 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
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