Editing Ford Foundation (section)

== Criticisms and reforms ==
=== Mission-related investments ===
Ranked No. 24 on the Forbes 2018 World's Most Innovative Companies list, the Ford Foundation utilized its endowment to invest in innovative and sustainable change leadership shifting the model of grant-making in the 21st century. According to Forbes, "Ford spends between $500 million and $550 million a year to support social justice work around the world. But last year, it also pledged to plow up to $1 billion of its overall $12.5 billion endowment over the next decade into [[Impact investing|impact investing via mission-related investments (MRIs)]] that generate both financial and social returns."<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.fastcompany.com/40525515/how-the-ford-foundation-is-investing-in-change|title=How The Ford Foundation Is Investing In Change|date=2018-03-01|work=Fast Company|access-date=2018-10-20|language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://philanthropynewsdigest.org/news/ford-foundation-outlines-new-grantmaking-approach|title=Ford Foundation Outlines New Grantmaking Approach|last=Center|first=Foundation|work=Philanthropy News Digest (PND)|access-date=2018-10-20|language=en}}</ref> Foundation President Darren Walker wrote in an op-ed in the New York Times that the grant-making philanthropy of institutions like the Ford Foundation "must not only be generosity, but justice."<ref name=":1">{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/18/opinion/why-giving-back-isnt-enough.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region&region=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region&_r=1|title=Opinion {{!}} Why Giving Back Isn't Enough|work=The New York Times |date=17 December 2015 |access-date=2018-10-20|language=en|last1=Walker |first1=Darren }}</ref> The Ford Foundation seeks to address "the underlying causes that perpetuate human suffering" to grapple with and intervene in "''how'' and ''why''" inequality persists.<ref name=":1" />

=== Native Arts and Culture Foundation endowment repatriation ===
{{See also|Financial endowment#Ethics and endowment repatriation}}
In 2007, the Ford Foundation co-founded the independent [[Native Arts and Cultures Foundation]] by providing a portion of the new foundation's [[financial endowment|endowment]] out of the Ford Foundation's own. This decision to repatriate a portion of the Ford Foundation's endowment came after self-initiated research into the Ford Foundation's history of support of Native and Indigenous artists and communities. The results of this research indicated "the inadequacy of philanthropic support for Native arts and artists", and related feedback from an unnamed Native leader that "once big foundations put the stuff in place for an Indian program, then it is not usually funded very well. It lasts as long as the program officer who had an interest and then goes away" and recommended that an independent endowment be established and that "[n]ative leadership is crucial".<ref>{{cite web |title=Native Arts and Cultures: Research, Growth and Opportunities for Philanthropic Support |url=https://www.fordfoundation.org/media/1758/2010-native-arts-and-cultures.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190513142508/https://www.fordfoundation.org/media/1758/2010-native-arts-and-cultures.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=2019-05-13 |publisher=Ford Foundation |access-date=13 May 2019 |date=2010}}</ref>

=== Relationship with the United States government ===
At the height of the Cold War, the Ford Foundation was involved in several covert operations. At least one of these involved the Fighting Group Against Inhumanity, a CIA-controlled group based in West Berlin that undertook various missions in the East Zone, including intelligence-gathering and sabotage. In 1950, the U.S. government sought to bolster the Fighting Group's legitimacy as a credible independent organization, so the International Rescue Committee was recruited to act as its advocate. With the support of Eleanor Roosevelt, the Ford Foundation was persuaded to give the Fighting Group a grant of $150,000. A press release announcing the grant pointed to the assistance given by the Fighting Group to "carefully screened" defectors to come to the West. The [[National Committee for a Free Europe]], a CIA proprietary, actually administered the grant.<ref>Chester, Covert Network, pp.&nbsp;89–94.</ref>

From 1958 to 1965, the Foundation's chairman was [[John J. McCloy]], who in 1942 had founded the [[Office of Strategic Services]], a secretive intelligence agency that would become the [[Central Intelligence Agency]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bird |first1=Kai |title=The Chairman: John J. McCloy and the Making of the American Establishment |date=1992 |publisher=Simon & Schuster |isbn=0671454153 |page=130}}</ref> McCloy knowingly employed numerous US intelligence agents and, based on the premise that a relationship with the CIA was inevitable, set up a three-person committee responsible for dealing with its requests.<ref name="Saunders 1999">{{cite book| last=Saunders| first=Frances Stonor| title=The cultural cold war: the CIA and the world of arts and letters| date=1 April 2001| publisher=New Press| location=New York| isbn=978-1565846647| pages=138–139| quote=Farfield was by no means exceptional in its incestuous character. This was the nature of power in America at this time. The system of private patronage was the pre-eminent model of how small, homogenous groups came to defend America's—and, by definition, their own—interests. Serving at the top of the pile was every self-respecting WASP's ambition. The prize was a trusteeship on either the Ford Foundation or the Rockefeller Foundation, both of which were conscious instruments of covert US policy, with directors and officers who were closely connected to, or even members of American intelligence.}}</ref>{{sfn|Saunders|2001|p=141|ps=: "Addressing the concerns of some of the foundation's executives, who felt that its reputation for integrity and independence was being undermined by involvement with the CIA, McCloy argued that if they failed to cooperate, the CIA would simply penetrate the foundation quietly by recruiting or inserting staff at the lower levels. McCloy's answer to this problem was to create an administrative unit within the Ford Foundation specifically to deal with the CIA. Headed by McCloy and two foundation officers, this three-man committee had to be consulted every time the Agency wanted to use the foundation, either as a pass-through, or as cover."}} The CIA channeled funds through Ford Foundation as a part of its efforts to influence culture.<ref>Petras, James. "[http://monthlyreview.org/1999/11/01/the-cia-and-the-cultural-cold-war-revisited/ The CIA and the Cultural Cold War Revisited]" ([https://web.archive.org/web/20150426183142/http://monthlyreview.org/1999/11/01/the-cia-and-the-cultural-cold-war-revisited/ Archive] ). ''[[Monthly Review]]''. November 1, 1999. Retrieved on April 18, 2015.</ref><ref name="Troy">{{cite journal |last=Troy |first=Thomas M. Jr. |year=2002 |title=The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters |url=https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol46no1/article08.html |url-status=dead |journal=[[Studies in Intelligence]] |location=Washington, D.C. |publisher=[[Central Intelligence Agency]]: [[Center for the Study of Intelligence]] |volume=46 |issue=1 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070613110501/https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol46no1/article08.html |archive-date=June 13, 2007 |access-date=May 29, 2020}}</ref><ref name="epstein">{{cite journal |last=Epstein |first=Jason |date=20 April 1967 |title=The CIA and the Intellectuals |url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1967/apr/20/the-cia-and-the-intellectuals/?pagination=false |journal=[[New York Review of Books]] |volume=8 |issue=7 |access-date=2014-05-14}}</ref> 

Writer and activist [[Arundhati Roy]] has said that the foundation, along with the [[Rockefeller Foundation]], supported imperialist efforts by the U.S. government during the [[Cold War]]. For example, Roy wrote that the Ford Foundation's establishment of an economics course at the Indonesian University helped align students with the [[30 September Movement|1965 coup]] that installed [[Suharto]] as president.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Capitalism: A Ghost Story|date=2014|last=Roy|first=Arundhati|publisher=Haymarket|isbn=9781608463855| pages=27–28| quote=By the 1950s the Rockefeller and Ford Foundation, funding several NGOs and international educational institutions, began to work as quasi-extensions of the US government, which at the time was toppling democratically elected government in Latin America, Iran, and Indonesia. (That was also around the time it made its entry into India, then non-aligned but clearly tilting toward the Soviet Union.) The Ford Foundation established a US-style economics course at the Indonesian University. Elite Indonesian students, trained in counterinsurgency by US army officers, played a crucial part in the 1965 CIA-backed coup in Indonesia that brought General Suharto to power. He repaid his mentors by slaughtering hundreds of thousands of communist rebels.}}</ref>

=== Gender roles and feminist theory ===
American author, philosopher, and critic of [[feminism]] [[Christina Hoff Sommers]], criticized The Ford Foundation in her book ''The War Against Boys'' (2000) as well as other institutions in education and government.<ref name="sommers">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EIUtJziqIqAC&q=ford+foundation|title=Who Stole Feminism? How Women Have Betrayed Women|last=Sommers|first=Christina Hoff|publisher=[[Simon & Schuster]]|year=1994|isbn=978-0-671-79424-8|pages=53, 82}}</ref> Sommers alleged that the Ford Foundation funded feminist ideologies that marginalize boys and men. A [[Washington Post]] book review by E. Anthony Rotundo, author of ''"American Manhood: Transformations in Masculinity from the Revolution to the Modern Era''", alleges that Sommers "persistently misrepresents scholarly debate, [and] ignores evidence that contradicts her assertions" about a gender war against boys and men.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/books/reviews/waragainstboys0703.htm|title=Washingtonpost.com: The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men|website=www.washingtonpost.com|access-date=2018-10-23}}</ref> Spanish judge Francisco Serrano Castro made similar claims to Sommers in his 2012 book ''The Dictatorship of Gender''.<ref name="castro">{{cite book|title=La dictadura de género|last=Castro|first=Francisco Serrano|publisher={{Interlanguage link|Grupo Almuzara|es}}|isbn=978-84-15338-81-9}}</ref>

=== Criteria for Palestinian grantmaking ===
In 2003, the foundation was critiqued by US news service [[Jewish Telegraphic Agency]], among others, for supporting Palestinian nongovernmental organizations that were accused of promoting [[antisemitism]] at the [[World Conference against Racism 2001|2001 World Conference Against Racism]]. Under pressure by several members of Congress, chief among them Rep. [[Jerrold Nadler]], the foundation apologized and then prohibited the promotion of "violence, terrorism, bigotry or the destruction of any state" among its grantees. This move itself sparked protest among university provosts and various non-profit groups on free speech issues.<ref name="sherman">{{cite magazine|last=Sherman|first=Scott|date=5 June 2006|title=Target Ford|url=http://www.thenation.com/article/target-ford|magazine=[[The Nation]]|access-date=2014-05-14|archive-date=2019-06-29|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190629052003/https://www.thenation.com/article/target-ford/|url-status=dead}}</ref>

The foundation's partnership with the [[New Israel Fund]] (NIF), which began in 2003, was criticized regarding its choice of mostly progressive grantees and causes. This criticism peaked after the 2001 World Conference Against Racism, where some nongovernmental organizations funded by the foundation backed resolutions equating Israeli policies with [[apartheid]]. In response, the Ford Foundation tightened its criteria for funding. In 2011, [[Right-wing politics|right wing]] Israeli politicians and organizations such as [[NGO Monitor]] and [[Im Tirtzu]] claimed the NIF and other recipients of Ford Foundation grants supported the delegitimization of Israel.<ref name="guttman" />

The Ford Foundation announced in October 2023 that it would no longer provide grants to Alliance for Global Justice, a charity in Arizona claimed by journalist Gabe Kaminsky in a ''Washington Examiner'' investigation to share Palestinian terrorism ties. "Ford has no plans to support any Alliance for Global Justice projects in the future and it is not eligible for any other funding," Amanda Simon, a spokeswoman for the Ford Foundation, said at the time.<ref name="Kaminsky">{{Cite web |last=Kaminsky |first=Gabe |date=2023-10-31 |title=Liberal Ford Foundation to stop funding Palestinian terror-tied group: 'Years of warnings' |url=https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/ford-foundation-palestinian-drops-alliance-for-global-justice |access-date=2023-12-03 |website=Washington Examiner |language=en}}</ref> Simon added, "We will not be funding them in the future."<ref name="Kaminsky" /> 

The allegations of terrorism links were proven false{{Better source needed|reason=all sources are anti-srael|date=August 2024}}; Alliance for Global Justice was found to be funding an organisation that attempts to secure the human rights of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Grim |first=Murtaza Hussain, Ryan |date=2023-04-24 |title=The "Pro-Israel" Smear Campaign to Cancel a Global Charity |url=https://theintercept.com/2023/04/24/israel-palestine-terrorism-zachor-afgj/ |access-date=2024-05-23 |website=The Intercept |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Landry |first=Camille |date=2023-02-14 |title=SOS - AfGJ has been attacked! |url=https://afgj.org/sos-afgj-has-been-attacked |access-date=2024-05-23 |website=Alliance for Global Justice |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-02-23 |title=Human rights org loses fundraising platform |url=https://mondoweiss.net/2023/02/u-s-based-human-rights-group-loses-fundraising-platform-over-association-with-palestinian-ngo/ |access-date=2024-05-23 |website=Mondoweiss |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Charity-and-Security |date=2023-02-28 |title=Human Rights Coalition Deplatformed After Lawfare Attack |url=https://charityandsecurity.org/deplatforming/human-rights-coalition-deplatformed-after-lawfare-attack/ |access-date=2024-05-23 |website=Charity & Security Network |language=en-US}}</ref>