Hoovering Up Henry Money: Free Money Versus Free Enterprise
At the end of 1976, Henry Ford II, resigned from the Ford Foundation board of directors. In his resignation letter, he advised the foundation's board, “I'm just suggesting to the…
Foundation Watch
Hoovering Up Henry Money: Revolutions and Bullhorns
For nonprofits that really want the Ford funding spigot wide open, it is difficult to understate the importance of portraying supporters shouting through bullhorns, engaging in street demonstrations, and preaching…
Hoovering Up Henry Money: Crime and Democracy
Claiming that their preferred flavor of multi-whatever democracy has never existed and pledging to put it in place is clearly a winning message for aspiring grantees. Perversely, Ford’s philanthropoids also…
Hoovering Up Henry Money: Shaping the News
Ford grants are also showered upon those who help inject left-wing messages into media and culture. Since the beginning of 2023, those in charge of Henry’s money have shipped out…
How the Ford Foundation Changed Entertainment: The Ford Foundation
The Ford Foundation places a heavy emphasis on supporting the documentary film industry. According to the foundation, its film-related grantmaking constitutes “one of the largest documentary funds in the world.”…
How the Ford Foundation Changed Entertainment: Direct Film Funding
The Ford Foundation’s major film grants program, the JustFilms initiative, provides an even more detailed look at the foundation’s film-related grantmaking. Although Ford has supported filmmaking for decades, the JustFilms…
How the Ford Foundation Changed Entertainment: Film Festivals
Production funding is not enough to ensure a film’s impact, nor can marketing dollars alone manufacture success. Filmmakers can gain credibility for their projects with the public—and more crucially, with…
How the Ford Foundation Changed Entertainment: Outreach, Networks, and Education
The Ford Foundation’s film strategy involves much more than simply paying for the nuts and bolts of making and promoting a movie. JustFilms spends vast sums on what it calls…
How the Ford Foundation Changed Entertainment: Why Ford’s Strategy Works
The Ford Foundation has chosen to make documentary film funding a meaningful part of its massive annual grantmaking, and the impact of this spending has been staggering. Between 2017 and…
The Marguerite Casey Foundation: “Social Justice Philanthropy”
Big Philanthropy is often rightly criticized for the large share of its grantmaking that supports activism and public policy advocacy, necessarily at the expense of funding for the traditional charitable…