Author: Rachel Wimpee

Timeline: American Foundations and the History of Public Health
Key points in the history of American foundations’ engagement with public health.

Funding a Social Movement: The Ford Foundation and Civil Rights, 1965-1970
A story recounting many accusations, from rigged elections to the meddling of big private money in grassroots organizing.

The Fairy Godmothers of Women’s Studies
Moving scholarship by and about women from margin to center.

In Brief: The South African Institute of Race Relations
How did a US foundation manage to work under apartheid?

In Brief: The 1995 Beijing Women’s Conference
The global conversation about women’s issues takes a big step forward.

In Brief: James Baldwin’s Creative Writer’s Fellowship
How a foundation provided the final ingredient to an era-defining novel.

Philanthropy’s Fight Against Tuberculosis in World War I France
What does it take to control the outbreak of a deadly disease?

Funding a Sexual Revolution: The Kinsey Reports
The inside story of the study that first questioned binary sexuality and spurred outcry and controversy.

“Investment Philanthropy” Investing for Social Good, a Century Ago
An early twentieth-century foundation tried using its endowment to support for-profit projects that also would achieve a social goal.

Photo Essay: Supporting Minority Enterprise in the late 1960s
In 1968, the Ford Foundation began to make social investments using a new tool borrowed from the for-profit world, the Program-Related Investment.