Topic: Field-Building

In the late 20th century, the Ford Foundation’s attempt to translate microlending methods from Bangladesh to the United States revealed false assumptions about poverty, social context, and individual entrepreneurial spirit that undergirded microlending experiments.

Women and technocratic elites clashed at the 1974 World Population Conference. At stake was women’s control over their own bodies.

A 1994 meeting moved women’s empowerment front and center for grantmaking in global population.

In nearly a century of activity in the field of economics, the Foundation initiated new research centers and training programs around the world.

What began as a philanthropic fund to honor its namesake became an early force in the social sciences.

A new program in the natural sciences increased funding and attention to the life sciences, and coined a new term along the way.

A new organization played an important part in assisting the Rockefeller Foundation by assembling cooperative studies on the issues of the day.

Partnering with public agencies to encourage efficient administration in state, county, and local governments.

Encouraging cross-cultural knowledge in an interconnected postwar world by shaping new interdisciplinary programs and retooling traditional academic fields.

Working to change US medical education was one of the Rockefeller Foundation’s biggest endeavors in the 1910s and 1920s, extending from Johns Hopkins in Baltimore to Beijing, China.