Topic: Race & Social Justice

Who Belongs in the Boy Scouts? Philanthropy’s Support for Black Scouting
How a new foundation helped one of America’s oldest youth organizations become more racially inclusive.

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

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

Ted Watkins and the Rockefeller Foundation: An Unlikely Partnership
How a charismatic community activist from Watts challenged a foundation’s civil rights strategy through a jobs training program.

Photo Essay: Mexico and the Launch of the Green Revolution
One foundation’s program in Mexico created the blueprint for ending hunger worldwide.

“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.

The Origins of the Rockefeller Foundation Equal Opportunity Program
How a simple grant request seeded the launch of a full program addressing inequality.

Photo Essay: The Rockefeller Sanitary Commission and the South
How battling hookworm on rural farms laid the groundwork for a global public health system.

In Brief: The Rockefeller Foundation Supports Renowned Urbanist Jane Jacobs
One small grant gave enduring voice to one of the most famous critiques of postwar urban renewal.