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8 November 2009Remarks by Luis Ubiñas to the European Foundation Centre
"Pathways to Lasting Social Change"
It is a great pleasure to be here with you in Berlin as the European Foundation Centre celebrates its 20th anniversary.
I love this city. I remember the first time I was here before it was unified, seeing the wall at the end of so many streets. I also remember decades ago, from my family's small church in Manhattan, how we raised funds to smuggle Bibles across the wall that stood just a short walk from here.
Now that barrier to freedom and dignity is gone, and this city stands as an inspiration for all of us who work to make this world a better place.
Before I begin, let me say thank you to the members of the Governing Council, to the chair, Emilio Rui Vilar, and to Gerry Salole for this invitation to address you this evening.
Gerry has a long history with the Ford Foundation. He was our distinguished representative in South Africa. It is no surprise that he has been such a strong leader at the centre.
Thank you for having me here.
Gerry asked me to do something I don't normally do, and that is to talk about Ford rather than the work Ford engages in. Out of respect for my fine colleague and host, that's what I will do tonight.
I arrived at Ford on the eve of the worst economic crisis any of us in this room have seen. In Europe, not since the economic crisis after World War II, and in the United States, not since the Great Depression, have our societies been collectively challenged as they have been over the last two years.
For the new head of a large foundation, the crisis could not have come at a worse time.
But from that crisis, the Ford Foundation has emerged strong, focused and poised to renew its great tradition of impact in the cause of social justice.
One year ago, many of us here tonight found ourselves gripped by an urgency taking hold in the world, an urgency caused by a crisis that pierced the postwar stability of our economies and threatened to move us beyond recession to something worse.
But for many of us, the economic crisis was only the latest manifestation of something much more profound. Our plight today is fundamentally rooted in the longstanding challenges of governing systems that discourage full participation and oversight by citizens; in education systems that remain vastly unequal and inadequate to people's needs; in economic conditions that block opportunity; and in the ongoing denial of human rights.
A loss of a sense of shared responsibility in a world which had become more commercial. A world in which the benefit of the few had overwhelmed the needs of the many.
I arrived at the Ford Foundation after a career in business, at McKinsey. McKinsey was a remarkable place for me. Among many other things, I had the opportunity to work substantively in many of the countries represented by the European Foundation Centre. In Spain, Germany and France. The Netherlands, England and many other places. That career helped prepare me to lead Ford in challenging times. Times which signal a new urgency.
Tonight, I would like to share with you how the Ford Foundation has responded to that "urgency" we all felt and many of us still feel.
The staff and I used our first year together to engage in a rigorous review of our programs. A review that was motivated by an unrelenting commitment to bring scale and impact to our work.
That objective required us to take a hard look at the issues and initiatives we support with an eye toward focusing our work on a set of core issues that we—and the visionary people and organizations we support—believe offer pathways to lasting social change.
Through this work it became clear to us that we were in the midst of a new cultural moment.
The increasing movement of people, and the growing technology-driven connections between people, are bringing the capacity to engage with the world to the smallest communities, in the most remote locations.
This new era of interconnectedness has brought a level of transparency never before seen.
Every citizen is a witness. Every citizen can testify via his or her cell phone.
Of course, the global economic crisis is also changing the world around us. Long-held assumptions about how economies function have been upended. Failures in the financial system have undermined people's ability to meet their basic needs, putting the security of home, food and health at risk.
The economic dislocation of the last year has mobilized people to question basic assumptions about the role and efficacy of government.
These economic challenges, combined with the opportunities that technology offers for people to connect in dynamic and original ways, are reshaping how individuals and communities engage with each other and with the institutions that affect their lives.
As Ford's new program took shape, an optimism grew at the foundation. We felt that in this new era of engagement, an enormous opportunity emerged for those seeking greater social justice.
The Ford Foundation and its grantees are prepared to act on that opportunity.
Our work moving forward will focus on democratic and accountable government, including human rights; educational opportunity and scholarship; economic fairness and sustainable development; freedom of expression, including sexuality.
These initiatives define our path forward and respond to the issues facing our societies. These initiatives are grounded in respect for the universality of human rights and the rule of law.
Last, these core issues affirm our mission and build on our close to 75-year legacy as a global philanthropic institution.
Our efforts are animated by people in the foundation and grantees in the field who believe it is the responsibility of all of us to regain that which has been lost—the basic sense of fairness that ties us together.
Our efforts are designed to help achieve outcomes that respond to people's needs, protect the full spectrum of their rights, and ensure that quality education and other pathways to opportunity are available to everyone.
We begin this new era at Ford with a conviction that visionary people on the frontlines of change around the world have greater opportunities today to bring about social justice.
We take enormous pride in our commitment to the visionary people who are seizing this moment and the promise it represents. With renewed focus and a shared optimism about what is possible, the Ford Foundation will continue to be there to support them as they aspire to the fairness, freedom, opportunity and human dignity in which we all believe.
These aspirations lie at the heart of the Ford Foundation's new initiatives. We believe that our strategic philanthropic giving can help enable people to take on the entrenched cultural barriers and power structures that hold them back from reaching their full potential.
Before I close, let me cover one more topic. It would be irresponsible of me to travel to Berlin to speak to my European colleagues without stressing that this important work is possible only when we build strong, accountable and transparent philanthropic institutions.
In the United States, foundations have learned some tough lessons about governance, but our sector is stronger and better for it. We know that if we do not hold ourselves to the highest standards, other standards will be imposed on us—standards that may not be informed by the knowledge and expertise we and philanthropic leaders can bring to that enterprise.
In the U.S., those standards and guidelines remain a focus of government regulators and oversight bodies. We now see these concerns extending to universities, as the U.S. Congress continues to investigate and consider ways to impose payout requirements on their substantial endowments.
Some universities have moved to increase the availability of these vast funds by creating scholarship opportunities and programs, but I think what they will find is that ad hoc efforts are no substitute for a more collaborative, proactive approach that clearly defines the principles and practices that guide the management and distribution of these funds.
That is why over the years, the Ford Foundation has invested in the growth of organizations that have thoughtfully provided U.S. donors with the space, expertise and knowledge needed for developing principles of accountability, a code of ethics and best practices in grant making.
These infrastructure organizations have earned the respect of regulators and have a seat at the table when practices are called into question or tax laws are reconsidered.
These membership organizations, however, would not exist if the sector itself did not support them. That is the case in the U.S. with the Council on Foundations, the Independent Sector and the Foundation Center.
We must invest in the intellectual, social and political capital these organizations bring.
And that brings me to the challenge before you. You are seeing the philanthropic sector grow in Europe. There are currently some 273,000 organizations that call themselves foundations. We have partnered with many of you over the years.
But those of you on the European Foundation Centre's Council have a unique and timely task before you. Your task is to compel your European colleagues to invest in the future of the EFC.
Dating back to 1993, the Ford Foundation began its support of the centre. We paid the customary membership dues, but we also knew that building an organization such as this would require a more substantive investment. So we strengthened that commitment by providing general support that would allow for the professionalization and state-of-the-art systems that EFC would need to become the leading philanthropic infrastructure organization that it is today in Europe.
None of this, of course, would have been possible without the leadership of the Governing Council and of Gerry Salole.
The EFC has been a very worthy investment. The EFC is fast at work on shepherding, drafting and building the much-needed guidelines that reinforce the importance of good practice, transparency and accountability. Working across borders is no doubt a complex endeavor as you seek harmonization of laws and regimes for accountability. EFC alone represents nonprofits from more than 40 countries, each with their own tax codes.
We are proud of our role in the founding of EFC, and we believe in its mission and values.
But the future of the European Foundation Centre now lies in the hands of European foundations and nonprofits.
Let me close by saying that pathways to lasting social change are possible only if we can maintain our independence as a sector. And maintaining that independence rests on holding ourselves to the highest standards of accountability and transparency. The European Foundation Centre offers you a way to achieve that important objective, and to achieve it as a collective force for change.
Thank you.
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