Our response to COVID-19

Read the latest updates

  • Ford issues first-of-its-kind social bond of up to $1 billion to support social justice sector and more
  • The Ford Foundation was pleased to have hosted a vaccination site within our Center for Social Justice from Feb-June, 2021.
  • Ford doubles racial justice funding to $330 million as America faces a historic and long-needed reckoning
  • Ford and partners commit more than $30 million for workers impacted by the pandemic and $156 million to arts and culture groups of color

Disrupting systems to advance social justice

We believe inequality is at the root of nearly every injustice. To create meaningful, lasting change, we focus on nine interconnected areas.

Why inequality?

Shifting the conversation

Dig into the newest collection of stories of change, hope and resilience from our community

Discover The Latest

More than 2 billion workers make up the informal economy

A collage features black and white photos of individuals, against a burnt orange background with primarily orange and yellow graphic shapes. An outline of a globe is shown in the upper left corner of the composition.

Ford Foundation announces five-year, $25 million grant to women-led global worker networks calling for a just economic recovery for the world’s 2.1 billion informal workers

Four images show informal workers engaged in their respective occupations. The text "Investing in Informal Workers," is at the center of the graphic.

Governments and private funders announce historic US$1.7 billion pledge at COP26 in support of Indigenous Peoples and local communities

Group shot of Indigenous leaders from around the globe standing & sitting on a river bank in a wooded area.

Rebecca Cokley launches Ford’s U.S. Disability Rights Program on MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle Reports

Split screen of Stephanie Ruhle on the left wearing a black top and Rebecca Cokley on the right wearing a black turtle neck top and red blazer.

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Building on 85 years of impact

We have supported the work of some of history’s greatest minds, helped build pivotal institutions and seeded big ideas that have fueled groundbreaking movements.

Our history

  • Jason Mraz sits on a stoop and serenades Big Bird, Elmo, and friends on Sesame Street.

    Year:1969

    Sesame Street is created to teach the world kindness

    In 1969, Ford joined the Carnegie Foundation and a small team of investors to back a new idea for a unique, educational TV show for children: Sesame Street. For more than 50 years, Sesame Street has remained on the air, holding a special place in everyone’s hearts and helping generations of kids become smarter, stronger, and kinder.

  • Muhammad Yunus in sunglasses looks to the right and smiles, surrounded by smiling people in a doorway.

    Year:1976

    Muhammad Yunus pioneers the idea of microfinance

    Muhammad Yunus came to Ford with a vision to provide Bangladesh’s low-income communities with small loans to gain financial power and security. This work developed into the Grameen Bank—which today has more than 8 million borrowers across Asia, of which 97 percent are women—and earned Yunus a Nobel Prize and Presidential Medal of Freedom.

  • Lourdes Rivera, senior vice president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, speaks during a press conference surrounded by people holding sign.

    Year:2015

    The Center for Reproductive Rights wins a critical Supreme Court case

    The Center for Reproductive Rights, which Ford helped to establish in 1992, won the Supreme Court case, Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt, 579 US, prohibiting Texas from placing medically undue restrictions on the delivery of abortion services. With our support, the organization has become a formative player that has strengthened laws and policies to protect women’s rights in more than 50 countries.

Find us at the Center for Social Justice

The Ford Foundation is located in New York City at the Center for Social Justice—a hub for social good and the courageous people who devote their lives to achieving it.

About the center

Ford Foundation Gallery

Indisposable: Structures of Support After the ADA

17 September 2020 – 14 August 2021

The gallery remains closed, all programming will be online.

Learn more