This week, with a heart full of gratitude, I begin my tenure as the 11th president of the Ford Foundation—the honor of my professional life.
I am humbled by the responsibility, energized by the opportunity, and proud to join this remarkable community. To everyone who has reached out with words of welcome and offers of support: thank you. And on behalf of every member of this community, I thank my predecessor, the iconic Darren Walker, for his visionary leadership and his dedication to uprooting inequality in all its forms during the last 12 years. We are forever in his debt.
Exactly 75 years ago, Henry Ford II and the trustees of the Ford Foundation charged us, in perpetuity, with “the advancement of the ideals and principles of democracy.” These ideals and principles include “equal rights and equal opportunity,” “tolerance and respect for…differences,” “freedom of speech… the press… worship… and association,” and, perhaps most presciently, the “rule of law.”
Throughout our institution’s history, we have fulfilled this charge. We have protected democratic values, human rights, and free speech by supporting leaders, their ideas, their organizations, and their movements.
We helped sustain the work of visionaries in the vanguard with capital and capacity—from Nelson Mandela to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. We helped propel ideas that have changed the world for the better, promoting freedom and fairness all around the globe. We helped build the institutions that have sustained our civic life, from public education to public media.
Today, the fight to advance the “ideals and principles of democracy” is not merely the celebrated work of our past. It is the urgent work of our moment. And the Ford Foundation is on the field.
For my part, the work of the Ford Foundation is the work of my life. I have devoted my career to safeguarding our democracy and strengthening the rule of law. This is one among many reasons I feel privileged to steward the foundation’s legacy.
During the coming years, we will muster even more of our financial and human capital to fiercely protect the rule of law. Our efforts will be assiduously nonpartisan. We will seek partners across the ideological spectrum to bolster a democracy that provides all with an opportunity to speak, to vote, and to help solve the problems of our time.
We will also evolve—not because the foundation’s leadership has changed, but because the world has. This is a moment for reflection, retooling, and renewal.
We will think critically and creatively about how we do our work during an era when the winds of polarization have reached gale force—and when philanthropic and charitable dollars cannot fill the widening gap between resources and need.
We will question everything, widen our aperture, seek out new thought partners, and acknowledge candidly where we have succeeded and where we must improve. I cannot wait to listen, to learn, and to collaborate with all of you as we collectively dream the next chapter of the Ford Foundation’s story into existence.
Of course, even as we adjust and adapt, some things will not change. Equality has long been Ford’s touchstone. It is democracy’s touchstone as well. We are and will remain both a United States institution and a global one, doing important work here, in America’s cities and heartland, and across the globe.
What also remains is the sheer joy we all find in our work, even in a difficult period like this one. In the short time I’ve been in the building, I’ve been moved by this community’s strength, selflessness, and savvy. I am intensely grateful for the chance to join all of you in the challenge of changemaking.
We continue onward with hope and resolve. Together, we will protect, preserve, and pass forward all that has been entrusted to us.
Heather K. Gerken
President,
Ford Foundation