The 2024 Latinx Artist Fellowships Provide $50,000 in Unrestricted Funding
and a Year-Long Program of Professional Engagement Opportunities

Medford, MA – Fifteen artists living and working across the United States and in Puerto Rico have been awarded the 2024 Latinx Artist Fellowships by the U.S. Latinx Art Forum (USLAF), a non-profit organization formed in 2015 to address the underrepresentation and underfunding of Latinx art. As part of the year-long Latinx Artist Fellowship program, each artist receives $50,000 in unrestricted funding to support their creative work, as well as opportunities to participate in public programs co-hosted by USLAF. 

Recognizing the most compelling Latinx visual artists working in the United States today, the Latinx Artist Fellowship was established in 2021 to address a systemic lack of support, visibility, and patronage of Latinx visual artists—individuals of Latin American or Caribbean descent, born or long-living in the United States. To date, the fellowship program has supported 60 exceptional artists at all career stages, helping to establish essential connections, a lasting legacy, and a vibrant community of Latinx artists. 

The 2024 cohort of fellows represent nine cities across the United States and Puerto Rico, and reflects the varied racial, ethnic, and gender identities within the Latinx community; the cohort includes Afro-Latinx, women-identified, queer, and transgender artists. Their artistic practices span painting, installation, ceramics, printmaking, photography, sound art, social practice, and performance, as well as site-responsive interventions. 

“It is an honor to welcome this year’s Latinx Artist Fellows, who represent the rich cultural tapestry of Latinx identity in the United States,” said Adriana Zavala, Ph.D., Executive Director, U.S. Latinx Art Forum. “Each is on their own distinct career path, yet their engagement with themes of identity, social justice, immigration, spirituality, and decolonial aesthetics challenge dominant narratives and bring underrepresented perspectives to the forefront.” 

The 2024 Latinx Artist Fellows are:

The 2024 Latinx Artist Fellows were selected from nearly 200 nominees recommended by invited external nominators with Latinx art expertise, including curators at USLAF partner organizations, fellows from previous Latinx Artist Fellowship cohorts, and other arts practitioners. The jurors who selected the 2024 Latinx Artist Fellows from among the nominees were: Angelica Arbelaez (Rubio Butterfield Family Fellow, Whitney Museum of American Art), Rita Gonzalez (Terri and Michael Smooke Curator and Department Head of Contemporary Art of Los Angeles County Museum of Art), Cesáreo Moreno (Visual Arts Director and Chief Curator, National Museum of Mexican Art), Maria Elena Ortiz (Curator, The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth), Felipe Baeza (2023-2024 USLAF Latinx Artist Fellow), Sofía Gallisá Muriente (2023-2024 USLAF Latinx Artist Fellow), and Tina Tavera (2023-2024 USLAF Latinx Artist Fellow).

Established in 2021 with an initial five-year, combined commitment of $5 million from the Mellon Foundation and the Ford Foundation, the Fellowship is part of the Latinx Art Visibility Initiative, which is led by both foundations. USLAF administers the fellowship in collaboration with the New York Foundation for the Arts. 

“This year’s cohort includes artists whose work has been recognized by major awards and shown in museums and galleries including the Hammer Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, LACMA, and MoMA PS1, as well as those who are at pivotal moments in their careers,” noted Mary Thomas, Director of Programs of U.S. Latinx Art Forum. “The Latinx Artist Fellowship aims to support their potential for greater recognition while opening pathways for future institutional support and the development of important professional relationships.” 

With the visibility and support provided by the Fellowships, artists in previous cohorts have been invited to join residencies, participated in major museum and gallery exhibitions in the U.S. and abroad, including planned solo exhibitions and career retrospectives, and have had works acquired by museums. The unrestricted funding of $50,000 has allowed them to cover costs such as rent for climate-controlled studios and hiring studio assistants, production teams, and fabricators to help them realize long-envisioned, large-scale projects. 

“We celebrate these artists’ contributions to the art world and look forward to highlighting their practices for a national audience, in collaboration with our institutional partners, through a series of public programs throughout the year,” said Michelle Ruiz, Program Coordinator, U.S. Latinx Art Forum. ”As we continue to set the stage for future growth in the field, they serve as beacons of inspiration and encouragement for future generations of Latinx artists.”

The Latinx Artist Fellowship marks the largest of USLAF’s initiatives to provide direct support to artists, which also include micro-grant programs such as the Artist Mentorship Program, which launched in 2022, and the Charla Fund and Chispa, which provided pandemic relief funds to BIPOC artists. 

Founded in 2015, USLAF is the only national organization exclusively dedicated to Latinx visual art and art history.

About US Latinx Art Forum

Since 2015, the U.S. Latinx Art Forum (USLAF) has supported the creation of a more equitable art world by championing artists and arts professionals dedicated to Latinx art through research, studio practice, pedagogy, and writing. USLAF generates and supports initiatives that benefit an intergenerational network of over 900 members, and advances the vitality of Latinx art within academia, art institutions, and collections. USLAF’s current programs offer direct support to artists through the Latinx Artist Fellowship, an artist-led mentorship program, virtual public programs in partnership with museums, a digital publishing initiative that supports nuanced engagement with the ideas that animate Latinx visual artists’ practices, and in-person events centered around major exhibitions of Latinx art. Past initiatives have included data collection to track the growth of Latinx art history in academia, which in turn fueled advocacy efforts for greater representation of Latinx art; convenings with stakeholders to understand the urgent issues facing Latinx artists and cultural workers and the state of the field; and the Charla Fund and Chispa, micro-grant programs launched in response to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing threats to justice caused by systemic racism and xenophobia.

Press Contacts

Mary Thomas
mary@uslaf.org
Director of Programs
US Latinx Art Forum

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Ideas at Ford with Charles Blow will feature interviews with leaders sharing their bold visions for the future including sports icon Billie Jean King, Golden Globe Winning Actor Kevin Bacon, The Courage Fund, and more.

NEW YORK – Today the Ford Foundation announced the launch of Ideas at Ford with Charles Blow, a conversation series that will dive into some of today’s most pressing and complex social justice issues, aiming to unpack solutions that enlighten and inspire. Hosted at the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice in New York City, the series will feature dynamic conversations on topical issues connected to the Foundation’s central mission to fight inequality.  Speakers include industry experts, policymakers, social justice leaders, key commentators, and authors with bold visions for the future.  

“Charles Blow is an acclaimed author and journalist who has consistently used his platform to disrupt normative thought and expose readers to new points of view, offering bold new takes to approach a wide range of issues from inequality to culture and power dynamics,” said Ford Foundation president Darren Walker. “We are proud to partner with Charles as we kick off this new series, and I look forward to seeing what we can all learn from these brilliant leaders as they take the stage to share their ideas at Ford.”

“I’ve spent my career in journalism examining some of society’s most urgent challenges and exploring avenues for change,” said Charles Blow. “I’m thrilled to join the Ford Foundation, which has long supported the institutions, individuals, and ideas at the forefront of social justice, to launch this series and delve into vital issues affecting real people alongside some of today’s most visionary leaders. Together, we can remind people of the power of bold ideas, because all it takes is an idea to change the world.” 

The primary objective of “Ideas at Ford” is to foster a deeper understanding of complex issues, providing a platform for diverse voices to share their expert perspectives and encourage critical thinking for an informed discourse. 

Kicking off in New York City in June, the series will be taped in front of a live audience and focus on a range of topics, inviting leaders to take the stage to share their bold ideas for a better tomorrow. Upcoming conversations include:

• Equity in women’s sports with sports icon and champion of equality Billie Jean King and Owner of the NY Liberty, Brooklyn Nets, and Barclays Center Clara Wu Tsai
• Elevating voices in local communities with Golden Globe Winning actor, musician, and founder of SixDegrees.Org Kevin Bacon and agriculture pioneer and star of the documentary Common Ground Gabe Brown 
• Empowering women and girls to speak out against violence with The Courage Fund, an initiative spearheaded by bestselling author Ta-Nehisi Coates, and led by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Salamishah Tillet and artist Scheherazade Tillet of A Long Walk Home, along with activist Ted Bunch of A Call to Men

To learn more about the series, visit fordfoundation.org/ideasatford. 

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Bekink will lead the foundation’s China office and oversee its grantmaking, external relations and local operations based in Beijing

Beijing, China – The Ford Foundation announced today the appointment of Mattie Bekink as its new regional director for its office in China. 

Bekink succeeds Elizabeth Knup who served as regional director from 2013 to 2023 and supported the foundation’s work to ensure that China’s impact in the world is equitable and sustainable. 

Bekink is a respected leader with decades of expertise on Chinese law, geopolitics, and economics. She also brings a proven track record of social sector experience and leadership within foundations and mission-driven institutions. As regional director, she will oversee the foundation’s local team, external relations and administrative operations in China. She will also lead on program strategy development and implementation in the region, focusing on issues related to China’s global imprint and advancing critical fields such as philanthropy, impact investing, and social inclusion for all.

“I am delighted to welcome Mattie to the foundation and for her to carry forward our important work in this critical region of the world,” said Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation. “Mattie’s expertise in law and economics, and her skills as a communicator and strategic thinker, will position her as an invaluable leader in advancing a more just society where everyone can thrive.”

Immediately prior to joining the foundation in 2024, Mattie served with the Economist Intelligence Unit, the research and analysis arm of The Economist Group, as the China director for the Economist Intelligence Corporate Network. In that role, she leveraged the collective intelligence of The Economist Group to support business leaders, diplomats, and academic practitioners to better understand China. Previously, Mattie had her own consultancy in which she worked primarily with non-profit and academic clients on matters related to law, institutional strategy, and communications. 

Previous to this, she worked to promote mutual understanding and constructive engagement in U.S.-China relations, including as a consultant at New York University. For over a decade at NYU, Mattie supported the establishment of NYU Shanghai, and worked with the Law School’s US-Asia Law Institute and the Business School’s Center for Business and Human Rights. Mattie also worked with the Anne Frank House for three years on international education projects and programming, including bringing a traveling exhibition to Shanghai. While consulting, Mattie concurrently served for three years as executive director of the Fulbright Commission the Netherlands, making grants related to academic exchange in the spirit of fostering mutual understanding. She was also previously the deputy country director for the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative China Program and worked as an associate at Skadden, Arps, Meagher & Flom LLP.

“I am humbled and excited to join the Ford Foundation and to work toward our ongoing mission to address inequality in all its forms,” says Bekink. “As China’s influence and impact grows, I look forward to contributing to Ford’s legacy of promoting social justice and reducing inequality across the globe.”

Mattie has a bachelor of arts in international relations from Stanford University and a juris doctorate from the Georgetown University Law Center. She is also a graduate of the International School of Beijing. To learn more about the Ford Foundation’s work in China, please visit our website.

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Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice | 320 E 43rd Street, New York
On view June 5 – August 10, 2024
Opening Event June 5, 2024 | 5-7PM
Gallery Hours: Monday-Saturday | 11AM-6PM

New York, NY – The Ford Foundation Gallery is pleased to present Cantando Bajito: Incantations, the second movement of a year-long exhibition series that celebrates strategies for resistance in the wake of rising violence and incursions against bodily autonomy toward feminized bodies. Building on Testimonies, the first exhibition in this three-part arc—which centered forms of testimony used to resist violence faced by feminized bodies—the second chapter, Incantations, brings together artists who consider ancestral, contemporary, and future-facing networks of support and care that safeguard feminized bodies through forms of knowledge transmission. 

Such networks—symbolic systems, subversive spaces, or covert forms of language—are as varied as the communities that develop them. They include Nüshu, a form of script passed from mother to daughter in China; the use of henna as an agent of protection; and forms of therapeutic communication that have been deemed “gossip.” All have long existed, whether in the shadows or in plain sight. Preserved not in written history but in the body, these channels prepare feminized bodies for potential violence while giving them tools to resist it. This exhibition, curated by Roxana Fabius, Kobe Ko, and Beya Othmani, celebrates these protective channels through artworks by Amina Agueznay, Seba Calfuqueo, IV Chan, Tamar Ettun, Serene Hui, siren eun young jung, Mônica Ventura, and Osías Yanov, which engage with or conjure such feminized spaces for transmitting support. 

Incantations is a tribute to the practice of re-existence, a concept coined by feminist activists of the Global South who resist profound acts of violence in their everyday lives. As shown powerfully by the activist contributors to the book Feminicide and Global Accumulation, which explores frontline struggles against patriarchal and capitalist violences in the Global South, re-existence turns spaces of violence into places for building new solidarities, moving beyond resistance to imagine other possible ways of existing. 

Considering the forms such transformative possibilities may take, the “incantations” of the title reflect the subversive potential of the occult in fostering re-existence. Defined as the casting of spells through magical words, incantations have been associated with figures whose transgressive social positioning and non-conformity to gender roles have led them to be viewed as menacing. This exhibition considers how such figures and their voices, channeling protective meaning, can embody a practice of generative resistance across generations, brought forth powerfully among these artists’ works. 

The artists featured in Incantations address the many strategies used by feminized bodies to conceal and encode knowledge of resistance and survival. For example, in Amina Agueznay’s fiber-based piece Enfouissements (Acts of Burying) (2024), fragments of jewelry encoded with symbolic verses are buried within the fibers of a woven rug, itself a reinterpretation of a traditional Moroccan wedding veil with symbolic details that afford the bride protection. Carrying this coded language forward within it, the work evokes both the erasures of gender-based violence as well as forms of covert resistance. Similarly, in Serene Hui’s printmaking work Gossip and the video Scold (both 2022), passages from writers Theresa Hak Kyung Cha and Anne Carson are, respectively, encoded through a series of obscuring, protective translations into a secret scroll and used to challenge how feminine voices have been figured as irrational and unpleasant. Both work to reclaim narrative and linguistic control from patriarchal power. Relatedly, Mônica Ventura’s sculptural work O Sorriso de Acotirene (Acotirene’s Smile) (2018) revisits the story of Acotirene, a figure linked to Quilombo dos Palmares, who fought against enslavement in Brazil in the 17th century. The repeating but varied forms of gourds carry the power of fluid movement, connecting symbolically to ancestral feminine creative strength, while evoking the artist’s effort to bring continuity to her position as an artist and a Black woman within spaces often forbidden to racialized bodies. And Seba Calfuqueo’s video work MAPU KUFÜLL (Mariscos de tierra [hongos]) (MAPU KUFÜLL (LAND SEAFOOD [mushrooms])) (2020) reflects the Mapuche people’s traditional practice of foraging mushrooms, an important food for them during Chilean military campaigns into their territories (1861–1883) and today. Through a child using their grandmother’s teachings to gather, respect, and protect the mushrooms, the video reflects the role of mushrooms as a symbol of resistance for the Mapuche people and their relationship with nature.

Myth and folk traditions are revisited within these artworks, to subvert their patriarchal origins into transgressive patterns through which feminized bodies can find tools for resistance and strength. In Tamar Ettun’s sculptural work, Purple Placenta (2024), the artist revisits and subverts the figure of Lilit, a feminine spirit demon with origins in Sumerian, Akkadian, and Judaic mythology whose image was used in protective rites. Building on the longstanding role the figure has played in the artist’s life, Ettun conjures Lilit out from long-standing misogynistic associations with danger into a fluid, multiform being symbolizing the strength found in complexity, empathy, and vulnerability. And IV Chan‘s installation Ritual rehearsal : the Sacred and the Profane (2020) reinterprets the myth of the rebirth of Nezha, a protection deity in several Chinese traditional religions. In Chan’s piece, Nezha’s symbolic return of his own flesh and bones to his parents sees his body transfigured into lotus roots, pods, and flowers, a form of resistance and refusal releasing the body from family ties into a powerful, gender-fluid being. 

Incantations also looks at forms of collective protection through kinship, chosen ties, and other feminized communities, through the different spaces and forms in which these connections develop. For example, Osías Yanov’s installation Cuarto oscuro, tetera, cuarto oscuro, mi lugar, baño, síntoma del mundo (Dark room, kettle, dark room, my place, bathroom, symptom of the world) (2023) provides a view into an intimate encounter taking place in a nightclub bathroom. This moment shows how, when the right to assemble is denied, the stall becomes its own form of assembly space, drawing the viewer into this arena of concealed intimacy as witness, evoking the role nightlife plays as a site for social activism. siren eun young jung’s video Directing for Gender (2010) is a powerful example of the artist’s ongoing work on Yeoseong Gukgeuk (National Women’s Theater), active in mid-20th century South Korea, where theatrical creation, direction, performance, and production were entirely in the hands of women. This video, a restaging of a lost script with involvement of living Yeoseong Gukgeuk participants, reveals the enduring, subversive potential of collective creation outside of and against patriarchal patterns. And her artwork of digital prints Public yet Private Archive (A Part) (2015, 2024) assembles, with moving intimacy and immediacy, moments from the public and private lives and relationships of the performers. The selection of archival images and newspaper clippings unfolds insights from the artist’s research since 2008 and the space this community created for performance as a form of resistance.

About the Curators

Roxana Fabius is a Uruguayan curator and art administrator based in New York City. Between 2016 and 2022 she was Executive Director at A.I.R. Gallery, the first artist-run feminist cooperative space in the U.S. During her tenure at A.I.R. she organized programs and exhibitions with artists and thinkers such as Gordon Hall, Elizabeth Povinelli, Jack Halberstam, Che Gosset, Regina José Galindo, Lex Brown, Kazuko, Zarina, Mindy Seu, Naama Tzabar, and Howardena Pindell among many others. These exhibitions, programs and special commissions were made in collaboration with international institutions such as the Whitney Museum, Google Arts and Culture, The Feminist Institute, and Frieze Art Fair in New York and London. Fabius has served as an adjunct professor for the Curatorial Practices seminar at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, and Tel Aviv University. She has also taught at Parsons at The New School, City University of New York, Syracuse University, and Rutgers University. She is currently curating the 2024 exhibition series Cantando Bajito at the Ford Foundation Gallery.

Kobe Ko is an independent curator and artist, and formerly worked as Assistant Curator at Para Site,  Hong Kong (2021–2023) and Art Education and Gallery Coordinator at Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2019–2021). She has curated Everyday Life in Hong Kong and Fukuoka: The Study of Contemporary Arts and Kougengaku (art space tetra, Fukuoka, 2023), Post-Human Narratives series (Cattle Depot Artist Village and Hong Kong Museum of Medical Sciences, Hong Kong, 2020–2022), Kong Chun Hei’s solo exhibition PS (Para Site, Hong Kong, 2023), Florence Yuk-ki Lee’s solo exhibition Broken heart pieces disco ball (MOU PROJECTS, Hong Kong, 2023), and CHOW KAI CHIN Community Art Experimental Project (Kowloon City, Hong Kong, 2013 & 2014), among others.

Ko’s artworks depart from her intimate relationships and personal sensation and mainly focus on the re-imagination of distance and boundaries. She has participated in joint exhibition The Tailed Scar (Tiger A(r)m Strong Biennale, Hong Kong, 2023), duo exhibition Over the ocean, over the sea (Current Plans, Hong Kong, 2022) and more. She graduated from the Department of Creative Arts and Culture of the Hong Kong University of Education, and received an MA in Gender Studies from Shih Hsin University in Taiwan. She lives and works in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Beya Othmani is an art curator and researcher from Algeria and Tunisia, dividing her time between Tunis and New York. Currently, she is the C-MAP Africa Fellow at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York. Her recent curatorial projects include the Ljubljana 35th Graphic Arts Biennial and Publishing Practices #2 at Archive Berlin. Previously, she took part in the curatorial teams of various projects with sonsbeek20→24 (2020), the Forum Expanded of the Berlinale (2019), and the Dak’Art 13 Biennial (2018), among others, and was a curatorial assistant at the Berlin-based art space, SAVVY Contemporary. Some of her latest curatorial projects explored radical feminist publishing practices, post-colonial histories of print-making, and the construction of racial identities in art in colonial and post-colonial Africa.

About Cantando Bajito’s Series-Wide Curatorial Group

The three-part exhibition series Cantando Bajito is developed by curators Isis Awad, Roxana Fabius, Kobe Ko, Beya Othmani, Mindy Seu, and Susana Vargas Cervantes, with the advice of a larger curatorial group including María Carri, Maria Catarina Duncan, Zasha Colah, and Marie Hélène Pereira.

About The Ford Foundation Gallery

Opened in March 2019 at the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice in New York City, the Ford Foundation Gallery spotlights artwork that wrestles with difficult questions, calls out injustice, and points the way toward a fair and just future. The gallery functions as a responsive and adaptive space and one that serves the public in its openness to experimentation, contemplation, and conversation. Located near the United Nations, it draws visitors from around the world, addresses questions that cross borders, and speaks to the universal struggle for human dignity. 

The gallery is accessible to the public through the Ford Foundation building entrance on 43rd Street, east of Second Avenue.

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“Creativity and Civic Space” awards grants to 9 artists with a total budget of $1.25M

NEW YORK – The Ford Foundation announced today its latest grantmaking initiative, “Creativity and Civic Space,” which addresses the importance of protecting and expanding civic space across the globe. With a total commitment of $1.25M, the initiative awards grants, communications, and convening support to 9 artists and organizations from diverse backgrounds, all of whom are working tirelessly in their regions to create open spaces and dialogues about the issues that affect their communities most. 

Artists and organizations were selected for their unwavering dedication to holding public and private actors accountable and their ability to amplify powerful stories about the importance of an inclusive civil society. Each grantee partner is focused on a particular issue that threatens civic space in their part of the world, ranging from impunity for human rights violations to corruption and misinformation, discrimination against people with disabilities, and escalating polarization. 

“Cultural narratives profoundly influence our reality, shaping perceptions, values, and belief systems,” said Lane Harwell, Ford Foundation senior program officer for Creativity and Free Expression. “Through their creative endeavors, these artists are torchbearers of justice; they are forging connections, challenging norms, and inspiring collective action toward a more equitable civil society.”

“At a time when billions of people are excluded from the systems that shape their lives, uplifting narratives about the importance of protecting civic space is more vital than ever,” said Otto Saki, Ford Foundation program officer for Civic Engagement and Government International. “The ‘Creativity and Civic Space’ initiative harnesses the transformative power of art to build a more inclusive world where all voices are heard and valued.”

The selection process for this initiative prioritized traditionally underrepresented voices and artists working across disciplines. The intergenerational cohort is divided between emerging, mid-career, and established artists. They represent six regions in Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and North America. 

The grantees include:

Building on the Ford Foundation’s long-standing commitment to the belief that art shapes society’s understanding of the world, Creativity and Civic Space seeks to elevate the voices of artists who are working on the frontlines of social justice movements.

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Published in Chronicle of Philanthropy

By Darren Walker

I have long maintained that hope is the very oxygen of democracy. Yet today, inequality threatens to suffocate that hope.Despite a reckoning with anti-Black racism in 2020, hate crimes in the United States have increased year after year. Despite attempts to overhaul a broken health care system, zip code is still more determinative of health than genetic code. Despite a global pandemic that underscored just how essential so many workers are, labor protections are under attack as income inequality continues to rise. Despite promises from both parties to lower costs and improve daily life, one in six Americans struggles with food insecurity. In a nation where disparities are this stark, it’s no surprise that so many feel that the odds are stacked against them.

Read the full article

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Emerging leaders from around the world join network of leaders tackling global drivers of inequality

NEW YORK – The Ford Foundation announced today the 2024 cohort of the Ford Global Fellowship, a program which aims to connect and support the next generation of leaders from around the world who are advancing innovative solutions to end inequality. The 26 leaders announced today join an existing network of 72 fellows working across Africa, Asia, the Americas, and the Middle East.

Launched in 2020 with an investment of $50 million over 10 years, the foundation’s flagship fellowship program provides emerging leaders with the tools, networks, and solidarity they need to effectively advance social justice. The Ford Global Fellowship focuses on shared learning across issue areas, building and strengthening connections across borders, and developing a supportive, interconnected cohort from across a wide variety of sectors and regions. It aims to build a powerful network of 240 fellows over the course of the program and serve as a catalyst for the fellows to accelerate the impact of their work, individually and collectively. 

“We are thrilled to welcome these 26 inspiring individuals into the Ford Global Fellowship community,” said Hilary Pennington, executive vice president of programs for the Ford Foundation. “The Ford Global Fellowship is a hallmark of our commitment to invest in the ideas, individuals, and institutions creating lasting, systemic change. The newest Fellows are courageous leaders in their own right who are both imagining and actively building a more just future. Their lived experiences and insights will be a powerful addition to our global community.” 

Central to the Ford Global Fellows initiative is its “community of practice.” Based on principles of co-learning and co-design, the fellows not only learn from each other as peers but also invite the foundation’s grantmakers, grantees, and other networks of leaders from the broader social justice field to learn alongside them. Experiential, place-based learning trips and sessions are organized by fellows from the 11 regions in which Ford operates. The community works to shed light on their interdependent histories and shared challenges in service of creating space for innovation. Each new fellow receives a no-strings-attached $25,000 stipend, alongside individualized coaching, to help grow leadership skills and reach new audiences.

“The community of Ford Global Fellows have expanded each others’ worldviews, challenged their own and our thinking, and posed inquiries that have sharpened our approaches to creating a more just society and fairer systems,” said Adria Goodson, director of the Ford Global Fellowship. “These 26 new Fellows enter a dynamic learning community and will bring their own wisdom and perspectives, contributing to a more complete picture of the work that lies ahead. Together, Fellows will examine their thorniest questions about disrupting inequality and build towards insights, innovations, and actions that will shape a better future.”

The network of Ford Global Fellows represent a broad range of backgrounds, fields, and approaches to addressing inequality, with areas of focus that include promoting equal rights and opportunities for women and girls, securing rights for Indigenous and traditional communities, increasing political and economic power of people with disabilities, and more. Many are from directly impacted communities and emerged as leaders by drawing from their own lived experiences with the challenges of inequality.

The 2024 fellows cohort are:

To learn more about the Ford Global Fellows please visit: https://fordf.org/FordGlobalFellows.

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Published in NPQ

By Bess Rothenberg

Can philanthropy, an institution rooted in the accumulation of wealth, be an effective agent to meaningfully reduce inequality? For decades, while some in philanthropy have supported efforts to change policies and practices to improve people’s lives, philanthropic money has too often reinforced existing power structures, perpetuating inequality in the process.

The numbers illustrate the problem: philanthropy has grown to roughly $1.5 trillion in assets today, up from $330 billion at the turn of the millennium. According to a 1999 Harvard Business Review article, that level represented a 1,100 percent increase over the assets held by foundations only 20 years earlier. Yet during the same period that philanthropy enjoyed extraordinary growth, economic inequality climbed rapidly, negatively impacting the wellbeing of millions. Even in areas where there have been gains toward equality, such as LGBTQ+ rights, progress has been mixed at best.

What is going wrong?

Read the full article

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NEW YORK – The Ford Foundation announced today the election of George H. Walker, chairman and chief executive officer of Neuberger Berman, to its Board of Trustees. 

Walker brings decades of global management and investment experience to the foundation’s board, in addition to a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion within the workplace and across the financial services industry. Under his leadership, Neuberger Berman has been acknowledged as a leader on issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion and has advanced efforts on sustainable and impact investing, industry governance and engagement, and the use and impact of big data and artificial intelligence on the investment industry. 

Walker currently serves as chairman of the Investment Company Institute, which represents over 98% of all registered assets managed in the United States; vice chair of the Partnership for New York City; and on the boards of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and the Trinity School.

“I have long admired the Ford Foundation’s extraordinary work to empower individuals, institutions, and communities to make our planet more just and improve lives,” said George H. Walker. “I am honored to join them in their fight for others, especially those whose voices are too often silenced and unheard.”

“I’ve known George for over 20 years, and I’m delighted to welcome him to the board. He will bring many assets to the foundation— financial expertise, a commitment to mission investing, and a belief in diversity as a bedrock democratic value,” said Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation.

Prior to Neuberger Berman’s re-emergence as an independent firm in 2009, Walker was global head of the investment management division at its former corporate parent, Lehman Brothers. He previously spent 14 years at Goldman Sachs, where he was a partner and a member of the firm’s Partnership Committee. Walker additionally served on the Board of Trustees of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), a nonprofit community development financial institution created with seed funding from the Ford Foundation in 1979.

Francisco G. Cigarroa, Ford Foundation Board of Trustees chair, said, “It is an honor to welcome George H. Walker to the Ford Foundation Board of Trustees. I look forward to working alongside him and our existing board members to advance the foundation’s mission to reduce poverty and injustice, strengthen democratic values, promote international cooperation, and advance human achievement.”

Ford Foundation trustees are elected to the full board and serve six-year terms. Trustees set broad policies relating to grantmaking, geographic focus, investments, governance, and professional standards, and they oversee independent audits. The foundation’s trustees come from around the world and have extensive experience in the worlds of higher education, business and finance, technology, law, government, and the nonprofit sector.

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Published in Inside Philanthropy

By Darren Walker and david rogers

Every day, members of the Newark Community Street Team (NCST) walk the streets of Newark’s South Ward. They mentor students, ensure safe passage to and from schools, and listen to young people tell them about the loved ones they’ve lost to gun violence. They work in hospitals to support victims of violence and ride with EMS to respond to overdoses. They draw on their own experiences on the street or in prison to connect with the people who are where they’ve been — and to help them find a way out. And ultimately, they keep Newark safe.

Read the full article

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