Grant Details

The Ford Foundation believes in the inherent dignity of all people. Yet around the world, billions of people are excluded from full participation in the political, economic, and cultural systems that shape their lives.

The Foundation views this fundamental inequality as the defining challenge of our time, one that limits the potential of all people, everywhere. Addressing inequality is at the center of everything they do.

The Foundation has identified five underlying drivers of inequality—common factors that, worldwide, contribute to inequality's many manifestations:

• Entrenched Cultural Narratives that undermine fairness, tolerance, and inclusion
• Failure to Invest in and Protect Vital Public Goods such as education and natural resources.
• Unfair Rules of the Economy that magnify unequal opportunities and outcomes
• Unequal Access to Government decision making and resources
• Persistent Prejudice and Discrimination against women, people with disabilities and racial, ethnic, and caste minorities

To address and respond to these drivers, the Ford Foundation works and make grants in nine interconnected areas that together, they believe, can help challenge inequality.

• Civic Engagement and Government: In the United States, the Foundation believes that meaningful civic engagement is an antidote to inequality, with rich potential to empower underrepresented and marginalized communities that have too often been silenced. Across the globe, the Foundation works to protect and help civic spaces thrive to ensure all people have the opportunity to raise their voices, influence decisions, and hold governments to account.
• Creativity and Free Expression: Across their work the Foundation prioritizes support to artist-driven projects and organizations that include deep and meaningful engagement with communities.
• Disability Rights: As part of Ford's work to challenge inequality and advance social justice, they are committed to promoting the rights and priorities of people with disabilities around the world. These ongoing efforts are tied to our broader commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and they are committed to learning every step of the way.
• Guided by the disability movement's mantra, Nothing about us without us,” we're working to confront ableism and expand participation and inclusion in both our grantmaking and our organizational practices.
• Future of Work(ers): Focused on ensuring that all workers, regardless of their status, have equal rights to labor protections, that social protections are guaranteed to all, and that workers shape the policies and economic systems that affect their lives.
• Gender, Racial, and Ethnic Justice: The Foundation is committed to shifting repressive power dynamics and strengthening the rights and influence of those most affected by violence, oppression and injustice across the globe.
• International Cooperation: Around the world, the foundation seeks to engage with critical stakeholders and partners in government, civil society, private sector and philanthropy to promote the idea of a global community with shared, concrete and cooperative problem-solving approaches and capabilities.
• Mission Investments: Through strategic grantmaking, broader coalition-building, and their own financial investing through program-related investment (PRI) and mission-related investment (MRI) funds, the foundation aims to grow and strengthen the practice of impact investing, as well as influence the broader capital markets so they deliver equitable and sustainable outcomes for all stakeholders.
• Natural Resources and Climate Change: The Foundation's goal is to foster agency among rural communities in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, Colombia, Peru, Brazil, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and Indonesia—helping them to secure land rights and have their say in the planning of projects. 
• Technology and Society: To ensure that technology develops to meet the needs of the public, the Foundation supports the growth of technically sophisticated, diverse organizations dedicated to advancing equitable and more inclusive digital spaces and systems.