[Imc-finance] ford foundation

[k.skvorak]

kevin s from NYC here:

it seems that like a lot of large capitalist foundations,   (and 
Ford is among the biggest of the big)  there have been rumors of 
development grants linked to CIA and  other imperialist operations:

The Ford Foundation and the CIA:
http://www.rebelion.org/petras/english/ford010102.htm

(do a google on "ford foundation" and CIA  and you get  a lot of hit's)

all of the history that i saw with a quick look seems to be during 
the cold war era

At the same time the Ford foundation has historically been seen as 
one of the most liberal of all of the big capitalist foundations, 
giving money to all sorts of controversial operations including 
Pacifica radio back in the day...they even came under investigation 
at one point:

http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/magazines/2002/january/woosterr.html

and  right now there are lot's of right wing industry groups that 
hate the foundation  for it's support of environmental groups:
  http://www.undueinfluence.com/ford.htm
http://www.consumerfreedom.com/activistcash/donor_detail.cfm?DONOR_ID=103

it seems that the granting priorities of a foundation like this 
change with the times and the political perspectives of the officers 
of the fund,   (and Ford has several separate funds operating 
independently)and the CEO of the company.

Right now Ford is positioning itself to be a leading "green" auto 
maker...(at least that is the hype)....and in a  (very) relative way 
Ford is more progressive in this regard than any other US auto 
company.   And the current  ceo of Ford  is  (was) certainly seen as 
relatively enlightened  (by industrialist standards) by mainstream 
environmental groups.
http://www.cdfe.org/bill_ford2.htm

I don't know if this info is helpful to anyone or not.   In my 
opinion if the IMC networks decides not to take a grant from Ford, 
they ought to make the reasons for this specific and clear, and then 
make those reasons known to the grantmaker...  ie: some specific info 
about  recent grants that went to enemies of the people.

the ford foundation website has a lot of  info about recent grantees on it :
  http://www.fordfound.org/

and if someone wanted to research every grant that the ford 
foundation US gave out   (that is a LOT)  that info could be found at 
the foundation center that has the IRS filing of every foundation of 
going back quite a few years  (not all of this record is online, but 
on microfilm at the office)
http://fdncenter.org/