Darren Walker

[Commentary] In February of 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson’s National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders issued the Kerner Report—which detailed an extensive and daunting list of inequalities and inequities that led to civil unrest in Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Newark. Among its findings, the commission highlighted how the lack of adequate representation among the people assigning, reporting, and editing media coverage might drive “the underlying problems of race relations.” 

The Ford Foundation’s Board of Trustees has authorized the allocation of up to $1 billion of our endowment, to be phased in over 10 years, for mission-related investments (MRIs). While this field is still emerging, we are making this commitment because we believe MRIs are the next great tool for social transformation, in philanthropy and beyond.If philanthropy’s last half-century was about optimizing the five percent, its next half-century will be about beginning to harness the 95 percent as well, carefully and creatively.